Italian development studio Milestone is very busy this month. Monster Energy Supercross recently released for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch (our review is coming soon - stay tuned for it), while the arcade off-road game Gravel is due on February 27th for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
With the game's launch date now on the horizon, we've managed to send a few technical questions to Marketing Manager Andrea Loiudice.
Gravel is listed on the official Xbox One X enhanced page. Can you share the technical specifications of the game running on Xbox One X (target frame rate, resolution, settings etc.)?
Gravel on Xbox One X will feature visual enhancements, which will include improvement of the quality of texture, the VFX, general improvements in the resolution and 4K. Frame rate will be 30fps.
For comparison, can you share the technical specifications of the game when running on PlayStation 4 Pro? What differences will there be between Gravel running on PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X?
Gravel on PlayStation 4 Pro will feature visual enhancements, including improvement of the quality of texture, the VFX, general improvements in the resolution and 4K, HDR support. Frame rate will be 30 fps.
There won't be meaningful differences between the game running on Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro.
Will there be High Dynamic Range (HDR) support on PC/PS4/XB1S and X?
HDR will be supported on PC and PS4/PS4 Pro.
Can you explain why HDR won't be available on Microsoft's console?
When the game's development started, the Unreal Engine 4 didn't support HDR on the platform yet. This is the reason behind the absence of HDR. Obviously, we're working so that our next titles will have HDR compatibility on this platform as well.
As developers, what do you think of the Xbox One X after being able to work on it for a while?
After working on Xbox One X we can say that there have definitely been effective improvements in quality and performance, Xbox One X is surely a very powerful and carefully engineered console. Developing on the Xbox One X is phenomenal, the kits and the tools provided by Microsoft are excellent and, for our developers, it feels like targeting a high-end PC without crazy hardware configurations and OS overhead.
Do you have any plans to add support for DirectX 12 and/or Vulkan APIs on PC for the game, or would that happen further ahead with future projects?
Not at the moment, but we are definitely working on it for next titles.
Monster Energy Supercross released on the Nintendo Switch while Gravel won't. Can you explain why?
The most important reason why Gravel doesn’t have a Switch version is due to the fact that the development of the game has started when the Nintendo console was not on the market.
In order to have Gravel on Switch, we would have needed to rethink the game and develop it for an additional console, and that was difficult to do considering the stage of development we were already at.
Thank you for your time.
