Assassin's Creed Unity launched today, but prospective buyers may want to hold off until Ubisoft patches the game to fix what players are calling "crazy low" frame rates, along with problems like bugs and texture pop-in.
A video captured from the PS4 version of Assasin's Creed Unity by ZeroX03 Gaming, which you can see above, exhibits severe stuttering during an act as simple as clambering along a wall inside a church — not anything nearly as complicated to render as the hundreds of characters in the game's Parisian crowd scenes. According to Reddit user Merkwerk, the game's frame rate on PS4 is "not even close to a locked 30 fps, it feels like it's running at 20 something most of the time." The individual added, "I've had it drop way below that a couple of times already."
The performance problems aren't limited to PS4. According to unvirable on Reddit, the Xbox One version is "really running sub 30fps, which makes it unplayable." And prominent YouTube commentator TotalBiscuit reports that the Windows PC version suffers from a host of issues such as "killer [pop-in]," lighting that is "glitchy as hell" and in general, a "MASS of bugs." In addition, TotalBiscuit and other PC players in the Steam forums are reporting that the game seems to be poorly optimized, with players needing a pretty high-end rig to hit a playable frame rate.
Ubisoft announced last month that the development team had "dedicated much of the past few months to optimizing Unity to reach 900p with a consistent 30 frames per second." We've reached out to the publisher for comment, and will update this article with any information we receive. Check back later today for our full review of Assassin's Creed Unity.
