‘Just Cause 3’ Suffers Frame Rate And Loading Issues Despite Being A Blast On PS4 And Xbox One

Square Enix and Avalanche Studios are launching Just Cause 3 tomorrow, and those who have gotten their hands on the game early appear to be having a blast. However, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the open-world shooter are reporting various performance issues that will hopefully be resolved in an upcoming patch.

An early performance test for Just Cause 3 on the Xbox One performed by NX Gamer discovered frame rate and loading time issues. Most worrisome is a memory leak bug that can affect the game’s AI and physics after playing for more than an hour.

“You do get incredibly long loading times and if you play more than an hour or so it can actually take nearly 15 minutes to reload a save,” NX Gamer explained in its analysis (via VideoGamer). “And this just looks like memory leakages where it’s clearing out RAM. Some of the AI goes mad, the physics can react really oddly and unfortunately on top of all these problems, the performance with a game that’s totally designed around blowing stuff up and having this chaotic… world doesn’t perform very well at all.”

The website continued, “In my tests so far we’re looking at a low of 17fps, and this can be really bad and compounded by the fact that along with this the actual physics engine itself and animation system then gets slowdown, which is like to a hark back to the old 16-bit days where the whole game just slows down in presentation. Even though the frame rate might actually still be hitting 30, it feels like you’re running and turning through treacle.”

These issues aren’t just limited to the Xbox One, however. An early report of Just Cause 3 on the PlayStation 4 via the Games Cabin reveals similar issues, though nothing as extreme as 15-minute load times. Instead, the site lamented the game being stuck in the past with loading screens before describing a wait time of 30 seconds to over two minutes on waiting to load the last save after hero Rico Rodriguez met an unfortunate demise.

Maintaining a consistent 30 frames per seconds is also an issue on Sony’s console for Just Cause 3.

“Dips come in whenever any explosion is introduced to the proceedings and it gets even worse in the game’s outposts where you’ll often be causing the most carnage. It isn’t just the occasional couple of frames being dropped – it’s a constant battle for the game to run smoothly at all. Even driving around in one of the many vehicles causes stutter which affects car handling, but perhaps the most annoying thing is that even running around and rotating the game’s camera causes the game to go ‘whoa, mate, calm down – you’re doing too much.'”

Forbes contributor Jason Evangelho also confirmed the Just Cause 3 frame rate dips frequently on the PlayStation 4 via Facebook postings of his review copy. He notes this particularly occurs in environments that have a large number of enemies.

These tests were done both pre and post a patch delivered to Just Cause 3 released over the weekend. The patch notes posted on Steam listed fixes for stability and crash fixes among them, but nothing about a memory leak or frame rate.

Now with all that said, the good news is Just Cause 3 appears to pack in plenty of explosive fun despite the issues with frame rate and load times. Those who have gotten their hands on it early either through review copies or early sells have praised the game for its over the top gameplay, actions, colorful environment, and the explosions, of course.

Are you taking a more wait and see approach with Just Cause 3? Sound off in the comments below.

[Image via Square Enix]