Avowed may only run at 60+ FPS on PC – Consoles target 30 FPS

Obsidian Entertainment is targeting 30 FPS on consoles for Avowed, their upcoming first-person RPG

On the Iron Lords podcast, Obsidian Entertainment’s Art Director, Matt Hansen, has stated that Avowed is “targeting 30 FPS” on consoles. Furthermore, it is stated that “you don’t necessarily need 60 frames” for first-person single-player games like Avowed. This sacrifice was made to give the game’s development team access to more hardware resources to “get a lot juicer with VFX and lighting”.

With this announcement, it seems clear that PC may be the only platform that will be able to play Avowed at 60 FPS or higher framerates at launch. However, examples like Redfall and Starfield reveal that 60 FPS performance modes for previously 30 FPS games are possible. Even so, both 60 FPS patches arrived long after launch. Beyond that, these patches landed after the release of optimisation updates on both PC and consoles.

We are now entering the middle of the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X/S console generation. That means that new games are making heavier use of current-generation console hardware. Targeting lower framerates allows developers to push for stronger visuals. This has downsides for a game’s input latency and responsiveness. Even so, strong visuals can be a huge selling point for games. This has been the case for decades.

As more console games target 30 FPS framerates, it may soon become harder for PC gamers to target high framerates without upgrading their systems. After all, PC gamers only achieve higher framerates than consoles by using more powerful hardware, or lower graphical settings. Will Avowed be hard to run at high framerates? We will see when the game releases in February 18th 2025.

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