The VP9 Codec and Game Issues

[Cahos Rahne Veloza]

I saw this game a few weeks ago, during the Autumn Steam Sale and was thoroughly interested in purchasing it.

However having been burnt by a few purchases with minor issues, both inherent and user-specific ones. I began a habit of researching first about a game I would like to purchase for issues I might encounter, before I commit.

So anyway, I've read about the game having Freezing/stuttering issues and/or videos not playing. And that the problem is ftom NOT HAVING the VP9 Video Codec installed.

Thankfully I do have VP9 installed via the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

I then tried the Free Demo to see if I might rncounter any issues or not. Sadly the Demo is only one encounter and doesn't include any tutorial bits nor any memu/invemtory accessing. So I really can't test if I might encounter any issues or not. But the introduction of the Ronin enemy does play as well as the clip of the director's meddling.

If I do purchase the game, for testing, can I get to the bits, the tutorial videos and inventory viewing, where the reported issues can be seen?

[Artificer Jan | Lead Designer]

Originally posted by Cahos Rahne Veloza:

If I do purchase the game, for testing, can I get to the bits, the tutorial videos and inventory viewing, where the reported issues can be seen?

Yes, you can access the inventory, shop and skill tree pretty much immediately after launching the game and you also get the first full-screen cutscene like 20-30 minutes into the game, well within the refund window, and then another one like one hour later.

But a disclaimer: From what I've seen, some players seem to experience the issues more and more often further into the campaign and we still don't know exactly what's up with that. It has been impossible for us to pinpoint the cause because we have never been able to reproduce any of these issues on our end and it seems to be relatively random if or when a crash is going to occur.

Also: I have also suggested to some players running into these issues to install the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack but that did not seem to help. We honestly still have no idea what the exact reasons are why some players experience codec-related crashes and freezes. There were signs that it may be related to some users applying some optimization tool that deletes "unnecessary" stuff from their system but we don't know for sure. Some players confirmed that they had applied a tool like that, others did not.

We do know that since we switched codecs soon after release, it only seems to be a tiny fraction of players actually still running into any issues with the videos. And they only seem to be related to preview clips of skills and items on the inventory screen anymore, not story cutscenes. So one ugly but effective workaround has been to rename or just delete those inventory clips from the game's sub folders. As I recall you will see white rectangles instead of clips on the inventory and skill screens, then, but the game is going 100% functional otherwise.

[Cahos Rahne Veloza]

Oh...

So even if I test out the early game and found no issues, something might still go awry further along?

That's a shame. I guess I'll just wait patiently until you Devs can iron this out before I commit. I Absolutely love your game's premise though :-)

[Artificer Jan | Lead Designer]

Originally posted by Cahos Rahne Veloza:

So even if I test out the early game and found no issues, something might still go awry further along?

I mean, the odds that anything's gonna happen are tiny as the issue does affect only a small fraction of players and in the worst case there's the workaround with deleting the preview videos from the inventory screen which aren't a big loss.

But yeah, sadly we can't guarantee at this time that the game is going to remain perfectly stable without any tinkering even if it works without any issues in the opening hour.

I do understand your concern and I will check with my colleagues if we could finally something about this issue.