The Blood of Dawnwalker Will Get a 60 FPS Mode on Consoles at Launch

It looks like the backlash over The Blood of Dawnwalker’s console performance has changed something.

After initially revealing that the game would target around 30-40 FPS on consoles, developer Rebel Wolves has now confirmed that The Blood of Dawnwalker will have a Performance Mode targeting 60 FPS at launch. The mode will be available on PS5, PS5 Pro, and Xbox Series X through the game’s Day 1 launch patch.

The 60 FPS Mode Was Already Being Tested

This was not something the developer suddenly decided to add after seeing the reaction. According to Rebel Wolves, the Performance Mode was already in development, but the team was not confident enough in its results to promise a 60 FPS target when it first discussed the game’s console performance, so they did not want to include the information. This is understandable, as promising 60 FPS, but then not delivering, would have led to even more backlash most likely. At the time, Performance Mode was still being tested.

But after seeing how many players reacted to the original performance targets, the team apparently focused on finishing another round of testing. Those results ultimately gave Rebel Wolves enough confidence to officially confirm the 60 FPS mode now.

PS5, PS5 Pro and Xbox Series X Will Get 60 FPS

The Performance Mode will target 60 FPS on PS5, PS5 Pro and Xbox Series X. It will be available from day one through the launch patch, meaning console players will not have to wait for a later update to get access to the higher frame-rate option. You will just have to update the game before you first launch it on your console.

Keep in mind that, as always, Performance Mode comes with some trade-offs compared to Quality Mode, but these details have not been shared yet. We just have the FPS details for now:

• PlayStation 5 Pro:
  • Performance, targeting 60fps
  • Balanced, targeting 40fps
  • Quality, targeting 30fps
  • PlayStation 5 Pro also provides overall visual enhancements
• PlayStation 5:
  • Performance, targeting 60fps
  • Balanced, targeting 40fps
  • Quality, targeting 30fps
• Xbox Series X:
  • Performance, targeting 60fps
  • Balanced, targeting 40fps
  • Quality, targeting 30fps
• Xbox Series S:
  • Targeting 30fps

The Original Performance Targets Caused Backlash

The announcement comes after a pretty huge overreaction from players. When Rebel Wolves initially discussed console performance, players learned that The Blood of Dawnwalker was not targeting 60 FPS on consoles, including the PS5 Pro. That led to plenty of criticism online, with some players reportedly canceling their pre-orders over the performance targets.

If 60 FPS is important enough or not to cancel a game over is obviously going to depend on the individual player, but the reaction was clearly strong enough for Rebel Wolves to address it directly. We would like to point out that harassing developers in order to force them to change something is never a good solution. Most of the time, sending simple feedback without threatening creators is a much better approach than bullying and harassing. Now that this has been reminded, it is of course always nice to see developers not just dismiss the criticism, and work on the issue that was pointed out. The team went back to testing the existing Performance Mode and has now decided that they are ready to be included at launch, so everyone should be happy!

At least for now, it looks like the issue that caused so much trouble has been resolved. The Blood of Dawnwalker will have a 60 FPS Performance Mode on PS5, PS5 Pro, and Xbox Series X from launch. If players were a little bit more patient, they would have realised that the mode was already being tested, and Rebel Wolves simply was not ready to guarantee that they would meet the required target.

We will have to wait until launch to see exactly what the Performance Mode looks like in practice, but console players who were worried about being locked to 40 FPS now have a third option.

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