• Custom NVME SSD: The Series X SSD allows for 40 times the I/O throughput (essentially the amount of data transfer the console allows every second) of Xbox One, but has been designed not to drop in performance below a certain level. Essentially, developers can design their games without having to work around data transfer constraints (by, for instance, introducing the "loading tunnels" we've seen in open world games this generation).
• Hardware Accelerated Decompression: Series X uses both an industry standard LZ decompressor, and a proprietary algorithm designed specifically for decompressing game texture data (typically the largest portion of over all game size). The result should be that storage size and download times per game are reduced.
• DirectStorage API: This new addition to the DirectX family of APIs gives developers control over how they want to assign and prioritize I/O tasks in their game. According to Ronald, this should virtually eliminate loading times, and make fast travel systems actually fast.
• Sampler Feedback Streaming: Games regularly use different qualities of texture depending on how far you are from them (you'll often notice that and open world game's trees are low-quality from a distance, and high quality up close, for instance). No matter how much of those textures are shown, current-gen games will need to load the entire texture in the background. SFS allows textures to be loaded in portions, meaning the I/O load is reduced, and can be used elsewhere to create more detail-packed worlds.

• Custom NVME SSD: The Series X SSD allows for 40 times the I/O throughput (essentially the amount of data transfer the console allows every second) of Xbox One, but has been designed not to drop in performance below a certain level. Essentially, developers can design their games without having to work around data transfer constraints (by, for instance, introducing the "loading tunnels" we've seen in open world games this generation).
• Hardware Accelerated Decompression: Series X uses both an industry standard LZ decompressor, and a proprietary algorithm designed specifically for decompressing game texture data (typically the largest portion of over all game size). The result should be that storage size and download times per game are reduced.
• DirectStorage API: This new addition to the DirectX family of APIs gives developers control over how they want to assign and prioritize I/O tasks in their game. According to Ronald, this should virtually eliminate loading times, and make fast travel systems actually fast.
• Sampler Feedback Streaming: Games regularly use different qualities of texture depending on how far you are from them (you'll often notice that and open world game's trees are low-quality from a distance, and high quality up close, for instance). No matter how much of those textures are shown, current-gen games will need to load the entire texture in the background. SFS allows textures to be loaded in portions, meaning the I/O load is reduced, and can be used elsewhere to create more detail-packed worlds.

If a youthful obsession with Japanese samurai cinema and an audiobook version of Musashi have taught me anything, it's that if you want to be a great swordfighter, having a connection to nature is important. Skill with a weapon isn't purely driven by physical strength and technique, but also by the acuity that comes from observing trees, mountains, and rivers. Something like that.

While I can only make guesses as to how inspirational the rural areas of feudal Japan would have been, the scenic island portrayed in Ghost of Tsushima, an open-world 13th-century samurai epic, is one that often stirs something inside me. Beyond being a game centred around flashy sword fights and the journey of Jin Sakai to becoming a proto-ninja, Ghost of Tsushima invites you to lose yourself deeply in its grasslands, forests, and mountains. And though the tasks you're given often aren't as brilliant as the colour of the leaves, there's certainly something wonderfully humbling about just riding your horse through this beautiful environment and taking it all in.

If a youthful obsession with Japanese samurai cinema and an audiobook version of Musashi have taught me anything, it's that if you want to be a great swordfighter, having a connection to nature is important. Skill with a weapon isn't purely driven by physical strength and technique, but also by the acuity that comes from observing trees, mountains, and rivers. Something like that.

While I can only make guesses as to how inspirational the rural areas of feudal Japan would have been, the scenic island portrayed in Ghost of Tsushima, an open-world 13th-century samurai epic, is one that often stirs something inside me. Beyond being a game centred around flashy sword fights and the journey of Jin Sakai to becoming a proto-ninja, Ghost of Tsushima invites you to lose yourself deeply in its grasslands, forests, and mountains. And though the tasks you're given often aren't as brilliant as the colour of the leaves, there's certainly something wonderfully humbling about just riding your horse through this beautiful environment and taking it all in.