HDR10+ GAMING is an extension of the HDR standard that the industry wants to promote to take advantage of it dynamic range technology to the gaming world. ‘The First Descendant’ will be the first game certified to this standard and we will have the opportunity to see it this week at Gamescom 2023.

HDR10+ GAMING was announced by Samsung at the end of 2021 and seems to be coming soon. While it remains to be seen whether the improvements will be as much as promised, the South Korean company’s management is talking about them “a milestone in improving the gaming experience with the evolution of technology”.

HDR10+ GAMING, marketing or great improvement?

HDR (translated as with high dynamic range from its English acronym) is a technology that aims to create digital images (still or moving) as close as possible to what the human eye would see in the real world. Although this seems like something new, since 1850 there have been known attempts at high dynamic range photography using different exposures, the only thing geniuses of the time could use given their enormous technical limitations.

Already in the 1930s and 1940s, using the same original idea, several layers of exposed film were improved to achieve a single final image that would reflect changes in light that are perceptible to the human eye. The era of computer graphics that began in the 1980s was before and after, while increased processing capacity of today’s computers has allowed them to develop their potential.

Today you will even see HDR ‘in the soup’. “Supported” in all types of products, whether those capable of recreating it, such as photo, video or mobile cameras, or those where the content is represented, screens, such as televisions or computer monitors.

As another variation on the standard, Samsung co-founded HDR10+ Technologies LLC in 2018 to provide an open and free dynamic metadata standard in the industry. The HDR10+ ecosystem has now grown to 155 partners and more than 7,000 certified devices, including TVs, monitors, projectors, smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes and more.

And in games?

There are already quite a few games that support HDR, with different levels and results, also depending on the monitor used. HDR10+ GAMING promises an optimized experience “which eliminates the hassle of adjusting many manual settings”. And it enables enhanced gameplay with near-instant responses thanks to low latency and variable refresh rate support. In addition, the standard provides developers with the tools to enable consistent and reliable HDR gaming experiences on all HDR10+ GAMING displays.

The First Descendant, a free-to-play third-person action RPG game that will support up to four players in co-op and will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, It will be the first where this technology will be deployed. We’ll see it this week from Samsung and Nexon (a game developer) at Gamescom 2023 in Cologne this week.

Of course, Samsung wants to promote its screens. HDR10+ GAMING is currently supported on Samsung Odyssey 7 and higher gaming PC monitors. It’s also available on your 2022 and 2023 smart TVs.