Update: Game director and writer Hidetaka Suehiro, known as Swery, has commented on Deadly Premonition 2's frame rate situation in a live stream. Here's what he had to say, via a translator:
"There will not be a patch released in time for the release date, but Swery's going to take everyone's opinions and points into account, and he's going to fight with the producer to get something done at some point after the game's release".
You can catch his comments at the 52:40 mark of this video.
It would also appear that Jim Sterling's initial comment, saying that the Deadly Premonition 2 team has "no plans" to fix the game's frame rate, wasn't entirely accurate. He has now updated fans on social media with a full quote from the PR team:
"Currently we're looking into our options for a possible patch, but nothing is confirmed yet".
Original Article (Wed 8th Jul, 2020 16:15 BST): So, the Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise reviews are out today and - as we discussed in our very own write up about the game - the frame rate is truly abysmal. If you've read our review, you'll remember us talking about hitching animations, frame freezes, horrible pop-in, and plenty besides, and a similar experience appears to have been had by critics across the board.
The game still has its own unique charms despite the issues - or perhaps, because of them - but we imagine there'll be a fair few players picking up the game who are left immediately hoping for a patch to put things right. Sadly, it doesn't seem like that'll be the case.
After having a discussion with PR representatives working on the title, video game YouTuber Jim Sterling has reported that there are "no plans to fix" its performance issues. The news was shared in a YouTube video (which features mature language from the start). Fans of the series will be used to these technical problems - the first game had its own fair share of issues too - but newcomers appear to be in for a pretty nasty, and ever-present, shock.
Are you planning on buying Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise when it launches this Friday? Are you put off by the technical issues, or will be enjoying the game regardless? Let us know with a comment.
[source youtube.com, via nintendoeverything.com]
Comments (119)
Yeah, won’t be getting this now. Lazy developers.
That's fine, I have no plans on buying it then.
Pre order now cancelled , because of there laziness, could of made some effort to fix some problems but to say they don't care and can't be bothered leaves a bad tatse in my mouth,
I do find it sad that the guys who ported Outer Worlds are working on a patch to squeeze better performance on PS4/Xbox One port and these guys are not even up to polishing PS2/Wii caliber graphics.
A Deadly Premonition game and it's buggy, unoptimised mess? Well I could of told you that!
At least they're honest about it I guess. I'll be giving this a pass.
I love that the devs stuck themselves in the ground, and said that they had no plans to fix their work. Brilliant.
So this game has official PR representatives entitled to pass the info, but the news has to be reported via a YouTube video whose author allows himself mature language in a non-parody publicistic venue?
Come on, NL, I was under an impression that, with all the CGC announcements and all, today didn't quite qualify as a slow news day, so why not take the time and go straight to the available source instead of various jims and sterlings of the gamernet?
@Slowdive Tbh I'm glad to see some devs don't mind poking jokes at people on twitter without being scared of them being offended by it, makes a nice change in 2020
xD
@nhSnork CGC?
Well I’d they have no plans to patch, I have no plans to buy.
Yet, the original received a patch yesterday that...does...well we don't know because there never appears to be any way to read patch notes for Switch games!
If the first game ran well without any issues then would we even be blessed with this sequel? Yes the pun was intended. Without all the issues it wouldn't even be a sequel to the original. I will still be buying at some point as I enjoyed the original.
Ohh they don’t have plans to fix it??!
Pre order canceled.
Buy it when its 5€
Not for me sorry. I was tempted to give both games a go but a rubbish framerate doesn't add to the charm it just gives me a headache.
Perhaps this is abandonware then.
That practice suggests they might be targeting multiple platforms and aimed for the higher specs than those of the Switch, who knows.
You know you hit bottom when "zero optimization" is labeled as "Charm" in a $50 game.
With F12020, Paper Mario and Ghost of Tsushima out next 2 week - spending my money (or time) on this was never an option anyway.
They've been promoting this game a lot so I'm surprised that they're not even willing to fix it. At least attempt it! A performance vs graphics option has been great in other Switch games.
...meh whatever, I wasn't buying this anyway.
The first game because a cult classic for being bad in a huge amount of ways. Pretty sure they were almost lazy with the development of this on purpose.
@status-204 It's almost like games are more than just their technical performance or something.
@Doktor-Mandrake "Classic Game Collection", the early name for the Switch Online retro libraries. Not seen much in the official talk nowadays but still makes a handier abbreviation for my lazy butt than "NSO NES/SNES apps".😆
Fine, no sale then, suit yourself🤣🤣
Talk about self destruction...
Well I have no plans of supporting this hogwash.
The absolute tosh this developer is allowed to get away with is just staggering.
“No no, it’s supposed to be half-arsed trash; that’s the point. You’re just not clever enough to understand how brilliant it is.”
It’s rubbish.
It’s not charming, it’s an insult to every developer who struggle and work themselves to the bone and put their honour into creating their art that this gobbledygook gets this much leniency.
Too bad. Won’t ever be getting my money. This kind of crap really has me thinking very carefully about what games I preorder. I almost always will preorder games from Nintendo but I won’t ever do it for third party games unless there’s some sort of gameplay footage released beforehand and they show some pride in their product. Either way, loving the ports and support from all these developers and publishers but this is just wrong. Imagine in another industry if someone said this. Bought a new car that won’t work and the manufacturer says something like “we have no plans to fix it, sorry.”
That’s garbage.
I’d like to thank all the people who took the time to let everyone know what they will and won’t buy. We’d be lost without you. Please don’t stop after this. Continue to bore us with your buying habits. Did I say bore us I meant inform us. It’s very important. Thank you.
Thanks , one less game to worry about
Still going to get it, awful technical issues are just what you get with these games. I’d rather a rough diamond than a polished piece of sh*t.
@nessisonett
But they could at least try instead of just saying screw you we aren't even going to try that should not be rewarded . People would be up in arms if any other company did this
@Hagemaru
Let's hope so, but really looks like they just don't care
I need to start pressuring them to add a performance mode that runs at a locked 20 fps. I'm thinking maybe I won't play this one. It sounds like its way worse than the previous game. Bummer.
No thanks, I’m good.
@suikoden It’s Swery, I’m not sure what people were expecting him to say. He’s notoriously out there and IIRC, the mini direct showed he has another game he’s working on so perhaps he’s just focusing on that.
Watching the video... reminds me of Moto Racer 4 on the Switch. Like a racing game that often goes into single-digit framerate. A RACING GAME!!! It baffles me when games come out like that. Like, everyone in the development team think this is fine? No one voiced any concern? Or were those concerned voiced but ignored by the publisher? I don't know where in the chain all of these games go off-rail, but isn't a debate between 30 and 60fps. We're talking about games dropping regularly into single-digit fps. This is ridiculous.
Not buying this crap.
LOL this is a good example of someone at the top literally saying "Ah f*ck it."
@nessisonett
Seems the problems like more with toybox than him , as his working on his other game
Had some hopes for this game. After seeing this video... ouch.
@Tuulenpoika I had a spectrum 48k. I got excited when a game had a nice static loading screen. None of these complainers had any intention of buying the game anyway. I cancelled my preorder for this sequel when the first game had similar bugs. Sure you did !!!
That's okay. I won't buy it then, So I don't have to deal with it.
What a disaster. You would think that devs would have learned from the example of the Mona Lisa by now - however polished its graphics were, that thing could only ever run at a fixed framerate of 1, tops, and performance that bad tanked its sales down into the single digits, relegating it to being a laughingstock of history for its commercial failure.
I mean, that's just how art works, right?
@nhSnork Ah, thanks!
Still need to update my online sub at some point, it'll be cool seeing all the new games that were added when I return to my sub
As a Nintendo fan for years, performance is certainly not my first criteria when choosing which game to play next (compared to other systems I mean), but still, this is pretty awful.
It's a shame. The game had a lot of potential, but they won't see a penny from me unless it's fixed.
@Low No surprise for me as The Outer Worlds is pretty awful when it comes to its technical state
Reading this comment section make me feel like I'm in something surreal. It's fun even if it's confusing. I think this game and the marketing around it are a real piece of art, I'm not going to buy this one. The developers are really lazy, unprofessional and almost offending and so smart. They don't even care about what most potential buyers want from a videogame nowadays.
Honestly when I read the review about the framerate I was still going too buy it physically (maybe even had bought it today when I got home) as I was thinking that the devs may have improved the performance of the game in a patch.
But if they are not bother too that then why should I support them with my money.
Had the original since 2012 I think on ps3 have only played 5 minutes. Am going camping TIL Tuesday so I think I’m gonna play thru next week xx
It is getting to the point that any 3rd party game on Switch needs to be vetting just in case of running or looking terrible. There needs to be a standard, if your game can't at least run at 30 fps then it doesn't get published, I mean its 2020 and amazing games are available all around us.
For £40, this sounds terrible.
What a baaaaaaaad move. My lord...
I’m OK with a bit of mechanical and aesthetic jank, I can get the “charm” argument there sometimes, but frame rates this low just hurt my head to look at. None for me, thanks.
I'm always up for a charming, janky, old-fashioned game.
For a fiver, tops.
This was updated 2 hours ago on Jims Twitter.
Quote on the Deadly Premonition 2 framerate from PR: “Currently we're looking into our options for a possible patch, but nothing is confirmed yet. ”
Well until they do they are not getting my €50.
And in ten years we'll hear about how they would have loved to have made a third game but that the game was so niche that nobody bought it and the sequel was canned.
Wow the gameplay looks horrible and stiff.
@status-204 Yes exactly. How on earth could Nintendolife rate a game which has such technical issues a 7? That itself is a problem. Don’t think I can trust their review scores any longer
Luckily I am in no rush to get this, still need to play through the original. Hopefully they get it patched.
Sp, next article with this developer will be them crying about how their game did poorly, so they're not going to release any more on Switch?
Ok, so there are reportedly “no plans” for me to buy a broken game.
Everyone complaining about this game's problems only makes me want it more. The gaming landscape has become so exceedingly sterile and routine, I'm all for anything that challenges the concept of what makes video games "good." My hats off to the developers for sticking to their guns and delivering the surreal, dadaist experience they're aiming for.
@Doktor-Mandrake there's quite a roster already. An accumulative library you can't really miss is sure one of the sub's perks over PS+. I still regret not looking into and getting the latter until almost a year into my Vita ownership.
Deadly Premonition Origins just got updated to 1.0.4. It was apparently 300MB. Can’t find out why. The icon changed though that can’t be all it was.
The jankiness is part of the game but if something is truly game breaking I’m sure it will be fixed.
I would laugh out loud when people would get into their cars and drive straight through buildings in Origins. I found it funny rather than something that made me hate the game more.
Every game you need to blame the developers. Only Nintendo is willing to optimize their games. Just don't pay attention to that Zelda remake.
@suikoden just to clarify they didn’t say that. All they said was there’s no plans to fix it...
I’m there regardless, love Twin Peaks and love Deadly Premonition 😉😉
I'm still waiting my Zelda patch
@nessisonett 'I’d rather a rough diamond than a polished piece of sh*t.'
This. Best comment here.
Goodbye pre order 👋
@Darlinfan Good question! I had very mixed feelings about it initially, but over time and with a very beneficial rewatch I grew to appreciate it almost as much as I did the original series.
No, I'm not planning on buying it
I wasn't expecting a sequel to Deadly Premonition to be well made in the technical department.
@mario-64 i stopped trusting their reviews long ago. I always wait for digital foundry to give a verdict on if the ports are well optimized or not. I don't accept sub par games or ports on ps4 so I don't know why i should on the Switch
How many of these "pre-order cancelled" people played Deadly Premonition 1?
@SilentHunter382
So it looks like they have seen the negativity and done a 180, will wait too see if they patch if not will wait for it too go sub £20
@Orpheus79V and
That's not the problem the problem is that they don't even want to try to fix it.
It's a different time then when the first game out, a effort should be made to make some improvements!
Hell they have even just released a patch for the first which makes this make even less sense. People would be up in arms if any other company said they didnt know if they would patch a game.
Can't have double standards just because people like one company more than another or a older game with bugs shoud have a improved sequel
Also some of these people defending the game I have seen posts of them complaining about games with bugs and frame rate issues and not taking about triple A games but games from smaller studios, bet hey that's gamers and there double standards
Ah, yeah, watching the video...
Look, I'm not a performance snob, but that looks really, really bad.
I could buy dodgy animations, weird dubbing, etc. as adding to the game's charm. A constant, chugging framerate? No. That'll just make it painful to play.
If they're not going to patch this, then I'm never going to play it.
@PSoneboi agreed.
I’ll echo what others said by saying I now have no plans to buy. If they change their plans maybe I will.
I have to say, the framerate is pretty solid.
Pretty solid at 15fps in open areas, 20fps in rooms.
And I think this is the new trend for Nintendo Switch.
So far, there was well-known strategy to port PS4/XB1 games on Switch:
Convert a 1080p/60fps game into a 720p/30fps with low res textures. It worked very well with The Witcher 3, Doom, MK11, not so well with The Outer Worlds...but now, the new strategy to port PS5 and XBSX is here:
Get that PS5 game, set the game to run at 640p/15fps and there you go, your port is ready for the market. This game is just anticipating this future strategy.
I ain’t putting up with abysmal frame rate issues.
Started watching a stream of the first game and it looks like an indie fever dream. I think the jank actually may be intentional, especially considering the developers response. It's made to be divisive.
Technically inaccurate according to another report: https://twitter.com/patrickklepek/status/1280929713066774528
[A publicist for Deadly Premonition 2 tells me it’s “inaccurate” to say the game won’t receive a patch to address the game’s poor frame rate. They are “currently speaking with the developers” and “should have a better update soon.”]
Well, we could just wait for an emulated version in years to come & hope they can optimise. If it is indeed a design choice, it's a weird one. This kind of stuff will be talked about for years to come, so maybe that was their intention?
"Hitching animations, frame freezes, horrible pop-in, and plenty besides" and "no plans to fix it"? Are we talking about Deadly Premonition 2 or Sword & Shield?
That's not what Jim Sterling's tweet here suggests: https://mobile.twitter.com/JimSterling/status/1280886720939134979
If you ain't played the first one and respect the masterpiece that's was this game it aint for you this is for the fans that made it cult classic so cancel you pre order and go and pick up one of the 100 plus ports or play fortnite DP fan don't care and if you can't respect swerys vision that's on you.
How did it get a 7? It looks borderline unplayable outdoors, granted I've not played it but I wouldn't want to purely because of that lack of performance
@Agramonte F1 2020 is amazing, my team is a big improvement on the usual championship modes and I can't wait for Ghost of Tsushima, Mario will have to wait as I'm moving house but that looks very good
If people think the game ain't buggy by design u don't know swery
...Jim Sterling says a lot of things in his videos. And it's because of these things that I don't watch his videos... This is literally from Jim Sterling's twitter:
https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/1280886720939134979
Do you see how there is a quote there, whereas in his video he is just rambling incomprehensible garbage? There is a massive difference between what he has "quoted" in his twitter post, and what he "said" in his video.
“Blessing in disguise?”
Must be a pretty good disguise then 😂
If you want $50 for a low effort game put out a game without technical problems to this degree.
I'll get it after a big price drop. Coming from someone who is a huge fan of the first game.
Like many others, I will not support a group of half-assed lazy developers. I hope they go under. And they will with that attitude.
@carlos82 Alonso is back in 2021! I love F1 Drama 😂
Yeah, super excited for F1 (loved F1 2019) CodeMaster has done a great job for the F1 fans.
After TLOU2, I want something not stressful also. And Paper Mario is perfect.
I was actually leaving Ghost for next month. But after the last gameplay reveal, I broke down. Doing Black and White first run 😀
Have a good move. I hate moving.
@NintndoNik you do know that tweet was posted hours after his video was posted so thing can update. The PR team most likely did a 180 after seeing the negative response to the frame rate by people.
For all those losing their minds over this, the developer did not say there were no plans to fix the game. They actually said (according to Jim Sterling's own twitter post) that 'Currently we're looking into our options for a possible patch, but nothing is confirmed yet'. So Jim either mis-quoted them in his own video, or the developers changed their minds within hours.
@SilentHunter382 And yet the click bait article is still here - without an update.
Personally, I’m not a fan of these regurgitated news articles from other sites without fact-checking or quotes of their own. I can wait a few extra hours if it means reaching out directly to an actual person to get the full story. I would expect NintendoLife would have a fairly decent reputation with developers?
Way to go on posting something before having all the facts... and they say journalism is a dying medium....
That update is pretty laughable. Someone must have realised refusing to fix the game even before it launches is going to kill day 1 sales and so they've dangled the idea that they're looking at a patch.
Basically it's the typical PR-droid non-committal statement that actually means nothing but they're hoping people won't notice that and still buy the game on the promise of it being fixed.
Good thing some people are picking up the slack after TB passed away.
How's the FoV by the way?
Update: swery did a one hour livestream of deadly premonition 2
https://youtu.be/xkOA9ckPfSE
At 52:35 swery talks about the framerate and says that there won't be a patch at release but he will fight with the producer to get something done.
All journalism now is basically tabloid, yellow, gutter press click bait... anything for a screaming headline.
I'm guessing Jim's googled on sales & marketing and how not to kill your own product. I'd rather throw my money out of a moving train than give to that idiot.
@carlos82
Idiots that act like it’s part of the charm 🤦♂️
@korosanbo It probably depends on the size and health of the studio. If a studio is counting on revenue coming in at a certain point to keep things going, it must be really hard to say "nah, we can wait another couple months before earning any money". Obviously studios like Naughty Dog and CD Projeckt Red are going to be more stable and know they're making millions whenever the game drops, so there's more incentive to take time to get it exactly right on day 1. Just a guess - I'm sure there's tons of good reasons why different studios handle things differently.
A game that truly gets finer with age.
Too bad that it's been reviewed already.
It's also a third-party exclusive for a Nintendo console. You do the math.
"It would also appear that Jim Sterling's initial comment, saying that the Deadly Premonition 2 team has "no plans" to fix the game's frame rate, wasn't entirely accurate"
Who would have thunk.
Vote with your wallet. Don't buy it until it's patched. This game should not have been sold in this state, and we need to let them know.
One of the benefits of making a system-exclusive game is supposed to be the ability to optimize the game for it..
Yes, because they couldn't have fixed this before launch, clearly /s
I want the game, but I want to want another sequel after having played it as well... So I'll hold of at least until they made it better, and promise that in the next game, no dogs and squirrels will have to be beaten down by the dozens. I live among dogs and squirrels, and they are my main "source" of joy in life. And if I'm going to play as a certain character for a while in a virtual world, I do it to escape from this world, not to try how long I can go on before having to escape the virtual world to get back here. I want to like them and have my actions reflect to a certain degree what I'd do in an environment where there's no terrorist law, just personal responsibility for your actions and the consequences. Punching and shooting dogs and squirrels (or any animal that doesn't blatantly try to kill me) is NOT part of that (nor is shooting humans or any violence, but in most situations offered up in a good game, I wouldn't sit idly by either).
@status-204 Nintendo life is always doing stuff like that.
@yuwarite Yeah I plan to buy it only if they patch the frame rate issue.
@yuwarite That is what I am doing. I am not going too buy the game on a promise. When they release the patch that makes the framerate at an acceptable level then I will buy it.
Considering how unique I have heard this game is, I genuinely hope they will give us a patch so that I can feel more at ease with buying the game. Until then, I don't think I will be picking this one up.
What other industry routinely gets away with such atrocious quality control? (or rather the absence of it)
Absolutely pathetic.
And to think I was considering giving the first game a look.
Imagine getting filtered by the framerate. Hope it arrives next monday.
Apart from really bad optimization (seriously, this is last-gen levels of performance drops), I think it's also about the large amount of graphical effects being used, it's an open world game with high resolution targets, ambient occlusion, pre-calculated GI, volumetric fog, high bloom, dynamic trees, and so much more on Switch likely explain why it lags so much. Oh, and I just noticed there are some moments where the game begins to run at 45 - 60fps, that explains the unconsistent framerate.
And now I know why Borderlands 3 is so demanding too.
I hope they fix the framerate because this game looks really interesting, and by optimizing it primarly so they don't sacrifice the graphical effects which look really good on Switch and should be a a prime example of console-quality graphics on the platform (well apart from textures and aliasing...)
Tap here to load 119 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...