Obsidian has revealed that upcoming action RPG Avowed will target a 30fps frame rate on Xbox Series X|S, so if you’re a frame rate fanatic, you might want to pick this one up on PC.
This information comes via Obsidian’s Matt Hansen, who’s serving as art director on the RPG (thanks, IGN). In a recent podcast interview, Hansen told the hosts that Obsidian would target a “baseline” of 30fps, and he doesn’t draw any kind of distinction between the Series S and the Series X on that front.
Hansen says that 60fps isn’t necessary for a “first-person, single-player game”, and that dropping the frame rate target allows him and his studio to “get a lot juicier with VFX and lighting and all this other stuff”.
According to Hansen, the trade-off that sacrifices a higher frame rate for nicer graphics is one he and the team decided to make “relatively early”, and Obsidian is “really happy” with the call it’s made.
Despite the relatively low frame rate target, Hansen says that Avowed is “running pretty smooth” considering its visual density, and that the finer points of performance are still being worked out, as they’re “one of the last things” developers address.
As IGN points out, there’s a history of developers targeting 30fps on launch, only to introduce a 60fps performance mode later. Games like Redfall, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and Starfield all launched without 60fps modes, only to have performance-based options added in later.
There’s every chance Avowed will go through the same process, but for now, if you’re picking the game up on Xbox, you’re going to have to cope with a lower frame rate.
If you’re wondering what Avowed is, it’s an upcoming fantasy RPG from Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds developer Obsidian.
Set in the same world as the developer’s Pillars of Eternity, Avowed is a first-person action RPG akin to something like Skyrim, albeit hopefully with less bugs and jank on launch. It’s heading to PC and Xbox Series X|S on February 18th.
