One of the biggest advantages of the PC as a gaming platform is the huge degree of customization gamers have access to, and the great visual fidelity which they can enjoy their games in, thanks to the more powerful hardware.
It’s obvious to anyone who’s been following the industry for a while that a major release like “Mafia 3” would be scrutinized quite a lot based on these factors, and recent reports about the game have painted it in a bit of a negative light.
According to some who’ve been able to get their hands on a copy of the game, it’s apparently locked to 30 frames per second for unknown reasons. No combination of settings has been reported to fix the issue, even running the game at the lowest graphics quality.
However, it might not be intentional. The game’s developers were quick to address the situation, claiming that this was a mistake and a patch is in the works that should fix the problem. Of course, a lot of damage was already done and fans were left wondering why this happened in the first place.
Locking down framerates on a PC game is usually seen as a really bad move and it typically has no practical reasons behind it, implying problems with the development team. It could also mean that there is something wrong with the game on the technical side which we’re not seeing yet, but only time will tell if that’s actually true.
Meanwhile, the situation with review copies is still not very good for the game, as the publisher refused to give pre-release copies to known reviewers. On the other hand, various YouTubers and streamers apparently got early copies, but there were some conditions.
Reports indicate that the players were required to only show specific parts of the game and not talk about some of its features. In the end, some saw that as an “advertisement copy”, not a review one. Still, this move has allowed us to see some footage of the game before it actually became available, impressing some players and raising the hopes of most.
Apart from the framerate issue – which is going to be fixed anyway – the game seems quite solid and polished from what we can tell, and it looks like a good entry in the franchise. A lot was speculated about “Mafia 3” leading up to its announcement, and many fans already suspected that the game was in the works before it was even officially shown.
Pretty much everything about “Mafia 3” looks great, including the quality of its graphics which was a major point of discussion among fans before the game was released. Because of some rumors that the game was going to need a downgrade to its graphics, many were convinced that it won’t look up to par with other modern titles, which would have ruined the reputation of the franchise.
These rumors were probably the reason why fans took it so harshly when it was revealed that the game has a framerate lock. Some suspected that this was merely the developers’ “solution” to their technical issues.
We’ll have to wait and see how things work out once everyone has had a chance to play the patched version of “Mafia 3”. Hopefully there won’t be any other glaring technical issues that will get in the way, as it looks like this is an otherwise solid release with a great potential right now.