The last few months have been far from great for the PC gaming community. With high-profile releases like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor suffering from several issues, gamers have not been happy with the state of AAA games on PC.
Unlike previous PC ports, PlayStation also missed an opportunity to stand out with The Last of Us Part 1. Following a poor launch, the game quickly became Naughty Dog’s worst release so far.
While many were busy discussing the issues in recent PC ports, a Naughty Dog developer has come forward with clarification on the matter. In reply to a tweet about PC ports, the developer stated that optimizing PC ports is really difficult.
When making a game for a console, you're making it for one set of drivers/hardware. When making a game for PC you're making it for like 900+ possible combinations.
I promise you it's not laziness. It's just really really really difficult. https://t.co/tINI16iiQw
— Del Walker 🇵🇸 (@TheCartelDel) April 29, 2023
Looking at games like The Last of Us Part 1, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Wild Hearts, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, many had begun to call developers lazy for not making sure the games launch in a polished state.
The Naughty Dog developer replied:
“I promise you it’s not laziness.”
While it is true that developers spend countless hours working on modern AAA games, consumers are also not in the wrong to express their disappointment at the state of games at launch.
Over the last few years, games being released unfinished has become the norm, with developers releasing patches in the months after release to fix the game. However, this should not be the case.
The developer pointed out that PC games must be optimized for a much more extensive range of hardware than consoles. This is one of the challenges of PC development, but several studios have proven that optimizing for PC is not impossible.
Even in a year plagued with poor ports, games like Dead Island 2 and Atomic Heart have stood out as solid PC ports. The latter comes from a much smaller developer, but it shows the potential of PC gaming.
After the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series S|X, many AAA games have seen a price bump to $70. While a few publishers are still releasing games at the older $60 price point, they are expected to follow soon.
With the greater cost of modern games, consumers are not wrong to expect quality releases, but the increased cost has clearly not translated to better quality products for the platform. PC hardware is also better than ever, with powerful graphics cards and processors.
Additionally, both Nvidia and AMD have introduced upscaling technologies like DLSS and FSR to help developers optimize for lower-end hardware. Despite these advancements, modern PC gaming appears to be at its worst point in recent years.
It is also difficult to imagine developers being satisfied with the state of many PC games. Unfortunately, deadlines and time constraints can sometimes force them to push out broken products.
Fans can only hope that the future of PC gaming turns out to be better than previous months, with high-quality, optimized games that can justify their high asking price. However, it might be best to wait for reviews and testing on upcoming games to avoid similar scenarios.
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