Remnant: From the Ashes released on next-gen consoles on May 13th, 2021. Game Rant interviewed Colin Bonstead, the Technical Director at Gunfire Games, which made titles like Darksiders 3, Chronos: Before the Ashes, and of course, Remnant: From the Ashes. Bonstead talked about the reasons behind the free next-gen port update and what this task entails for developers who cannot do the "full port" of a game, meaning the work has to be done with the previous generation of tools.
Despite the challenges of the process, now Remnant: From the Ashes' performance has increased significantly, with the game now running at full 60 fps on both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X/S. This also has some gameplay implications, with many players excited to finally enjoy Remnant fully on their new consoles. There's much more that Bonstead discussed with Game Rant, though, including future plans for Remnant and the benefit of SSD loading times. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
GR: How long did you spend on this update? What are the biggest changes you made?
We started working on an update to take advantage of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X not long after we shipped Remnant in 2019. Those changes ended up not being released, but we eventually rolled that work into the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S update. The biggest change has been adding 4K 60 fps support for the new consoles.
GR: Which bit of the game was improved the most, or improved in a way that you are very excited about?
The biggest improvement was definitely the ability to run the game at 60 fps on a console. In a game like Remnant that demands precise aiming and timing, the extra fluidity can mean the difference between getting an awesome drop or re-running the whole level. Also, the 4K support really shows off all the detail our art team packed into the diverse levels.
GR: Which challenges did you have to face when working on ports for both the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X? What makes them different, and how did this impact your work?
The main challenge was due to most of our team working from home due to the pandemic and having to juggle console development kits. We have a lot of knobs we can turn internally to adjust detail and framerate, the challenge is playing through the whole game with the new settings and making sure we’re hitting the framerate and maximum resolution we’re aiming for. That involves a lot of testing and iteration.
GR: While the update is focused on the graphic aspect, with the enhanced performance overall, does Remnant now also take advantage of other next-gen technology? Does it have, say, interactions with the DualSense controllers?
There are two ways to update a game for the new consoles. One is to stay on the previous generation consoles tools but use some new calls to detect when you’re running on the new consoles and have it unlock some of the extra CPU and GPU power and memory for you. The other is to do a full conversion to the new consoles' tools and get full access to all of the power, and new features like enhanced haptic feedback. While we would have loved to have done a full next-gen port, it just wasn’t feasible for us, so we weren’t able to take advantage of any of the next-gen only features.
GR: With the update to performance, does the game now load faster on next-gen consoles thanks to their improved systems? What else changed, performance-wise?
The new consoles have the advantage of fast SSD storage vs the previous generation’s slower mechanical hard drives. That in itself is a huge improvement for load times. To fully take advantage of the new consoles we would need to have all our data converted to the new hardware compression formats though, which would require full next-gen ports.
GR: What is the story behind the decision of working on this update? Was it something you had already planned to do, eventually, or was it a more recent call that you made?
As an owner of a PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, I was very interested in taking advantage of their increased power in our games. It took all of our resources to get the game running well on the base consoles though, so that wasn’t an option before launch. While we were working on post-launch DLC, I pushed for getting a performance mode (60 fps) and visuals mode (4K and increased detail/draw distances) added in. We put a good amount of work into that but unfortunately weren’t able to get it to the point where we were happy with the results in all cases. Once the option to unlock the extra power on the next-generation consoles was announced, we went back to our PS4 Pro/Xbox One X work and used it as the base of the next-generation version.
GR: With this free update ready, do you plan on making more DLCs that will reflect how performance has improved?
We don’t have any future DLC to announce. That said, our artists really went all out with the environments in the Subject 2923 DLC and pushed the last generation consoles to their limits. Those areas will really shine on each of the Xbox Series X and PS5.
GR: Do you have any other future plans for Remnant? What has it been like for you to witness gamers play Remnant thus far, and how do you expect that to change with the next-gen update?
We don’t have any future plans to announce for Remnant right now. The response to the next-gen update has been very positive overall, and it seems like people have really enjoyed the improved performance. There were a few issues with the PS5 not correctly switching to 4K and the PS4 Pro accidentally having v-sync turned off, and we will address those in an update soon.
GR: Is there anything else you want to add that I didn't touch upon with my questions?
As developers, we have been very happy with all the power provided by the new consoles, and are looking forward to fully taking advantage of it in our future games.
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Remnant: From the Ashes is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.