Xbox's upcoming RPG Avowed is nearing the end of its development, with Obsidian gunning for a February 2025 launch for the Game Pass title. While the team says that optimisation is still underway, and the game's specs won't be 100% finalised until closer to release, it has confirmed that Avowed is aiming for a 30FPS frame rate target on Xbox.
As part of an interview that took place at Gamescom 2024, a member of the Obsidian dev team talked about its frame rate target, and why the team opted to go for 30FPS.
"Performance is one of the last things we figure out, right? Our core target is 30 frames per second bare minimum - that's the expectation. It's a first-person, single-player game; you don't necessarily need that 60 frames - and that allows us to get a lot juicier with the effects, lighting and all this other stuff.
It's a trade-off we opted to make relatively early and we're really happy with that. I mean, the game's running pretty smooth for how visually dense it is, and that was always our goal. As far as a greater understanding of performance spec, we're still figuring all of that out - it's one of the last things you do."
So, for launch at least, it's looking like Avowed will be a 30FPS game on Xbox Series X and S. We've seen other titles launch with this target and then get a high frame rate mode later down the line — Redfall for example — but it doesn't look like this is part of Obsidian's plans with Avowed for now.
If the game is hitting a correctly frame-paced 30FPS we don't think this is too much of an issue to be honest, even if a 60FPS option is always welcome in our book. The rest of the game is sounding pretty fantastic anyway, going off a recent selection of previews that also hit the web during Gamescom week.