On Wednesday, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla got its first major update since it’s day one patch. Besides adding Performance and Quality Modes to next-gen consoles, it also included quality-of-life fixes, performance, and stability improvements across all platforms.
At least, that’s what the patch notes said. In reality, it seems like update 1.0.4 has actually made things worse, and especially so on the PS5.
Of the three next-gen consoles, the PlayStation 5 seemed to run Assassin’s Creed Valhalla the best before patch 1.0.4, giving players a fairly consistent 60fps. After the update, players on ResetEra and elsewhere are reporting frame rates dropping into the low 40s during combat or other periods of intense rendering.
Patch 1.0.4 was supposed to fix the screen tearing issues that have plagued the Xbox Series X since launch, but players are reporting that those issues are still there, and for some, it’s even worse.
Oddly, the Xbox Series S seems to be the only platform that can report a general improvement to gameplay as promised in the patch notes. However, players are still experiencing stuttering during cutscenes on both Xbox Series S and X. This appears to be due to a bug that has existed since launch.
As usual, Reddit has responded to the ugly patch in the form of angry memes. One such meme also contained a thread reporting more frequent crashes on PC and an overall decrease in stability.
Besides questionable claims of increasing performance, patch 1.0.4 certainly didn’t eliminate Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s more interesting bugs. Here we have a floating canoe, while here we have a player catapulting themselves skyward to perform a finishing blow on an enemy that’s no longer there.
Ubisoft has yet to comment on the outcry, but they have taken the unusual step of acknowledging performance issues in other games. Watch Dogs Legion won’t be getting its multiplayer mode as planned until updates solve several performance-related issues.
Source: ResetEra, VG247
