Dishonored 2 Performance Analysis

The folks at Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry have analyzed the visual make-up and performance of Dishonored 2 for all three platforms for which it is available (four if we count PlayStation 4 Pro) and come away with what I personally consider to be pretty disappointing news. The PC port is obviously the best looking version but can’t hold 60fps even on top of the line machines, while the console versions do okay but also have their own visual and performance problems.

The full article dives into the details and is well worth a look (and a watch, if you have time to check the video embedded in it), but I’ve taken the liberty to quote their conclusions:

Provided that Arkane can get the PC version into shape, it should prove to be the definitive release, but as things stand, we’re a long way from that and the console versions are looking pretty good.

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Overall, Dishonored 2 works out nicely enough for PS4 and Xbox One owners. There’s no argument that this is a beautiful-looking game with a highly distinct visual style, and that the idTech underpinnings work out nicely in scaling resolution while not impacting image quality to a noticeably distracting degree. The PC version offers the best visual feature set and perhaps in time, it will overcome its profound performance issues, but right now, at least the console versions don’t present too many issues that distract you from a phenomenal experience.

With that said though, the performance level is questionable at times – it’s easier to forgive 20fps frame-rate drops during non-interactive cut-scenes, but the situation gets fraught when careful traversal through an enemy-infested area goes horribly wrong. The more enemies that rush to attack you, the more dire your peril, and the worse the game reacts to user input. Meanwhile, the collapsing frame-rate gives you less visual feedback, making it even harder to handle the situation. Some might say that it’s as good a reason as any to play the game ‘properly’, using stealth and taking down targets only when required and preferably in one-on-one scenarios, but 20fps gameplay isn’t really acceptable under any circumstances.