Elden Ring current sits at an impressive score of 95 on metacritic, but across all platforms players complain about performance issues.
Launch Issues across the board
FromSoftware’s highly anticipated Elden Ring released to stellar reviews across the board earlier today, but if you check the its Steam store page you’ll find more of a mixed bag. The game has issues, non game breaking ones, but enough to make players cry out for refunds. Many players report issues with the framerate, stuttering, recognition of controllers and straight up crashes. After putting in about 10 hours, FromSoftware’s epic seems to buckle under its own ambition. Which makes us question, how did this get past both FromSoft’s testing and reviewers alike? YouTube channel ACG who received an early review copy by Bandai Namco confirms that the 1.01 reviewers got to play was far more stable. Our colleagues at Digital Foundry also confirm that this is an issue on all platforms.
Publishers Response
Bandai Namco has since released a statement and promises the following fixes in the near future:
- Regarding the problem of the mouse being too sensitive in the PC version
- We will be sending out a patch for this issue in the near future.
- Regarding the problem of Easy Anti-Cheat failing to launch when the Steam account name includes a multi-byte character (e.g., kanji).
- We are aware of the cause of this issue and will be providing a patch in the near future.
- Regarding the phenomenon of frame rate and other performance-related issues during gameplay
- We will be constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms.
- For the PC version, updating your graphics card drivers to the latest version may significantly improve performance.
- About the phenomenon of game data that does not save correctly in the PlayStation 5 version
- If the PS5 console is unexpectedly turned off while playing a game or in rest mode, saved data may not be saved correctly.
- We are aware of the cause of this issue and are working on a patch to correct it, but until the patch is released, please save your game manually by exiting the game regularly.
- Game data will be saved correctly if you quit the game by opening the system menu using the OPTION button and selecting “Quit Game,” then press the HOME button to return to the PS5 home screen and quit the game application once.
Please have Patience
FromSoftware is no stranger to sluggish releases either. The PC port of the original Dark Souls was notoriously troubled and was only playable thanks to community efforts. Equally troubled was Bloodborne’s 2015 release. Long loading times and odd stutters plagued the game for weeks until a proper fix came out. But because director Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team at FromSoftware are darlings of their community. They are will cut them some slack. But look on the discussions on around these issues paint a worrying picture. Even with Publisher and Developers both asking people to report issues; especially on the Steam discussions. Those complaints will often get dogpiled by a couple of bad actors.
So please have patience; you can try mitigating some of the stuttering on PC by lowering the Graphics settings and resolution. But it seems to be largely a Software issue, especially when playing the game for a longer time or loading several areas. Another way to mitigate it would be to simply restart the game every now and then.
We’ll of course keep you updated on the situation and all around Elden Ring here on ESTNN.