Gears 5 is an excellent game. We reviewed it and gave it a 9.5/10. It is a technical accomplishment on the Xbox One X running at 4K 60 FPS and the modified version of the Unreal Engine that powers the game does a great job delivering some breathtaking visuals too. Digital Foundry is known for its controversial analysis videos where they run through the basic rendering techniques of a game and shame it for running a few frames under its cap. Their Gears 5 analysis video has not gone down as well as they hoped as many users are calling them out for being dishonest and delivering a “sponsored by Microsoft” approach.
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In all honesty, Digital Foundry has always been pro-Microsoft ever since they got in bed with the company around the Xbox One X announcement. This situation comes at no surprise as YouTuber “KingThrash Gaming” did a detailed breakdown of their analysis video basically calling them out on all the false statements. Sure, much of the video goes off about nonsense but it has sparked some anger in the community.
Digital Foundry seems to contradict much of its claims in the analysis video hiding away facts like the game running at checkerboard 4K, something they often slam the PS4 Pro about. The channel also left out most of the real-world interactions which often result in broken physics or just dead objects.
Take a look at the KingThrash video below (foul language included)
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/lkxdlS-c6eg”]
The YouTuber also calls them out about faking a statement about light scattering behind the character’s ear. Digital Foundry claims J.D has light backscattering behind his ear which is not the case and anyone with an untrained eye can see that too.
The overall theme of the video is a bit loud and has a load of foul language but the point he is trying to make is the favouritism DF seems to have for Microsoft. Features which they once attacked Sony about on the PS4 Pro, they now praise on Gears 5 and the breakdown video does a great job touching on this. A big one being the claim Gears 5 runs at “native 4K 60 FPS” on the Xbox One X which is not the case. Digital Foundry completely disregards this missing feature.
John Linneman, the person behind the analysis went off on a Twitter rant before deleting it. His frustration over the situation is quite clear. Still, if you are putting something out there for the world to see, expect criticism, which KingThrash has all the right to do.
Digital Foundry currently having a meltdown over a few people criticizing their work. The Gears 5 DF vid has over 200K views & almost 8K Likes & only 250 dislikes. That seems like a win- if differing opinions affects you that much, posting YT vids might not be best profession pic.twitter.com/GrGxmXU6qo
— THE RED DRAGON (@TWTHEREDDRAGON) September 10, 2019
But the video is not all incorrect and has some interesting information about Gears 5 and its rendering techniques. Does it make bold statements about the game that could be incorrect? Yes, it does, but in this industry money talks. While we appreciate the work the channel does, they are becoming more of a blight on the industry constantly fueling hardware wars which they “claim” they aren’t doing.
