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A narrative adventure with light horror elements, Still Wakes the Deep, launched yesterday across all platforms including Game Pass for console and PC.
In our review, we praised the game for its incredible setting and great story so definitely give this one a go if games of this genre are your thing.
And while the critical reception is pretty good, there is a bit of controversy going around mainly due to the game's lack of upscaling technologies on the PC Game Pass version.
Basically, Still Wakes the Deep on Steam and Epic Games Store includes a full slate of upscaling technologies including Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR 3 and Intel XeSS but the Game Pass version does not include a single one of these.
The only upscaling tech available in Still Wakes the Deep's Xbox app version is the default Unreal Engine temporal super-resolution.
As expected, the developers got a lot of questions from fans who thought this was a bug or simply the case of the Xbox app version being behind the Steam and Epic Games Store.
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The developer Chinese Room responded by confirming that Still Wakes the Deep on PC Game Pass indeed does not feature DLSS, FSR 3 or XeSS. They explained that technical limitations prevented them from adding the tech to the Game Pass version on PC, which is basically the same as the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S version in terms of upscaling tech.
"We have some technical limitations due to the difference between how the Game Pass and Steam / Epic Store versions are built. Unfortunately, this means that other upscaling options aren't available in the Game Pass version. The PS5, Xbox X|S, and WinGDK (PC Game Pass) versions all have the same options," The Chinese Room said on Steam.
The Chinese Room elaborated that adding more upscaling options to Still Wakes the Deep on PC Game Pass would require a custom-coded solution, which is still possible but a bit harder to implement since they are a small team.
"While we added extra upscaling options to the Steam and Epic Store versions, adding them toWinGDK would require a custom-coded solution," they said. "We are a small team and we want to help as many people play on a wide range of hardware so we will let everyone know if it's possible for us to create an update to add this feature in the future."
This is not the first case of games on the PC Game Pass app having an inferior version to those on Steam and Epic Games Store.
The global hit Palworld was regularly behind with the updates on the Game Pass app while the isometric RPG The Ascent was broken on launch with missing DLSS and ray-tracing.
I'd say Microsoft really need to make the Game Pass app on PC more friendly to the game developers if they want to grow Game Pass subscribers on PC. And please Microsoft, get rid of the ridiculous launching of the Battle.net app every time I open the Game Pass app.
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