Bungie previously announced that it plans to have Destiny running at 1080p and 30 frames per second (fps) on the Xbox One when the game launches on September 9. That would match the output of the Playstation 4, but it was confirmed Wednesday that Xbox One owners won’t get a taste of that resolution during the upcoming beta.
During an IGN livestream of the Destiny , Bungie community manager David “DeeJ” Dague confirmed that the beta will not run at 1080p on the Xbox One. He did say that there is “still time for improvement,” however.
That improvement would come via the June Xbox One Software Development Kit (SDK) update that freed up approximately 10 percent of the console’s graphical power that was reserved for Kinect. Developers will have the option to utilize that power for what you see on screen instead.
After @xboxp3 interview I’ve been asking devs about impact of new Xbox sdk on perf. Bungie says it will get Destiny to 1080p/30fps on XB1.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) June 10, 2014
It’s likely that Bungie did not have time to implement that for Destiny Xbox One beta though with only barely a month before it was released. The developer will have to make the most of the remaining time of July and August to improve the resolution and get the game to run at a stable 30 fps.
A recently leaked gameplay video of the Destiny beta on the Xbox One showed that the game doesn’t look horrible on the console but there was a bit of lag at the end. That wasn’t uncommon to find in the PS4 alpha though and probably just indicative of the current beta state of the game.
Some of the other Destiny beta tidbits dropped by DeeJ during the livestream include news that players will have to discover the level cap themselves. Bungie is not announcing the max level that players will be able to reach but everyone will start out at the very beginning of the game and will be able to watch the full opening cinematic. The studio is also still deciding on whether to carry over progress made in the beta to the final release.
The Destiny beta will launch first on the PS4 and PS3 on July 17 followed by the Xbox One and Xbox 360 on July 23 after a bit of downtime on July 21 – 22. The even will end for all four consoles on Saturday, July 26 with an invitation from Bungie for everyone to join after 2 p.m. PDT to stress test the servers and receive a special reward.
The @DestinyTheGame Beta will be live tomorrow after 10am PT. Rest up, Guardians — see you in the Tower. pic.twitter.com/54qZQfaDqx
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) July 17, 2014
The beta dates plus some timed-exclusive DLC within DLC has left some Xbox fans unhappy with Activision’s business decisions.