Is it really that hard to not make bad PC port? Stuttering on a 4090 is just... no.

Nioh 2 ran pretty fine and the graphics aren't exactly that far behind from this game (I'd argue it looks better mostly because of the art direction). I'm getting seriously sick of PC ports these day struggling hard on even the finest machines. Combined with the fact that getting a beefy GPU is harder than ever these days, developers should really put some efforts into optimizing their PC ports, rather than... god knows what led to this monstrosity of a port.

If you insist on buy this awful port in its current state, my recommendation is to forget about going beyond 60 FPS. Capping the game to run at 60 should alleviate the stuttering issues. Also, turn off RT reflections too, it's simply not worth it. Frame generation doesn't seem to help much with my setup, though play with the settings yourself to see if it improve things for you or not.

Other than that, I'm liking the gameplay so far. If only they spend at least some efforts into making the PC port not total trash.

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Addendum: It seems that the developers are working on a patch to fix the performance issues. That's a good, but I'm not sure whether I will be changing my review back to "recommended" even if the issues have been addressed. This "release a broken thing then maybe patch later" mentality I don't feel is particularly great for consumers, esp. when it is this broken, and that they had almost a full year to prepare for the PC launch. It seems that some reviewers already warned them about the bad optimization ahead of time, so it's quite unacceptable that this whole mess even happened.

Settings-wise, I tried knocking down the graphics to medium/high, the frame pacing issue is still noticable on 60fps 1440p, however to a lesser extent compared to ultra. Still, the point I'm trying to make here is that if even a beefy PC is having *any* problem running it smoothly, what about folks who use a lesser CPU/GPU? I don't mind the graphics fwiw, but there is a serious disproportion on what is being presented vs. what is being asked for here.

Anyhow, in the event that I do not change my rating, even when the performance issues are no longer a thing, this would serve as a permanent "please stop with the day 1 bad releases" note. I platinum'd this game on my friend's PS5, really liked it. It's a real shame that the PC version got released in this sorry state.

Breaks my heart to do this, but I just can't recommend the game in its current state. The optimization is as bad as everyone is saying. If you played Wo Long at launch and remember the optimization problems that plagued that title at launch, this is actually worse. It really is a bummer. Likely going to refund and wait for a patch.

UPDATE: I decided to give this another chance. After messing with settings, i am now getting a solid, smooth 60fps with no need for framegen or upscaling (though DLSS at this point helps it look better).

Certain settings have an ungodly, disproportionate impact on performance that i am sure must be some sort of bug. For reference, i am now running on mostly 'Standard' settings, with Anisotropic Filtering down to x2 or Off, and my problems seem to have vanished. Either that, or the game has been patched in the meantime. Sure, the game doesn't look as crisp as it maybe should (though DLSS Quality preset helps), but my previous complaints are no longer applicable.

Except to say that this isn't the first game that launches with poorly performing presets or bugged graphical options, and it's quite annoying to have to fiddle with things you would expect would run just fine normally.

As a result, i'm adjusting this review to a thumbs up. The game is fun. Go through the settings, give it a shot if you have problems.



OUTDATED:

If this game ran better, i would've not refunded it. There is no excuse for every single new release running like ass on launch and relying on framegen, which frankly makes the game feel rather goopy. I've a Ryzen 7 and a 3070ti. Yeah it's not top of the line anymore, but this isn't (and doesn't look like) the kind of game that shouldn't be running at a constant 60 with no framegen on release. I'll be waiting for a sale and some optimization.