Despite all its initial promises, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is off to a somewhat rocky start. Even after its attempt at emulating the core tenets of a Soulsborne game for a more non-hardcore audience, the game struggles to leave a lasting impression on its player base for a number of reasons.
However, the biggest reason behind its lukewarm reception is its wildly different performance on different platforms. For instance, the Xbox version is plagued with a whole host of problems that other players simply don’t have.
Flintlock’s Xbox Game Pass Struggles With Constant Stutter and Screen Tearing
Although Flintlock isn’t doing well on any platform, in part due to its combat design, the Game Pass version seems to be a lot more buggy and problematic. Even though the game design clearly evolves from Ashen, A44 Games’ previous title, the devs weren’t able to meet their lofty ambitions for the game.
According to recent reports from players, the different ports play host to a lot of hitches, stutters, and screen tearing, with the problem being significantly worse on the Game Pass build for some unknown reason.
For PC players, it isn’t all that bad. Although the game fails to properly utilize the hardware, causing issues in even the most top-of-the-line rigs, a few tweaks in the settings menu can alleviate the issue.
As per the Steam community’s discussions on the topic “Flintlock stutter fix,” disabling Nvidia Reflex, playing around with the upscalers, and lowering the shadows are being hailed as the best solutions for the time being.
Of course, while that’s good and all, it’s somewhat concerning to see a Day-One release on Xbox having the worst of it while its counterpart ports are still in a fixable condition.
Could Flintlock’s Rocky Beginning Spell an Early Demise for the Game?
Now, complaints about the game’s visuals aside, there is an argument to be made here about whether this game will end up being yet another forgettable experience due to its myriad of issues.
To be fair, Flintlock does feature traversal and combat mechanics which, while undoubtedly sluggish in the beginning, really opens up in the mid-to-late sections of the game. Not to mention, the setting and overarching narrative do speak for the developers’ stolid creative vision with Ashen’s spiritual successor.
At the same time, as a Day-One release on Game Pass, it will certainly take some time to get its feet off the ground on that platform now. How soon that time may come remains to be seen, but it’d be a shame to see a game with so much promise end up in the abyss of dissatisfying souls-likes.
With that said, what are your thoughts on Flintlock: The Seige of Dawn so far? Are the stutters and screen tearing issues truly as bad as people are making them out to be? Let us know in the comments below!
