Here's Watch Dogs: Legion Running On Xbox Series X In 4K

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With the launch of the Xbox Series X/S just around the corner, fans are finally getting a look at the console's impressive specs on the recently released Watch Dogs: Legion. It's the first real chance to see how the Xbox Series X/S's ray tracing capabilities can catapult a game's look from great to glorious.

Announced at the Game Awards last December, the Xbox Series X is technically the most powerful console ever made, even ahead of its contemporary rival, the PlayStation 5. Its boosted specs mean it's capable of running at 4k resolution at up to 60 FPS, with ray tracing enabled. This alone is impressive considering the raw processing power required to effectively enable ray tracing without sacrificing frame rate or performance. Watch Dogs: Legion is Ubisoft's latest open world action-adventure title, released only last week for the Xbox One, but with an Xbox Series X/S incarnation dropping November 12. Watch Dogs: Legion players take up the role of operators working for the hacker group DedSec, set in a futuristic dystopian London; its trademark rain, fog, and puddles offer a prime opportunity to see the Xbox Series X in action.

Xbox Wire recently talked to Lathieeshe Thillainathan, Live Producer at Ubisoft Toronto, about plans to optimize Watch Dogs: Legion for the Xbox Series X. He expressed excitement about what the Xbox Series X has to offer in terms of offering players a seamless, fully immersive experience. As a follow-up, Ubisoft released a video capture of the Xbox Series X version of Watch Dogs: Legion in action, with the game running at full 4k with 30FPS and ray tracing enabled. The result is the “smooth, cinematic gameplay experience” Thillainathan promised to deliver, with bright neon signs, smooth reflective puddles and streets, and soft, hazy fog coupled with high quality textures and shadows. Character movement and framerate stay consistently silky and seamless, even at high speeds, as seen in the video below:
 

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The video shows a brief glimpse of Watch Dogs: Legion through the Xbox Series X's eyes, but the view is pretty spectacular. Although the Series X can go up to 120 FPS, it would cripple the system's ability to wield its ray tracing capability to such a grand effect, thanks to the technology's heavy processing demands. This means the best experience for the game with ray tracing enabled is locked at 30 FPS. However, considering that even at 30FPS the game still flows as smoothly as the Thames and looks gorgeous to boot, it's a pretty reasonable trade-off.

The video is a promise of great things to come as far as the Xbox Series X is concerned, especially since this is just the beginning of the console's run. The Xbox Series X/S is due to launch worldwide on November 10, and Watch Dogs: Legion will be a great eye-candy launch title for early adopters.