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Deathloop was released earlier this month to mostly very positive reviews. Fans have been blown away with the game, which appears to have lived up to the pretty major hype that it had built up through its many trailers. Deathloop comes as a boost to PlayStation 5 owners, who have been waiting for more next-gen exclusives to arrive, and it just may have been worth the wait.
However, for Deathloop fans on PC, it hasn't exactly been the same story. While reviews of the console version of Deathloop have been overwhelmingly positive, Deathloop has been review bombed on Steam, previously leaving it with a mixed review score. Fans have drawn attention to a number of issues with the PC version of Deathloop, some of which have since been addressed, but many more remain. Arkane Studios faces an uphill battle in removing all of the PC versions bugs, as fans are continuing to discover more.
Deathloop’s PC Stuttering
Deathloop is widely believed to be a great game, in fact, some have even put its name forward as a game of the year contender. Despite such a positive start to life critically, the game hasn’t completely avoided controversy. Deathloop’s PC performance has been prohibitive for some: Many fans believe that Deathloop’s poor performance is down to its use of Denuvo DRM. It has in the past been linked to poor performance in games, and as such, fans have made the correlation between Denuvo's integration and Deathloop’s stuttering. However, it is not believed to be at fault for Deathloop’s performance at launch.
PC fans have also noticed high VRAM usage, prompting many to turn down their graphics settings. Some with high-end graphics cards such as the GeForce RTX 3070 have even complained of receiving the same warnings. In the case of some, this may be the cause of stuttering on the PC version of Deathloop. Gamers have reported being able to play despite majorly exceeding their VRAM usage, however, this may be a sign of some of the underlying issues with Deathloop on PC.
It seems that for now at least, gamers will need a pretty beefy rig in order to run Deathloop on PC, but Arkane Studios is investigating the game’s performance issues. Fans yet to buy Deathloop on PC may want to hold off until further patches are released.
Deathloop’s Crashes and Freezing
On top of the stuttering and general performance issues, PC players have also noticed an issue with Deathloop crashing. These crashes have been said to cause loss of progress in some cases, which is to be expected given Deathloop’s sparse autosave system. Deathloop’s save system is intended to complement the gameplay, as it prevents players from simply loading their latest save upon death, encouraging a more thoughtful approach to Deathloop.
However, this has become frustrating for players dealing with crashing issues, as it means PC players are being punished through no fault of their own. An update has been released to include more descriptive crash messages, which could help PC players to identify the root of the problem. However, for now, Deathloop's issues with crashing continues until Arkane determines an overarching fix for all hardware.
The same update has also addressed issues with certain achievements not being awarded to players. This bug proved frustrating for achievement hunters, as barring this achievement issue, Deathloop would be a rewarding game to seek out and earn trophies. Players could also accidentally delete all of their progress in Deathloop thanks to an issue within the game’s settings. In Deathloop’s settings, there’s an option to “Reset Colt’s Progress,” which is quite self-explanatory. However, upon clicking it, Colt’s progress will automatically be reset despite a further screen asking the player if they’re sure.
For now, Deathloop on PC has a number of issues that fans should be aware of before purchasing the game. Other than that, average reviews of Deathloop score the game up to an 88 score on Metacritic, so assuming players on PC are willing to potentially deal with any issues they face, an excellent game is lying in wait for fans.
Deathloop is available now for PC and PS5.