You've previously cited the next-gen Xbox's SSD as a critical factor to enable the Dual Reality gameplay. However, it doesn't seem like there is an SSD requirement on PC. Will loading times on PC be much slower than on Xbox Series S or X?
It goes without saying that the arrival of new consoles allows us to work with greatly improved hardware, and this is undoubtedly the case with the Xbox Series X. At Bloober we take advantage of level-streaming tech to load all titles, so the inclusion of an SSD in the new Xbox has allowed us to take things to another level.
As we've been using level-streaming in our games for a long time, we have made every effort to ensure that the experience on a PC running the recommended specs is as close as possible to that on the new Microsoft console. For PC players, SSD is recommended but not required, so yes, loading times will be increased when using an HDD. That being said there's quite a bit of difference between console and PC architecture.
To get a little more technical, PC linear transfer from a standard HDD is 100MB/s on average, while the previous generation of consoles have just a third of this value. So when you couple that with the IO cache that a PC's operating system manages, you get loading times of only a few seconds longer than the average SSD. Sure, you'll see some texture pop-in here and there, but you'll still be able to enjoy The Medium from an HDD.
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