UPDATE 25/3/2022: We’ve now spent some time looking at the Xbox Series S version of Grand Theft Auto 5 and it’s the least impressive rendition of the new ‘remaster’. It’s absolutely fine to put out a Series S rendition that runs at a lower resolution than the Series X version – that’s exactly how titles were meant to scale down to the junior Xbox, after all – but the cutbacks and drawbacks are more pronounced to the point where it’s that much harder to justify this as a paid upgrade.
Similar to PS5 and Xbox Series X code, fidelity and performance modes are available targeting 30fps and 60fps respectively. The former sees a drop from Series X’s 4K resolution to 1440p, while the latter sees 1440p drop down to 1080p, the same resolution target as the PS4 and Xbox One S editions of the game. The performance RT option is missing though, meaning that ray traced sun shadows are not available. Ray tracing is also missing from the fidelity mode, again differentiating it from the Series X game.
Adding to the sense that Series S is short-changed is the situation with performance. With the drop in resolution and the removal of RT, we would have hoped for more stable performance from Series S – but in stress points it appears to be much the same as the Series X version. Meanwhile, in performance mode, Series S runs a lot slower than the X equivalent – also managing to run with a performance deficit against Series X’s performance RT mode.
In summary, while the 60fps option is still delivering a sizeable improvement over the Xbox One S version, and while many of the missions still play out just fine at 60fps, the point is that when we hit frame-rate issues on Series X, they seem to be amplified significantly on the lower end Xbox machine. Ultimately, while Series S delivers an ‘OK’ experience overall, the compromises to the experience and the reduced performance level make this version difficult to justify, especially when you’re paying the same price as a Series X owner.
Original Story: We’ve already taken a look at how the latest rendition of Grand Theft Auto 5 scales across to the new generation of console hardware – we’ve seen the core improvements up against last-gen hardware, and what’s been ported over from the existing PC version. The big remaining question hangs over the platform comparisons, and so, today we’re focused squarely on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X’s delivery of the enhanced game – with a detailed look at Xbox Series S coming later on.