Many of gaming’s most compelling stories come from those who’ve helped to create our favorite Xbox One games. In our Inside Xbox One X Enhanced series, these creators will share the behind-the-scenes accounts of the work involved in enhancing these epic games for Xbox One X, how they’ve helped chart the course of the world’s most powerful console, and what that means for the future of gaming. Today, we’ll be chatting with Ashen’s Character & Animation Lead Simon Dasan and Lead Designer Mike Vermeulen about enhancing Ashen for Xbox One X.

What specifically is your development team doing to enhance Ashen for Xbox One X

The A44 team aimed to create a deeply immersive world for players to get sucked into. The Xbox One X’s ability to render at 4k, allowed us to truly realize this vision for Ashen.

How do these enhancements impact the gaming experience?

Our stylized world is one where the 4k enhancement really draws you in and breathes an entirely new layer of fidelity onto the world. Developing Ashen for Xbox One X meant that we didn’t need to make any compromises to the original vision and really enhance the overall experience.

Why did your development team choose to focus on these enhancement areas?

At A44 we strive in every way to excel when it comes to quality. Getting access to the Xbox One X hardware allowed us to push forward on enhanced particle effects, view distances and of course, 4k.

How do you expect fans of Ashen will respond to seeing/playing it on Xbox One X with these enhancements?

We hope they’re as excited to play Ashen on Xbox One X as we were to develop for it. We have worked incredibly hard on every aspect of the game, so we can’t wait to see it in the hands of players everywhere.

How has the process been to get the game up and running on Xbox One X?

To put it simply; it was incredibly easy. We had the game running on the hardware the first week we received it, so we could see early on in development what the console is capable of. Because of this, we were able to start utilizing the power and potential very quickly to ensure players would experience Ashen at its best.

What enhancement were you most excited about to explore leveraging for Ashen on Xbox One X?

Definitely the ability to render in true 4k. It’s one of those ‘you need to see it to believe it’ things, and Ashen’s painterly art-style translates over to 4k in a stunning way.

What does 4K for your game, games in the future and development at your studio?

With the stylized nature of Ashen, we’re super excited to be able to double down on our ability to render beautiful art in true 4k. Whenever someone is playing the build on an Xbox One X, a crowd forms. We’ve already got ideas percolating for the future, so watch this space!