Feffster

Not a fan of walking miles in games so I’m disappointed there’s no moon buggies, could have been a lot of fun. Submersible vehicles for underwater caverns would be cool too. And what about being able to tame local wildlife and hitch a ride on its back?…

Excited when I saw the patch yesterday - hoped it was 60fps.

So far I’ve only played as far as the fire station & gave up - 30fps made my head hurt.

Wish I was one of those who can’t see the difference but it is so obvious (in a bad way) for my poor old eyes. Especially after playing the likes of Far Cry 5&6, Crysis Trilogy Remastered and Halo Infinite.

But roll on the 60fps patch, I want to give this a proper go.

Mr Ryan sounds like he’s being a bit of a plonker, Rodney.

@sixrings - I don’t think you can - as soon as you launch the game it will try and update to the latest version

83.58GB patch/update 😳

Did I imagine it or was there also a Fallout 4 next-gen (current gen?!) upgrade announced earlier this year?

@Markatron84 - no worries at all buddy, it’s so easy to misconstrue the intended meaning of text or email. Just nice that we can discuss things Xbox related on here with (mostly) like-minded people. It’s a friendly bunch on here, we don’t always agree on everything but for the most part discussion and opinion is well and politely argued.

@BAMozzy @Markatron84 @RetroMan71 - lol, thanks guys - my comment was intended to be very much tongue-in-cheek, even I’m not that dumb to think the file should be 1,000x 200Gb for Starfield 😎

Defies all logic when you think about it - Microsoft Flight Sim is taking up c200GB (with updates) and it is only one world….Starfield apparently has over 1000 worlds 🤔

I feel sorry for those individuals (including those on here) who live in a world where they deny there is any difference between 30fps and 60fps. Respectfully, I suggest you book yourself a slot at Specsavers.

I’d much prefer 1440p 60fps (or even 1080p 60fps) on my Series X but I’m happy to try on Gamepass and really hope it is great game.

Blimey, that music is ####ing shocking.

I’m totally not cool with 30fps. I wish I could say it makes no difference (and I get the fact that some people don’t care or can’t see the difference) but for me 30fps makes my eyes hurt to the point of being unplayable.

Always happy when developers include a choice in the graphics options to favour performance or graphical fidelity to suit individual taste.

An amuse-bouche before Sunday's main course

Redfall fixed
Starfield running like butter and bug free
Release date for a silky smooth Forza confirmed
Hellblade 2 before Xmas
Xbox Live Arcade (360) version of Goldeneye as a shadow drop
Avowed, Perfect Dark and Fable confirmed for first half of 2024
Forza Horizon spin-off set for late 2024
Banjo Kazooie ip resurrected
New Halo single player campaign to release in 2025
Asobo acquired by M$
All of the above confirmed NOT to be a dream

For my money it is much improved with a 60fps option, but I get that some prefer to play at 30 with higher resolution, etc.

Excellent update and great to have these choices, well done Asobo.

Bought for 99p and reward points.

It is FPS boosted (to 60fps) on Series consoles.

Plays well, but be aware the resolution is pretty poor - sub 720P.

Haven’t played for a few weeks but usually yes. Forza Horizon 4 is better, but this is still a fantastic game.

I’m happy with any news however far off. I just hope they try and be honest about proposed time-lines. For projects that are miles off presumably they can narrow it down to an 18month-2 year window, for games well into development you’d hope they can narrow it down to a 12 month window and for games undergoing testing, optimising and bug squishing hopefully a 3-6 month window.

Just be honest, and don’t worry about delaying something if it isn’t up to scratch (mentioning no names…)

Good to have extra graphic options. Tried this last night, resolution appears to have been lowered in some areas but it still looks fabulous and for my preference I like the extra fps, even compared to 40 with vrr. I’ve disabled motion blur & chromatic aberration.

A couple of oddities - some characters animate at 30fps (much like the flags do in Assassins Creed Origins) and I had one major lock-up when the game froze for 4-5 seconds before correcting itself (but didn’t crash). I read there are fewer rats, but you’d still struggle to count them.

Good stuff.

@Markatron84 - Odyssey is a cracking game and Origins is excellent too. DLCs worth getting too if you like the main games. I bought the lot before they were added to GP, but don’t regret it. Valhalla hasn’t grabbed me from my initial look, …it’s still on the to-do list.

Excellent news, can’t wait to give this a try.

I’ve no sympathy for the moron that decided to launch an incomplete Redfall but every sympathy for Arcane and it’s staff who must have been pushed to release this before it was finished. I said in an earlier post that the negative feedback would hurt the staff at the studio and this proves the point.

Microsoft needs to get a better grip of its studios and value the talent it has at its disposal. Rushing out games that are half-baked just to fill a hole in its release schedule isn’t good enough.

Hopefully reaction and opinion will change as the game gets patched and (hopefully) becomes the game that the studio envisaged.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….someone wake me up when this is over.

Dishonoured for me, great game. Enjoyed Deathloop and just started Prey (impressed so far). Still waiting on a finished version of Redfall before downloading.

Hopefully the person who decided it was a good call to release Redfall is now looking for new employment. I still can’t get my head around why they think this is acceptable to release something that is half-cooked (on many levels, not just the frame rate). The game is getting hammered, pretty much everywhere you look.

Redfall was never going to appeal to everyone but it has turned into a complete embarrassment for Xbox. If they felt another delay would be unacceptable then as suggested above why didn’t they just release a beta version and delay until Halloween? That would have given Arcane another 5-6 months to iron out the problems.

You also have to ask what impact this will have on the studio. Arcane have made some brilliant games so how are the team going to feel when they read the reviews and feedback aimed at this? It’s going to be tough for the staff to shrug off the reviews and negative feedback- especially if the team wanted the project delayed so that it could be finished/polished to their usual standard.

@Tharsman - brilliant suggestion, M$ should put you in charge.

The whole 30/60fps debacle meant it was obvious this was being pushed out the door before being complete.

I haven't downloaded and will wait for the 60fps patch (which will hopefully address the bugs, dodgy AI, pop-in and other mentioned glitches). Maybe then we'll have a decent game.

@Kaloudz - ever since the Hotwheels FH5 expansion I’ve been saying they should do a Wipeout style expansion (or full game) so I’m totally in agreement a pod racer expansion would be great 👍

I’ve uninstalled the pre-download but will happily download and play the game when the performance patch arrives. Hope those that aren’t affected by 30fps enjoy a fantastic game next week.

Presumably this runs at 30fps and they’ll patch it at a later date?

I don’t have a PS5 so nothing to compare it to, but there are definitely performance issues on Series X. VRR and 120hz still fail to save the day.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the game more than I thought I would - it’s just a shame the game hasn’t been properly optimised for X/S especially as this is a first party game and the developers have had an extra year to get it ship-shape.

If anything it further illustrates the poor management/control Microsoft has over its studios.

Looking forward to Benedict Fox. Was also looking forward to Redfall but someone put a stake through its heart - will play when it is removed.

@Banjo- well said, and fingers crossed one day it sees the light of day on Xbox.

@Banjo- I wish they’d just released the XBLA version for us to enjoy, I’d love to give it a go. In fact I’d happily pay for it as well.

I tried this lacklustre version, but I just can’t get on with it. It’s so frustrating when you know there is something much, much better that will likely never get a proper release.

So far so-so for me but despite the average graphics, performance, story and gameplay I’m still interested to explore more - so there must be something in there to like and I’m interested to see how the character/skills/abilities develop.

No thank you. I like plenty of Ubisoft games but have already bought them or will wait until they are on sale.

Microsoft and Bethesda have turned this whole thing into a sh*t show. Of course they should have delayed the game (instead of yesterday’s announcement) but how can they now?….and if they do they will now face the wrath of everyone who can’t see the difference between 30 and 60 (or doesn’t care). What a mess.

If the 60fps patch was likely to be a ‘quick fix’ you’d have to assume they would simply have delayed a few weeks, so the smart money says it won’t be sorted in a hurry.

What a complete and utter embarrassment.

…checks date….but it’s not April 1st

WTF, absolute joke. What on earth is going on?! 30fps unplayable nowadays for me, especially in FPS, action or racing games.

I’m finding the controls less of an issue than I did with Atomic Heart, but…..again….performance is a real issue on Series X.

I really don’t understand how a first party game can be released in this state, especially one year after it came out on PS5. What’s been happening over the past year? Why hasn’t it been optimised and polished to within an inch of its life for the Xbox release?

@Hexamex-Tex - I was wondering if it was just me. What a mess, performance mode dropping frames all over the place on Series X. The other modes seem to be no better.

How can this be the state of the game a year after it was released on PS5? Did no one test it?!…

I’ve never used this but after the dismal version of Goldeneye that they chose to release I recently started looking at how to get the XBLA version to run on Series X. Sadly I never got around to giving it a go and it looks like that avenue is now closed off. Don’t get me wrong, I’d more than happily pay for a ‘legal’ release of that game, but I can’t see that ever happening.

Yep, Task#1 not tracking for me either…

@Stocksy - I’m glad it’s not just me mate! Series X has got me back into gaming and over the last 2 years there’s hardly been a week when I haven’t played FH4 and/or 5. I especially love the changing seasons in FH4 and the way the weather can change dramatically over the course of a single race. I haven’t ‘finished’ either, and doubt I’ll ever get there. Off topic, but GRID Legends is also worth a look if you are into your racers - cheesy storyline aside, there’s some fantastic racing when you ramp up the difficulty.

Good review. From some of the comments I can’t help think that we are completely spoilt these days - I remember spending umpteen hours marvelling at Sega Rally on Saturn and being amazed that those 3D visuals had made their way from the arcade into my living room. And 4 courses too! (if you unlocked the bonus course)

Nowadays people moan because this 20gig expansion can be ‘finished’ in a day - that’s over two dozen race routes that can be played in rally or race mode and numerous other challenges. All with variable weather, times of day and destructible scenery rendered in 4K at a rock solid 60fps.

I think it’s got to the point where users are almost ‘immune’ to what they are looking at, with ridiculously high expectations. I’m so glad I can still enjoy and appreciate where gaming has come to from those early days of a few dodgy pixels being loaded (sometime, but not always) from a dodgy tape recorder onto my Atari 400 😃

Can’t complain, cost me all of £3.49 and February’s reward points. Graphics are superb, much less pop-up/in than Mexico. Not keen on the new music or the navigator, but both can be muted.

Great getting the Hours of Darkness DLC for free, just finished the Far Cry 5 campaign this week so perfect timing.

I gave up about 5 hours in - erratic frame rate and every other time I went to play there was yet another huge update.

Did the patches finally fix the performance? (Series X) If they did then I could be tempted to try again.

@grumpypotato - many thanks.

Excellent. Small patch downloaded (less than half a gig) and everything looks instantly sharper. No need to muck about with fps boost options as this now runs at 60fps. Gen 9 aware so it runs fine from external storage. If only all patches downloaded this quickly and made instant improvements (I’m looking at you Atomic Heart!)

Question - article says this applies to the base game and all expansions. What does this include exactly?…the season pass includes 3 stories AND Far Cry 3 Classic Edition. Does FC3 classic also get an upgrade?

And does anyone know if the improvements also apply to Far Cry New Dawn?…

Good news but just hope they make it Gen9 Aware rather than a full Gen9 release - otherwise it’ll eat into that valuable X/S storage.

I used to love Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing back in the N64 days. Wish Rare would put something together for Series X/S - there must be plenty of characters they can include from Sea of Thieves, Banjo, etc.