Capcom is finally releasing the sequel to Dragon’s Dogma this March, with many already hailing the successor as a GOTY contender. However, all is not well in Vermund, as reviewers are reporting that Dragon’s Dogma II is suffering from major performance issues that are affecting the overall experience on consoles. Despite this, previews are favourable across the board, making the game an expected Game of The Year contender.
Capcom has been firing on all cylinders releasing two critically acclaimed games in the past year, with the Resident Evil 4 Remake and Street Fighter 6. Both games are sitting on 92 and 93 Metacritic respectively and have been a rousing success in sales too. Similar critical and financial success was expected with Dragon’s Dogma II as the game’s released trailers and gameplay videos have been loved by fans.
Dragon’s Dogma II Director Confirmed Uncapped FPS
Previously, Hideaki Itsuno who’s the director of Dragon’s Dogma II confirmed in an interview with Game Informer that the game will only have one mode on consoles and it will have uncapped FPS. This is a baffling choice with even a 30FPS cap not available to toggle on. This sparked some warnings online which seem to be correct as the game is suffering from major performance issues. Interestingly, the director also commented that developers worked to make the game work around 30FPS which begs the question of why they went for uncapped fps if the target was 30FPS and not higher. The game will not have any graphics or performance toggles which feels a bit restrictive considering that the AAA industry has recently moved towards giving the players different options to play their games on current-gen consoles.
Frame Pacing Issues Ruining the Experience
Developers should have gone for a 30fps cap since according to interviews the game was developed to run around 30fps ideally, which makes it seem like a no-brainer to optimize the game for a 30FPS cap. Aside from major FPS drops in the preview videos, the main issue is frame pacing. Frame pacing in layman’s terms is the time it takes in between displaying frames. If your game feels laggy/jittery/in slow motion but your fps are staying constant mostly then it is a frame pacing issue. Remember Bloodborne? Yes, everyone does including the never-ending demand for a 60fps patch. The main issue with Bloodborne is not the 30fps but the poor frame pacing of the game which affects the experience. This is why you will notice that games running at the same fps do not feel as smooth as the others due to different games suffering from frame pacing issues. VRR helps with this problem, however, you would need a VRR-supported display and your hardware optimised for 120hz VRR.
Digital Foundry’s John Linneman commented on this issue in a tweet saying;
“From the IGN preview, this is precisely what I was worried about and why I felt a 30 fps OPTIONAL cap should be included. The frame-rate is basically 30 fps but with poor frame pacing so it’ll look much worse. VRR can save the Xbox version, at least, but PS5 looks poor in motion.”
It is hoped that Capcom takes this feedback from fans and industry professionals and works to push an update for Dragon’s Dogma II performance woes, allowing players to opt for a 30FPS cap. It is also important to note that these issues are present in the previews but the game may be better optimised by launch, however, that will probably not be the case as the developers seem rigid on only having this mode available.
Stay tuned to ESportsNext as we will be covering Dragon’s Dogma II when it launched on March 22 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
You can grab a copy of Dragon’s Dogma II from this retailer;
Dragon’s Dogma II Standard Edition – PlayStation
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