Capcom has announced that the next-gen version of Devil May Cry 5 won’t support ray tracing on Xbox Series S despite previous announcements to the contrary.
“While ray tracing will be available as a downloadable title update on Xbox Series X, Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition will not support ray tracing on Xbox Series S,” an official statement yesterday on the Devil May Cry Twitter account reads.
This contradicts a Capcom press release from September 16, which said the Xbox Series S would receive ray tracing through a similar title update as the Xbox Series X. Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition on PlayStation 5 will support the high-end lighting technique without a separate update.
We’ve known since the Xbox Series S was announced that it was a less powerful system than the Xbox Series X. In the initial reveal, Microsoft explained that Xbox Series S was meant to be a half-step—without actually using that word in the marketing, of course—between the Xbox One and Xbox Series X, with downgraded specs and a target resolution of 1440p rather than its big brother’s 4K benchmark.
That said, Microsoft also promised that the Xbox Series S was capable of ray tracing despite these differences. Somewhere along the way, Capcom decided it just wasn’t in the cards as they developed the two separate versions of Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition on Xbox.
Xbox head Phil Spencer recently told Kotaku that he expects Xbox Series S to eventually sell more than the Xbox Series X, but did acknowledge that Microsoft is asking more from developers, who will need to ensure their next-gen games work on both consoles.
“I think we have proof points, like we’ve said, on PC, that show that you can get absolutely amazing-looking games on great hardware and have those games scale to the hardware capability,” Spencer said. “But absolutely, it is work. There’s no doubt about that. The fact that you have two performance specs now, I’m not going to stand here or try to PR somebody and say two different specs is the same as having one spec. It’s not. We’re doing this because we want to expand the market.”