BRIGHT MEMORY: INFINITE

A one-man army takes on the next generation

Unsurprisingly, Xbox kicked off its first reveal of Xbox Series X with a game to showcase the console’s graphical grunt. Bright Memory: Infinite is an FPS that takes full advantage of Series X’s GPU and ray-tracing capabilities, all shimmering water, and dynamic weather effects, its gun-on-sword-on-ax duels running as sharply and smoothly as the framerate possibly allows. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is the work of a large, well-equipped team – even the game’s Infinite nomenclature suggests limitless size and scope. But this is an indie game, and the work of just a single developer.

FYQD Studio is 23-year-old Zeng Xiancheng, who began building the game in his spare time from his home in Liuzhou, China. Zeng launched the first episode of Bright Memory on Steam Early Access last year, netting 20,000 sales on the first day. The success allowed Zeng to quit his day job as a level designer for a Chinese studio, and shift development to a full-fat version of his project. And when Epic came calling with an Unreal Dev Grant, Zeng could hire voice actors, license music and employ production support, with the accessibility of Unreal Engine 4 key to his ability to build the bones of the game by himself.