What you need to know
- Avowed is an upcoming role-playing game from Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios.
- Speaking with the Iron Lords Podcast, Obsidian Entertainment art director Matt Hansen indicated that the game would run at a "bare minimum" of 30 FPS on Xbox Series X|S consoles.
- Hansen added that targeting that framerate allowed Obsidian to go heavier on visual effects, though he added that the team wasn't done optimizing the game.
- Meanwhile, reports from players who went hands-on with Monster Hunter Wilds indicate that the game is running at 30 FPS on PlayStation 5.
A couple of big upcoming games may be running at 30 FPS on current gaming consoles.
Xbox Game Studios developer Obsidian Entertainment spoke with the Iron Lords Podcast about a range of topics for the upcoming role-playing game Avowed, from the nature of combat to insights into the development cycle. As part of the interview, when asked about console performance, Obsidian art director Matt Hansen said Xbox users could expect a "bare minimum" of 30 FPS.
"You know, it's a first-person single-player game, you don't necessarily need that 60 frames," Hansen said, adding that it allowed the team to push heavier visual effects like lighting. Hansen also noted that the team is still figuring out some things for performance.
Meanwhile, players physically attending Gamescom 2024 were able to go hands-on with Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds. While playing it on a PlayStation 5, multiple attendees like MH_Canta on Twitter (X) noted that the demo was 30 FPS. Games developed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X tend to get the same modes across both consoles, with exceptions primarily surrounding 120 FPS support.
More and more games are targeting 30 FPS
This continues a trend over the last year, with more and more games that launch only across current-generation systems being limited in framerate options, at least initially. For Xbox first-party titles, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, Starfield and Redfall all launched at only 30 FPS, though the latter two games were later updated to support 60 FPS, with Bethesda Game Studios going a step further with Starfield and providing 40 FPS and unlocked modes for anyone with a VRR-capable display.
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This trend has been present in third-party games as well, with titles like A Plague Tale: Requiem and Gotham Knights launching with only a 30 FPS mode, though the former was patched to support 60 FPS a few months after launch. More recently, Dragon's Dogma 2 from Capcom technically uses an unlocked framerate on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, but in practice the framerate usually hovered around 30 FPS at launch.
Both Avowed and Monster Hunter Wilds are slated to launch in 2025, so both games have months of additional polish to undergo. As such, it's certainly possible both games will have a dedicated performance mode when they arrive, or at least an unlocked framerate allowing console players to push beyond 30 FPS.
