Today, Samsung announced a partnership with NEXON to make The First Descendant the first title compatible with the HDR10+ GAMING standard starting with the Open Beta scheduled for September 19th. Seokwoo Jason Yong, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics, said in a statement:
We’re thrilled to join forces with NEXON, a true pioneer in video games, to introduce the world’s first HDR10+ GAMING title, ‘The First Descendant. This is a gaming milestone that goes beyond mere technological advancement; it represents Samsung’s continued commitment to enhance the gaming experience as technology evolves.
Hyun Kim, Executive Vice President and Deputy Head of Business Development at NEXON, added:
By adopting HDR10+ GAMING, we are bringing the game to life in a way that was previously not possible. This partnership with Samsung is also raising the bar in HDR gaming, and we are excited to usher in this new standard of picture quality in video games.
The HDR10+ GAMING standard was first unveiled by Samsung in late 2021, before the 2022 debut of the first wave of displays with support for the technology. To date, it is available on Samsung monitors (Odyssey 7 series and above) and TV models (Q70 series and 120Hz above) from last year and this year.
Unlike basic HDR10 and similar to Dolby Vision, HDR10+ includes dynamic metadata, which means the brightness and contrast are automatically optimized scene by scene or frame by frame in a way bespoke for each display’s High Dynamic Range capabilities. Considering the sad state of affairs of HDR on PC, it would be great to see more developers adopting this feature.
NVIDIA already released an HDR10+ GAMING compatible driver last November, so GeForce owners are set. AMD and Intel still have to release a compatible driver. The new standard should also be compatible with consoles, but it is unclear whether The First Descendant will support it across all platforms.
Nexon’s third-person free-to-play looter shooter game looks to include all the most cutting-edge technologies. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 5, takes advantage of Lumen and Nanite, supports DLSS 2 and 3 on PC, and also takes advantage of DualSense’s Adaptive Triggers and Haptic Feedback on PlayStation 5.
The Open Beta for The First Descendant will last six days, during which players can check out the new prologue, 13 playable characters, and the brand-new character progression system.
