Roku City, the purple-tinted cityscape screensaver that debuted in 2018, might look a little sharper and more detailed the next time you see it scrolling by. This week, Roku is increasing the screensaver’s resolution to 1080p; it was still stuck at 720p until now — despite running on millions of 4K Roku TVs and 4K-capable streaming players. That’s blasphemous, if you ask me, so it’s nice to see some progress.
The surprisingly popular, fictional skyline is also being updated with an “expanded color palette” and more activity and Easter eggs that you’ll spot if looking closely. Apparently there’s a train station in there somewhere, so the denizens of Roku City have gained a mass transit system. Billboards “will now feature a new star button that allows viewers to learn about things like original Roku content, Roku Zones, and more.” (If I had to guess, the “more” at the end there is probably referring to ads and sponsored content.)
It took six years for us to reach full HD. So if this cadence stays on track, maybe we’ll all be experiencing Roku City in native 4K by 2030.
