While gaming monitors are now racing past the 1,000Hz milestone, The Blood of Dawnwalker’s game director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, has expressed frustration about players wanting the grimdark vampire RPG to run at 120fps, let alone any quicker. In an interview with Eurogamer, Tomaszkiewicz is described as exhaling “in an exasperated way” while describing gamers’ complaints about frame rates.
“When you see that the game works well – over 60fps – but people still complain that it’s not 120, but 90 or 70,” says Tomaszkiewicz, before the aforementioned exhalation. “I understand that,” he says, “but the game is about something else. It’s not a shooter – it’s not a game where it’s so important.” Basically, if your game is running above 60fps, he thinks you should be fine in a title that’s not a competitive first person shooter, where lightning-fast frame rates can really help.
Nevertheless, Tomaszkiewicz states that the team is committed to improving performance. “People want to have good performance or performance above good,” he says, with going beyond 60fps being considered “above good” here. “It’s fine. We’re working on it and we will still work on it.”
Before working at Rebel Wolves, Tomaszkiewicz played a big role at CD Projekt Red, where he directed acclaimed open-world fantasy epic The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, as well as working on the previous two Witcher games. Wild Hunt only targets a 30fps frame rate on PS4 at 1080p, which is fine when you’re out exploring the landscapes on your house, but 60fps performance definitely helps when you’re in combat with several enemies at once.
While you arguably don’t need to go beyond this level in a single-player RPG, smooth motion does also contribute to the overall feeling of immersion as you pan your mouse around your surroundings. You’ll need some serious hardware for it in this game, though. The Blood of Dawnwalker system requirements demand an RTX 5090 to play at 4K with Ultra settings, and even that setup only rewards you with a 60fps frame rate.
It’s worth remembering that monitors with high refresh rates are relatively new phenomenon. When The Witcher 3 was released in 2015, for example, most monitors still ran at 60Hz, with 144Hz screens being the latest super-fast models. I, for one, happily completed The Witcher 3, Skyrim, and more on a 60Hz screen, and it was fine. Is Tomaszkiewicz’s exasperation justified here? Let us know on our usual social media channels.
