PS4 and Xbox One need to be “left behind very quickly” says Dirt 5 technical director

Speaking to Trusted Reviews in a recent interview, Dirt 5 technical director David Springate talked about the new racer and how the next generation of consoles will pan out compared to their predecessors. 

In regards to the PS4 and Xbox One, Springate said they will need to be “left behind very quickly” if developers hope to take full advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. 

“They will need to be left behind very quickly. The big difference here is the NVMe drives if you want to make a game that is going to stream in data like textures and models at the rate you want to be able to push PS5, Series X and S. You just cannot achieve that on [PS4 and Xbox One], it’s just not doable,” Springate explains.

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“In order to keep those platforms you’re going to have to limit stuff in your game design. All videogames are smoke and mirrors. We’re trying to give you the semblance of walking, or driving around large worlds. But you’re seeing the things you absolutely must see right now,” Springate tells me, making it clear that compromises will have to be made for multiplatform releases in the years to come. 

“What you can do is only pull in the base-level textures and models for really critical things, but it’s going to start getting really obvious. Even in age, the gap between Xbox One and even Series S is enormous. So those platforms will need to be left behind very quickly I would expect.” 

Related: Dirt 5 review

But there are hundreds of millions of consumers out there with the PS4 and Xbox One family of consoles, meaning we can’t leave them behind just yet, as Springate makes clear: “We can’t leave them behind yet, and that is going to mean that some experiences can’t be achieved in the way you want to push them on next generation consoles. I expect some games will leave them behind quicker than others, but some will straddle for a while.” 

Dirt 5 is one such experience, having released for PS5, PS4, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X earlier this month. It’s a great racer, having earned 4/5 in our review. While it looks tremendous on next-gen consoles, Springate stresses that “there’s a lot of power left in Series X and PS5” and all of the games we’ve seen are not “pushing the systems as far as they can go.” Knowing this, there are some exciting years ahead.