AC Valhalla Players Hoping For 4K 60FPS, Max Settings Will Be Disappointed

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla will not run at 60FPS on 4K resolutions, according to early reports. The latest entry in Ubisoft's long-running historical action franchise released yesterday, giving fans the chance to step up and take their rightful place at the head of the Viking hordes. The game has fared decently well with reviewers, who praise the game's open world and its combat system, as well as its renewed emphasis on assassinations. It has, however, received some criticism for the large amount of bugs present at launch.

Assassin's Creed has a bit of a history with bugs, glitches, and other early issues, and Valhalla is no exception. Despite the game's status as a cross-gen title, releasing for PS4 and Xbox One, as well as PC and next-gen consoles, it was released as a launch title for the Xbox Series X, a sales decision which, while largely effective, led to an increased level of bedlam during the console's tumultuous launch. To the confusion and distress of many fans, when the game launched, the standard edition temporarily vanished from the Xbox store page. Players could only select the Gold or Ultimate editions, available for $100 or more.

Even though that confusing storefront glitch has been resolved, players are still having problems with the game. DSOGaming reports that Assassin's Creed Valhalla can't run in 60FPS at 4K settings, even with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3090, the company's highest-end GPU. The game's built in benchmark records an average framerate of 56FPS, but actual gameplay finds this number to be much lower; in some villages, it can drop as low as 40FPS. Worse, Tom Warren, senior editor at The Verge, has pointed out on Twitter that the game doesn't even support native 4K resolution, not even on Xbox Series X. It's expected to use the PC's High graphics setting instead of Ultra/4K.

The new console generation has been looming large throughout 2020. With the Series X finally released, and the PS5's launch just a day away, a lot of players are wondering how major video game franchises, Assassin's Creed included, will adapt to the new technology. Valhalla's struggles to offer an ideal framerate at 4k resolution is definitely not a good sign. A high framerate is far from the only thing that makes a game successful, but this lack of high-end polish from such a major developer is a troubling sign.

There's a lot to like about Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The game ably delivers an enjoyable Viking fantasy, and it has plenty of delightful features for players to discover, like a special ability that gives them a wolf companion. It's certainly disappointing to see such a promising game marred by such unfortunate graphical limitations. Hopefully Assassin's Creed Valhalla will prove enjoyable enough that players won't mind taking a bit of a graphical hit.