Since its release, the Xbox Series S has been a real thorn in the side of developers trying to optimize their games for Xbox. This was said to be the reason for the delayed Xbox version of Black Myth: Wukong, CD Projekt Red admitted that it would struggle to get The Witcher 4 to 60fps on the console, and both Baldur's Gate 3 and Borderlands 4 had problems incorporating split-screen multiplayer.
Sure, it's the discounted Xbox that gets you into the ecosystem, but it causes problems for developers, and some have to delay the Xbox versions of their games to get them up and running on the Xbox Series S first. This has happened a few times already, and it's showing no signs of stopping either, as another developer recently announced that they're delaying their Xbox version mainly for the S series.
No Rest For The Wicked's Xbox version will launch at a later date
During State of PlayStation this month, it was announced that No Rest for the Wicked will be coming out of Early Access this October, and while PlayStation was only mentioned at the show, it will also launch on Steam. The Xbox is nowhere to be seen, however, and that's because the release date for the Xbox version of the game is still TBD.
Ori developer says next game may not come to Xbox at all due to 'market conditions'
Both of the studio's first two titles originally released on Xbox.
When fans asked why the Xbox version wouldn't launch in October, game director and studio co-founder Thomas Mahler revealed (thanks to VGC) that “Series S is so rough,” but promised that the studio would “ship it in a good way once it's optimized like crazy.” He then poked around a bit at the console, saying that “The S Series and mobile specs aren't too far apart at this point.”
It's not that surprising, especially since much bigger studios with more resources like Larian and Gearbox had to sacrifice just to get their games on the platform. It takes a little extra effort to make games run smoothly on the S series, and at some point you have to wonder if Xbox made a smart decision there or not.
