Blood of Dawnwalker’s 60FPS Drama May Be Resolved

Rebel Wolves says a day-one patch will target 60FPS, turning a brief performance backlash into another test of the studio’s willingness to listen to players.

The recent performance dispute over The Blood of Dawnwalker seems to be coming to a close, with developer Rebel Wolves saying a day-one patch will address a 60 frames-per-second performance mode. This follows a few days of outrage from users angry that the game was said to target 40FPS.

The initial reaction was particularly intense among fans who had been following the game for years. Some players even indicated they'd cancel their orders if the action RPG came out without a 60FPS option. Since its reveal, The Blood of Dawnwalker has been a major source of conversation, and the performance discussions rapidly became one of its main talking points.

But Rebel Wolves has stated that the 60FPS mode was already on its agenda.

The studio said it wanted to announce what it could guarantee at launch, rather than offer a performance target that wasn't yet fully secured. The team was said to be working on a 60FPS mode which may be ready for day one. That distinction has made the issue all the more interesting. If the studio always had the performance mode planned from the get-go, then the backlash just sped up the development of something already in the works.

If the developers reversed course after seeing the reaction, it would signal that player feedback still holds a lot of sway over the game's development. That argument has some history. The Blood of Dawnwalker looked distinctly different in older footage than in more recent releases, with several alterations seemingly inspired by community criticism.

In the past, players complained about things such as the camera being too near to the character, and other aspects of the game’s interface. Rebel Wolves responded to those criticisms with apparent adjustments in later footage. That history has helped shape an image of a company prepared to listen rather than fiercely cling to its original design judgments.

The fighting, however, is something else. Now, Blood of Dawnwalker goes from 40FPS to 60FPS, which can make the action feel smoother and more responsive, but it won't fundamentally change how the game plays with sword fighting. If players have a disdain for the fighting system based on what they’ve seen, it’s unlikely that they’re going to become fans of it just because the frame rate improves.

However, the performance update is crucial for players who prefer smoother gameplay.

A 60FPS option would make the game’s combat seem a lot better, especially when dealing with quick sword fights and other action-heavy situations. There’s also a practical reason to hope the 60FPS setting was in the works before the uproar. Now imagine telling the dev team to construct and optimize a whole new performance mode in just a couple of days.

That would put huge strain on them. The alternative—that the feature was already in development—would mean the company can provide it without resorting to an unhealthy last-minute crunch. Ultimately, the dispute may have ended up in the best possible way for both the developers and the players. Rebel Wolves gets to keep its word that it only offered what it could guarantee, and players may look forward to the 60FPS option. Even more significant, the situation reminds us of the studio’s attentiveness to community feedback as The Blood of Dawnwalker approaches its debut.