Firewatch patch “significantly improves” PS4 performance issues
Developer Campo Santo has released a new patch for Firewatch that will “significantly improve” performance problems on PS4.
Firewatch had a bit of a rocky launch of PS4, subject to a number of performance problems that made playing it a bit of a slog at times.
Developer Campo Santo has just released a patch for the PS4 version. Posting on its official website, Campo Santo has said the new patch “significantly improves the experience across many aspects of the game.”
Apparently the full list of fixes is “too big” to write up, but you can read a shorter version below.
- Draw distance and shadow render distance have been improved, which should remove significant texture popping.
- Streaming loading and unloading has been significantly adjusted with extra safeties so you should no longer see loading happen right in front of you.
- We got Unity to fix a very rare hang that could occur when loading and unloading scenes.
- Many instances of unstable framerate have been improved.
- Auto-saves are now far less frequent, as they were causing the worst framerate hitches we have been seeing.
- Several places where people were escaping the world or getting stuck in collision have been refined. Also, if you are stuck in an endlessly falling state, the game will attempt to put you back, either through loading the last save or respawning Henry aboveground.
- Various cases where you were able to interrupt or break your current quest have been safeguarded.
Related: PS4 vs Xbox One
Campo Santo has said it will continue to support the game by working with Unity to improve the engine’s overall performance on both PS4 and PC.
The studio also plans to add more subtitles in different languages for the PS4 release, but didn’t specify a time frame for this.
In our Firewatch review Stuart Andrews describes it ”as a piece of interactive fiction, though, it’s rich, gripping, beautiful and haunting. A powerful slow burner, smouldering beneath the surface, it establishes Campo Santo as a studio to watch,” scoring it an 8/10.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
