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Xbox Series X Tests Out Night Mode

Credit: Unsplash

Easier gaming for those late-night binges.

I try not to make a habit of playing games too close to bedtime. All that extra light and stimulation won’t do my sleep cycle any favors. That said, I’m all too familiar with the siren song of late-night gaming, so if I have to play in the dead of night, I’d at least prefer my eyeballs don’t get cooked like eggs. I know for a fact I’m not the only one with this concern, and apparently, Microsoft is aware of this, which is why they’re currently testing out a new “Night Mode” on the Xbox Series X.

While some game consoles have the bare minimum of light dampening, such as dark themes or brightness sliders, The Series X’s Night Mode is striving to be the new standard in late night gaming customization. When you enable Night Mode in the console’s settings, you get an entire suite of options and sliders to customize the effect to your liking.

You can turn on dark themes and turn down the brightness, of course, but you can also filter out blue light from the display, turn off HDR, and even dim the lights on the console itself, such as the one on the power button. Speaking as someone who has been awoken more than once by blinding lights from my game consoles, that’s a deceptively useful feature. You can even set up Night Mode to activate automatically on a set schedule. The only option you don’t get from Night Mode is a reduction of volume, but like… turn down the volume on your TV. That one’s not really the Xbox’s job.

Night Mode is currently only available to users in the Xbox Alpha Skip-Ahead program, but once they work the kinks out, it should be available to all users in short order.

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