Future Games That Show The True Power Of Xbox One X

The latest game in the Metro series of post-apocalyptic shooters, Exodus finds players searching through the ruins of an irradiated Russia. The wide vistas and hauntingly beautiful, abandoned towns featured in the trailer provide an excellent showcase for the horsepower of the Xbox One X. Take a look at the light poking through the clouds and reflected in the water. The monsters, too, look to be rendered in exquisite detail, down to the individual hairs on the creatures. The trailer also displays a number of particulate effects occurring at once, such as the leaves blowing through the town while a door splinters and shatters. Throw it all together, and Metro Exodus looks like a key title in the new console's lineup. No wonder it kicked off Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference.

Purveyor of brutal free-for-all combat and chicken dinners, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has become a sensation before it's even officially been released. Still technically in Early Access on Steam, it's already eclipsed juggernaut MOBA Dota 2 as the most simultaneously-played game in the service's history. The key to its success is pure, unbridled tension: an enemy might be around any corner, or across any open space, while a single well-placed shot can knock you out of the game altogether. No respawns in this game.

Its surprise reveal for the Xbox One X came during Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference, which also demonstrated the higher-resolution textures and graphics that gamers can expect in the final release of the game. Beyond that, the dev team has stated that they want to try to get the game running at 60 frames-per-second on the super-powerful console. That said, they've clarified that on launch day, the title will only run at a respectable 30FPS. Given the sheer amount of work going into the world's fastest-growing game, however, don't be surprised if that framerate gets bumped up at a later date. Either way, the Xbox One X has already shown what a better-looking chicken dinner can look like. It's a winner-winner situation for everyone.

Ori and the Blind Forest was a surprise when it released in 2015, an absolutely stunning ode to hand-drawn animation in the guise of a technically demanding 2D platformer. Aside from the pixel-perfect precision required of the player to progress through the dangerous environment, the art direction was filled with moody lighting, breathtaking backdrops, and lively animations. While 3D tends to get all of the attention from graphics afficionados, Ori proved that 2D still had life left in it.

So the sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, has a lot of momentum behind it. Based on the trailer, the addition of the Xbox One X's horsepower has allowed Will of the Wisps to gain a lot more lighting and particle effects, plus even smoother and richer animations than before. The overall effect looks like a fairy tale come to life, while still preserving the art style that made the original such a beautiful place to explore.

Code Vein wears its anime influences on its sleeve, from its character design right down to its over-the-top spell effects. And its those spells that really make Code Vein stand out: weaving slick animations, particle effects, and lighting wizardry together in rapid succession, the game embraces a "more is more" philosophy that dovetails with the hardware of the Xbox One X nicely. From the trailer, attack animations appear to be following suit, emphasizing raw visual spectacle wherever possible. While details are sparse, Bandai Namco has promised that the title will be enhanced for the Xbox One X specifically. Which probably translates as, "even more is even more."

The latest in the Far Cry series of open-world shooters takes players to a dangerous, exotic land: America. Specifically, a corner of Montana that's been taken over by a fanatic religious sect. And in a way, Far Cry 5 weaves together all of the elements mentioned in previous entries on this list: it has vast, sweeping vistas; it has a huge number of AI characters acting simultaneously; and it has been enhanced for the Xbox One X specifically, over and beyond even the PlayStation 4 Pro. Coming from Ubisoft, one of the most established open-world producers on the planet, that means a lot.

Given the draw distances involved across open plains, and the level of graphical fidelity on display, Far Cry 5 is exactly the kind of game that traditionally suffers from framerate stutters, or is forced to drop resolution. If the team can really hit its stride on Xbox One X development, then the game will be a true showcase of what raw power can provide: a seamless experience of gorgeous visuals and deeply involving crowd interactions. Which was always the future that Microsoft promised.