by Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth finally arrives on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S this Wednesday (June 3rd), and to mark the occasion, the good folks over at Digital Foundry have been checking out how it performs on the consoles.
The verdict is simple - the 30FPS mode is "generally stable and commendable", but the 60FPS mode "has too many unaddressed drops and bugs". They say this is similar to the free FF7 Rebirth demo that's already on the Xbox Store.
First off, here's their brief statement about the 30FPS mode:
"Turning to the Xbox Series consoles, the 30fps graphics mode is generally stable and commendable on both Series X and S. The Series X achieves a consistent pin-sharp native 4K at 30fps, comparable to the base PS5."
The 60FPS mode, however, is shown to drop as low as the 40s in some situations, and it bizarrely seems like the Xbox Series S performs better than the X in terms of providing a higher frame rate. Digital Foundry says that there are "plenty of sustained drops under 60FPS that were present in the demo and remain unaddressed in the final build", while also mentioning that "VRR does not appear to engage correctly" and both consoles suffer from a "persistent 'camera judder' bug in their performance modes".
Here's a bit more about that judder bug and how the Series S sometimes outperforms the Series X:
"This issue, which has been seen in other Unreal Engine 4 titles, causes camera movement to update at uneven intervals, creating the perception of frame-rate drops even when the game is holding a stable 60fps.
Curiously, the Series S actually runs better than the Series X in key stress tests, as its reduced foliage density results in frame-rates that hit 58fps in areas where the Series X sits at 50fps. While both consoles can unlock their frame-rates by setting the system refresh to 120Hz, this is no real solution, as the 60fps performance mode still settles near the 60fps line and the camera judder persists."
Naturally, the suggestion here is to play at 30FPS if you're picking up Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth this week, and it's worth noting that the Switch 2 version actually does appear to have been significantly improved since the demo, with DF reporting that it's now running at a much more stable frame rate.
Wherever you want to buy it, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is available to pre-order right now ahead of its June 3rd release, retailing for £39.99 / $39.99 on the Xbox Store at launch. We'll leave you with Digital Foundry's Xbox conclusion below:
"Overall, while the 30fps modes on Xbox are solid, the 60fps alternative has too many unaddressed drops and bugs, making the Switch 2's improved (albeit imperfect) 30fps lock a far more impressive achievement given its constraints."