RiME Devs Explain The Difficulty Of Porting The Game To Switch

Maybe get in touch with Panic Button! next time, they impressively nailed down both "Doom" and "Rocket League" on Switch, no small feat.

Yeah, Panic Button has set the bar. Now everyone has to at least meet it.

I feel bad for the devs, its not like the game isnt a passion project... just one that chugs along slowly. It was already hard enough being released today with all the other huge games, but now I guarentee its going to bomb.

This game can't be more demanding than zelda. Never ever soo yeah! Make up a different excuse.

@Shiryu Yep, or technical wizards on limited hardware, Shin'en.

Please patch it and im in.

@Shiryu

I don't think Doom and Rocket League should go in the same sentence. Rocket League is so much simpler a game.

I’m sure it was hard, but that looks more like self justification than anything else.
If they can iron out all the problems with a patch (in the near future) I will definitely buy the game. If they don’t, I’ll just forget about it, which is a pity since it’s a game I was really looking forward to play.

I'm afraid I cancelled my preorder yesterday. I questioned if it was the right choice until saw a video review today and damn were those frame rate drops major.

If a patch is possible then I'd re-order instantly despite the annoyance that the version on the cart is an inferior build.

The fact that these issues are across all platforms suggests a serious issue with the core coding. Unfortunately this also means major changes would require significant time and money; equivalent to what Konami did for Zone of the Enders 2 HD.

Yeah, I was ready to buy it on release day but the review stopped me in my tracks. I feel bad for the devs, but at the end of the day, my gaming time is limited and needs to be filled with games I know will be pleasent experiences...and there are a LOT of those right now.

With the delays and now these reports of the game not performing up to par on the Switch, I've decided to cancel my Amazon pre-order. There's so many other games coming out on Switch, I'd rather spend my money on them. Plus I haven't even tackled Fire Emblem Warriors yet & that game has DLC I want to eventually get. Time to reallocate the funds to other Switch goodies!

@Folkloner Yessir, nobody could ever make a complex, extensive & demanding game on a limited device such as the Switch. No one. Not a one.

Well except for Nintendo (BotW, Xenoblade Chronicles 2) and Bethesda (Skyrim).

No one else, tho! (Wait who made Doom for Switch?)

@NintendoFan4Lyf I think I read somewhere it’s using Unreal 4. The problem is not the engine or the platform but the game itself. It has issues on all platforms.

@Dezzy Indeed, but play them both PC and the Switch version and you will understand that "Rocket League" despite what one might think is an intricate dance of constant shifting physics programming that will make any CPU dance to a beat.

I'd be interested in seeing a comparison between the game running from system storage vs it running from a memory card. I think it's a data streaming issue, so I expect running from system storage might smooth some parts out a bit.

@SLlGEACH_EIRE I'm in the same boat. I was really looking forward to it.

It looks like they could try and reduce the view distance and rework the textures to squeeze more performance out of it. The textures look simple, but it looks like they're wasting a lot of resources on them.

@SLlGEACH_EIRE Here we go again. Another copycat user with my username and avatar.

Extremely sad! Click on their username and you'll see what I mean.

@maruse
I've been hearing the same thing, mainly from PC users. I was turned off by this game over the initial controversy of them wanting to charge more for it on Nintendo switch without any additional incentive to do so.

Totally agree the game shouldn't be judged on Nintendo or triple A 3rd parties, but realistically there is a graphical standard that people expect that doesn't break the game or give them cluster headaches. If you can't reach this requirement, then you can't expect people to want to buy your game.

It lags during cutscenes

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Weird. It's such a normal comment to place with a troll account.

I was waiting for this release but now it seems I will go with the Xbox version after all.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Wait a minute... What if you're the imposter?! We're going to have to ask you both a question only the real Sliggy would know the answer to.

Even Namco Bandai had to cut AA in xenoverse2 to make the city run ok. And it still had slowdowns. They missed the boat on this anyway - very few will pay $40 for this right now. Just buy it on PS4.

@NickOfTime90 maybe that was the idea

@Biff_ARMStrong Frame rate goes hand in hand with gameplay, and there is nothing wrong with having a bare minimum standard that must be met.

I remember back when I had to play with an integrated graphics card on my old Inspiron laptop from 2011. I'd often aim to get at least about 24 fps from games like GTA4, Arma 3, or Assetto Corsa. Playing at pitifully low settings just to at least get the chance of playing these games really made me appreciate higher framerates when I became an adult with a disposable income. I'm not trying to say "Woe is me", but I do know what the worst of the worst performance can make a game play like. RiME is past my personal breaking point. I honestly don't mind infrequent dips into even the low 20s in 30fps games, but the stuttering in RiME is unacceptable. It's the first game in a while to remind me of playing all those PC games at atrocious framerates with horrible graphics options, and I never wanna go back to those days.

P.S. I beat Superhot at about 26fps, with stuttering, with the color white being overexposed to the point where in certain levels you couldn't see the geometry. RiME is somehow worse than THAT.

Nowhere do they say that they're going to fix anything. The response is basically "that's the best you're going to get".
No sale.

Every time I read one of these articles I expect the first comment to be from a Playtonic employee saying "See, we told you, it's not just us."

As a professional software developer, the game is clearly bloated and not well optimised. I'm sure they tried their best but it doesn't take a genius to noticed that others have managed to get much more out of the system (Doom, Splatoon 2, Zelda, Mario Odyssey, etc...). And this isn't just a Switch issue - RiME has performance issues across the board.

As an aside, does Unreal have problems on the Switch? This (at 7.5GB) and Snake Pass (I think close to 5GB) seem very bloated.

I think they just aren't that great at optimization. I played the PS4 version and there was still slowdown in areas. And this isn't that graphical impressive. I'm sorry, but if you can load the entirety of the map in Breath of the Wild, then there's no reason for SUCH poor performance here.

Probably should of cancelled the port then. Was it really worth taking a hit on your Switch reputation for a not so great port?

@Folkloner yes indeed. I had forgotten them. Fast RMX is outstanding.

"This is a considerable improvement from where the game was at earlier this year when we announced the first delay."
Cool. But don't care if it's a "considerable" improvement. Either get it right and release it, or delay it. I don't care if a piece of dog poop has been improved to being "just less smelly". We are not your friends cheering you on for your efforts and your hard work, we are customers. Get it right or don't release it.

Sounds like their experience of the game is different from that of all the reviewers, which makes it seem very possible that there could be a day-one update that will improve the performance... we know this is possible, as the same has been done for other games, yet they don't even mention the possibility of it.

I may still get the game once I feel it's worth getting. It can't be worst than Troll and I, a game I now enjoy despite it's flaws (which I got use to anyways).

Haha Zelda says hi oh and the city seems quite big in L.A. Noire too whilst Mario runs at double the framerate (more than double actually). Given that this has issues on the PS4 Pro and PC for crying out loud they might want to take a bit more responsibility and not just blame the hardware for their inadequate game engine. To come out with statements like this a week after Panic Button released Doom on the system is just a bit silly

Yeah, no, this is down to incompetence on the part of the developers. This looked nice, but, sadly, I won't be picking it up: they shouldn't have released the game in this state.

I had a pre-order but I cancelled last week after I heard bad things.

720p 30 fps, still lagged, Ouch....

@Biff_ARMStrong ...Have you seen the framerate drops that Rime has? It's not just people being picky. The framerate is below what could generally be considered acceptable.

"Rime runs at 30fps [...] throughout most of the game while docked" really means "30fps is the highest framerate Rime ever hits (and that isn't frequent)."

@JamesR I think the bigger sizes on Switch are due to devs putting uncompressed textures on Switch, to avoid a performance hit when de-compressing them on the fly.

I read some of the developer comments in the AMA, and honestly, it seems like they think this is good enough as it is. I was mildly interested in the game, but in this state there's no way I'll ever be buying it.

@Biff_ARMStrong
I’ll take them vs. graphics snobs any day. Framrate can make a game unplayable. Graphics simply make it look less appealing.

I watched Game Explain play this and it has bad drops, like 1-2 frames per second in large scenic areas.

I'm sure it was tough for them, but yeah there are more complex games on Switch that run better.

When sequences of scenes "drop" it does take you out of the game. Game's art looks great though. I will keep this on my list and buy it when there's a patch and there aren't so many other games coming out at the same time.

Too late, the damage is sadly done with all the reviews out in the wild.

Pity, looks like it could be a beautiful game. But it has its problems on all systems, pity Switch is the worst, I would have bought it

I too cancelled my pre-order after reading the review.
I was really looking forward to Rime and hope the guys can sort out performance issues.
I would re-order straight away.

@nab1 could be. I fear this gives the developers too much credit.

On a positive side, when we have a game really struggling it makes the games that run well all the more impressive.

I think you can see the real roots of this in the admission from the developers of another game, Hollow Knight.

When the original developers are sloppy or just coding "as they should" (and this is definitely the case here as RiME is known for technical issues on all consoles) then porting is much more difficult.

@alasdair91 I did see the gameplay. Looks fine, you can't even die in the game so who cares? I grew up during a time where games ran at a snails pace. I'm not a spoiled gamer.

"It's incredibly difficult to get these level segments small enough" maybe somebody should tell Bethesda not to bother with Skyrim

@nab1 would "hang yourself" also fit that narrative? lol

@SLIGEACH_EIRE I just don't know why and these are the stupid people that make the forums worse.

@Biff_ARMStrong I'm not a "spoiled gamer" either - I'll happily play something at 25-30fps in 720p. However, in 2017, if your modern game plays like a slideshow in parts and still costs $40, you've done something wrong.

And don't try and say it doesn't have massive frame drops because there are plenty of videos out there which prove it clearly does. And it's distracting. What is a shame, because the game looks lovely and I had it on pre-order.

Not buying it. I hope some of the developers read these comments. Framerate this slow is just not acceptable in this day and age and then there's the price..

@Biff_ARMStrong I play on the NES all the time and played many hours of Doom on the SNES. Now I enjoy Doom on my Switch which oddly seems to have brought back a bit of slowdown that we used to get and I kind of like it in a weird way.

Back on topic, for me at least the issue isn't necessarily the framerate but the excuses devs come up with. The levels are too big for example, when there are far bigger and better looking games on the system which don't have such problems. Back on the NES/SNES etc devs had so little to work with yet came up with great looking games that worked well all the time, yet today with infinitely more resources some just come up with excuses. Bear in mind this game was dropped by Sony for development issues and has problems on all formats. As I said I don't really care if it drops frames here and there, I still play Super ghouls and Ghosts in slow motion but I don't want to hear their ridiculous excuses either

@alasdair91 So what! You can't die and there are no game overs. If it was a bullet hell shooter or a twitch based run n gun like Cuphead... then I would understand.

The performance put me off for good on the Switch and since my PC won’t run it well, I’ll pass. The game is just poorly optimized for all consoles.

You did a poor job programming this game and simply aren’t up to the task. No excuses!

@Biff_ARMStrong very true,but I'd argue that pixel counters are even worse. I mean how do they have time to actually play games when they're only interested in counting pixels in 4k 🤔

They're blaming the console and not their own expertise, despite the fact that even bigger games such as BotW and Skyrim run near flawlessly on Switch, which is really telling where their thoughts lie. If this is the best that we're getting, then I would hate to see the problems that plagued the earlier versions. I'm concerned that there will be no patch in the foreseeable future.

@Biff_ARMStrong
That’s not a valid argument. I grew up playing those as well. Most NES games ran at a smooth frame rate around 30 (Edited) FPS which was fine for the time so long as there wasn’t input lag. Doom on the Saturn has a low frame rate (~10fps) but it was consistent for the most part. We’re talking about a game that drops from 30 FPS to 1-2 FPS in a heartbeat. It’s jarrong and looks like crap.
This is 2017, not 1994. 30fps shouldn’t be an issue if the game is optimized.

When a vastly more massive game like Breath of the Wild can run so smoothly, it makes this sound like a weak excuse.

Of course to be fair, Nintendo is full of digital wizards.

This is honestly sad, I was really wanting to pick this up, especially since the physical version came with a download code for the OST. I'm hoping they'll patch it up later but the odds of that happening....I don't know.....

It looks like the devs botched the entire core game as it does not run well anywhere...

"Rime runs at 30fps in 720p throughout most of the game while docked. This is a considerable improvement from where the game was at earlier this year when we announced the first delay."

WORST statement EVER

I'm generally not that bothered by frame rate, although with so many other games coming out now, I'll probably wait until this gets a price reduction...

@SLIGEACH_EIRE I think you're the biggest Negative Nancy on the site (you remind me of the SNL Debbie Downer sketches with your constant Wii U/Switch whining) but there is thinking you are annoying and there is wearing a lower part of your anatomy as a hat. That person crossed the line into the latter. You shouldn't have to deal with crap like that no matter how annoying you are.

@UboaNoticedYou

I guess that's how you troll a salty poster. Post normal boring things instead.

As a disclaimer - Sliggy's comments are usually the best ones in most threads IMO and it irks me that someone has a fake account.

@ieatdragonz How should we feel bad for the devs?

They charge the same as any other AAA game. At least here.

Sorry, but if you charge AAA prices for your game then I expect a AAA game!

They couldn't even get it to work properly on a high end PC!

So clearly, their inexperience puts them into Indie territory and then they should charge accordingly.

Rime is not a graphically demanding game and the Switch version is clearly butchered heavily visually compared to other platforms and it still runs crap. Not to mention at twice the data file size compared to other platforms? Ridiculous.

@Yorumi
My post should have said 30 FPS. NES games are interlaced so your can only get a max of 30fps but you are technically correct. The system is running at 60fps in the US.
Doom on the Saturn sucks but I was trying to point out that it had a consistent frame rate.

Pc version was garbage too so explain that

The more I look at the gameplay videos, I'm wondering if they were just refusing to take the steps required to improve the frame rate. Most games would remove assets or environment beyond a certain distance in order to free up system resources ans to keep a steady frame rate. In this game, they try to refrain from doing that as much as possible, and I think that is a big source of slowdown.

Heck, some properly implemented fog might have helped, and also made it seem more mysterious.

Now knowing the switch version is probably the most stripped down and awful port the switch has seen to date I can say that No, I definitely will not be picking up Rime, ever. Looked cool though, back near launch it was a game I though I would for sure get. Now its horrible port of a mediocre game that came out smack dab in the middle of Doom, L.A. Noire, and Skyrim. Who is actually going to buy this?

I don't think anyone has the right to speak down on these devs when most of us have not a clue what it means to develop a game like this for multiple platforms. It sounds challenging to say the least. Hopefully they are able to patch the game and improve it on Switch, and it's okay to be disappointed but some of your comments are petty!

I don't own a Switch yet, but I planned to avoid these games on other platforms in favour of Switch when I did get one.

This doesnt bode well... like others, I hope a patch will be concidered to tidy it up a little bit, as long as that isn't xxGB!!

If they path the game, I'll buy it but not in the current state.

I'll be grabbing Rime when it hits the bargain bin in a few weeks.

To me the disappointing thing is that the Devs don’t seem to think there’s much wrong with it ... or they’re lying. Either way it makes a patch unlikely. And at their price point, I’m doubly out

This game gave me a bad feeling from the beginning...seemed like they were having too hard a time. Unoptimized code is clearly straining the hardware, kinda like the Arkham Knight PC port a couple years back.

This reeks of yet another developer having issues with the Unreal Engine.

With all of the visually amazing games on the Switch, including indie titles, it really pains me to hear the blame being put on the system... that somehow this comparatively simple game/geometry is somehow too much. Seriously? DOOM just dropped and they're whining about how hard their geometry was to optimize for the system? Open worlds? Um... Breath of the Wild seems to work just fine...

It will be a while before I even consider a purchase from these developers. Admitting you weren't quite up to the task is a LOT more endearing than whining and pointing fingers. I'd support an honest studio that tried to make things right with patches and owned their missteps. The port teams didn't have the chops to make it happen on the PC or the Switch, so they punted and took shortcuts. Fine. But don't blame the system when others are creating stunning visuals and experiences that dwarf the scale of their game.

Like many others im sure, I cancelled my pre-order after seeing the issues about performance. It really isnt an acceptable excuse when you look at Zelda, Doom or Mario Odyssey which all deal with the switches hardware in unique ways. A game like this really shouldnt have any issues

I will probably pick this up at some point, but I'm overloaded with great games to play right now on my switch, so can afford to wait for a performance patch or price drop. Sub $15 and I'll bit. Maybe even at $20. But not more than that unless performance gets a big boost.

@Yorumi I don't think NES or SNES games ran at 50fsp or 60fsp. PAL and NTSC is 50 fields per second and 60 fields per second respectively (50hz or 60hz).

@Gerald And what does that mean? Do NES/SNES games run at 25 fps or 30 fps?

@Alexprime It is a bit unfair. Nintendo knows the ins and outs of the Switch, had a lot of time to get Breath of the Wild right and was initially developed in a less demanding hardware, the Wii U.

Nintendo cherry picks who they help in getting their games to be their best. I remember one developer talking about how they help him, on the Wii U, bring a 15% increase in performance in a single afternoon.Of course, it was a AAA game.

So the game is "too big".....nice try. Zelda had no issues doing it and it's 20x the size of Rime

@NinNin in PAL regions they were 25 frames per second, NTSC regions was 30 frames per second.
Also PAL had more lines on Screen than NTSC. I can't remember the exact number, I think NTSC is 480. This resulted in upper and lower black borders on PAL tv's.

Honestly, boo hoo. If they knew they were putting out a sub-par product, just cancel it. The financial loss is better than the loss in reputation.

So don't port it. You've damaged your brand by porting crap, at W higher price than every other version.

I was considering checking this out but unfortunately I won’t support bad ports on any system. This is a firm pass for me. Maybe they can fix it with a patch but that doesn’t sound likely and even if it could they shouldn’t have released it in this state.

I don't think it's entirely fair to compare Doom to RiME. Both are rather different games in different approaches. DOOM's gameplay is wonderful but the vastness isn't comparable. Zelda got it right — mind you, that's by Nintendo. It's too bad this didn't turn out well. I was looking forward to this game — it's definitely not on my "need it now" list

There are too many awesome games for me to play that I don’t have time for ones that have issues or just aren’t good.

My money definitely goes to Bethesda this month. I had expectations on Rime but ... what I saw in YouTube about this game is just unacceptable.

Tequila Works had too much Tequila when working on this game.
I think Tantalus did a goob job to get all this unoptimized code running.
It's a miracle this game even exists on any platform besides the PC.

@Biff_ARMStrong
Or maybe I just refuse to support this kind of practice by not giving them my money. I’m not going to make excuses for companies who know the switch can do better. Name-calling does nothing here.

With SOO many great games coming out in the particularly bloated holiday season, it's always a nightmare to obtain AND play every game I want with my loaded work schedule. I was super excited to play this game, but after seeing the performance... It's just gonna be a soft pass for now. If it's patched, maybe it can find a place on my shelf later. Unless the patch is soon though, it'll be much later.

COMPLETELY UNPLAYABLE on the Switch. DO NOT BUY until a major patch is released to address the abysmal frame rates and stuttering issues. So disappointing, had been looking forward to this game on the Switch for months. The developer released a statement acknowledging frame rate issues in TV mode but claimed the gameplay is fine in handheld mode. This is total BS. Even in handheld mode this is the worst performing Switch game I have seen, by a factor of 10. So bad that after attempting to play it for less than an hour I called Nintendo eShop support and demanded a refund.

Tequila Works, if you are listening, I will gladly re-purchase Rime once you release a patch that remedies the atrocious stuttering and makes the game playable in both TV and handheld mode. In the future, if you can't deliver a game to the Switch platform that performs acceptably in both modes, do us a favor and just don't bother.

They may have rushed it in order to cash in on December holidays...maybe, Unfortunately with achievements like Doom & L.A Noire & 2K18 anything they say might just sound like a poor excuse.

Optimization is a far more complex matter than anyone in this comments section seems to be making it out to be. I imagine this is far more than just "lazy code." I don't really know how much manpower went into this game, but considering it was an indie team on a limited budget working on a game with no guarantee of success, optimization on the level of something like Breath of the Wild was never on the table. I'd expect is has far more to do with poor world layout for optimization or something to do with LOD. I somewhat suspect the visually simplistic style of the game might be so they didn't have to create assets at various levels of detail while still getting just good enough performance to release the game on consoles (that is PS4 and XB1).
Their answer was absolutely proper, they explained the reason why the game runs as it does and explained the reasoning behind their decision. They didn't blame the console, and made no excuses. And as far as I'm concerned, releasing it, even in this poor state, was a better choice. There would have been just as many comments complaining and criticizing them if they had canceled the Switch version citing performance issues. Just as many claims of them being lazy devs would have been made. At the very least, as long as the consumer is informed in their decision to purchase the game, the consumer at least has the option to purchase the game.

Sorry, I have to disagree. Releasing Rime in this poor state was a horrible decision that is absolutely going tarnish the publisher's reputation. The only thing that would absolve them from blame here is if they had been 100% forthcoming with the game's blatant technical issues, which they weren't. Their statement said the game runs at 30fps in TV mode, and that they've had "no issues playing the game in handheld mode". Neither of these statements inform customers that the game has been released with massive frame rate drops and constant stuttering in BOTH modes, which it has. They've had to be called out on it via 3rd party reviews and reddit, and even then they didn't even come close to admitting the depth of the crippling performance issues that leave the game basically unplayable. They released a shoddy half-baked port, got called out on it, then lied about it not being nearly as bad as it actually is. This is going to haunt them.

They're basically trying to excuse away incompetence. No I'm not going to buy it on Switch and IF I still do buy the game it will be on GoG one a good 50% plus sale hit it. They wasted my time waiting on this hot mess, I can waste their profit margin on a fat sale as a thank you.

I don't buy their excuses at all. The game looks no better than BotW and that game was as open as it gets. Further, from what I have read and heard, the game doesn't run well on anything short of a monster PC that is way beyond even something like Xbone X. That says poor programming, not a fault with the system.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE

FYI. There's another troll (or perhaps the same troll) on the Skyrim review page. I just reported him/her. Do the same, so it gets a lot of flags. I know you have controversial things to say sometimes, but making fake accounts is about as low as you can go.

Maybe it can be improved with a update, but that would eat up even more memory-space.