Developer blames Xbox Series S ‘potato’ for Gotham Knights’ 30fps lockdown on consoles
Hot potato: We’re used to seeing games on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X offer frame rate-boosting performance modes, but not Gotham Knights. The hotly anticipated Rocksteady game will have one of the limitations we’ve often seen on previous generation consoles: the 30fps limit. According to the developer, the “potato” of the Xbox Series S is to blame.
Gotham Knights Executive Producer Fleur Marty recently confirmed via Discord that the game will be locked at 30fps at 4K on Xbox Series X/S and PS5. The title is missing a familiar performance mode that sacrifices some graphical fidelity/resolution for higher frame rates.
The company says the reason for this decision is the “types of features” found in Gotham Knights, such as a fully untethered co-op option in a highly detailed world, which means it’s not as simple as dropping resolution to increase fps. apparently.
This came as a surprise given that Warner Bros. previously canceled plans to release PS4/Xbox One versions of Gotham Knights in an effort to provide players with “the best possible gaming experience.”
Lee Devonald, senior character technical artist at Rocksteady, tweeted that the real culprit isn’t the game’s features; it’s the Xbox Series S. He says the cheaper Xbox Series isn’t much better than its last-generation predecessor. And because multi-platform games need to be optimized for the lowest scores, XBS, which Devonald calls “potatoes,” undercuts “a whole generation of games.”
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The senior developer says the Xbox Series S is holding back this generation of games and says it’s not much better than the last generation console. pic.twitter.com/evrnGqt9Zc
— RED DRAGON” (@TWTHEREDDRAGON) October 15, 2022
Unsurprisingly, Devonald’s tweets generated a strong response. He eventually deleted them and has now deleted his entire Twitter account, though he’s not the first developer to complain about console compromises.
It may lack power, but last November the Xbox Series S was Microsoft’s best-selling console in some key markets. The company recently released updates to improve load times and give developers access to more memory, which can improve graphics performance in memory-constrained environments. But that didn’t seem to be enough to run Gotham Knights at 60fps.
PC owners certainly won’t be locked into 30fps. The Gotham Knights Steam page notes that it can hit 60fps at low settings at 1080p using a GTX 1660 Ti/Radeon RX 590 and a Core i5-9600K/Ryzen 5 3600.
