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Remedy looking into improving Control console performance

"... these things do take time and don't happen at the press of a button."

Remedy is looking into improving Control console performance, it's said.

As revealed by Digital Foundry's analysis, Control suffers from some serious slow-down on console. The Xbox One X offers the smoothest experience overall, as you'd expect, but even that version sees hitching and stuttering interrupt the flow of the game. On PS4 Pro, performance is nowhere near as consistent as the X build, but it's much better than performance on the problematic base consoles.

Digital Foundry's John Linneman reports PlayStation 4 and Xbox One can see prolonged frame-rate drops in sustained combat, dropping all the way down to 10fps at worst. Elsewhere, the game's loading systems aren't great, with long loading times and texture pop-in.

So, we come to Remedy's blog post, which outlines the work the developer is doing so soon after launch. Remedy said it's on the case when it comes to console performance, but asked players for patience.

"Right now, the team are looking at possible ways of improving console optimisation in Control, but as you can hopefully understand, these things do take time and don't happen at the press of a button (as much as we wish they did). We are also examining specific issues that some players have been experiencing and looking for fixes on those. When we have more info, we will be sure to let you know across our community channels."

Meanwhile, Remedy said it's adding a motion blur and film grain toggle as part of the game's next update, slated for mid-late September. And the developers are working to improve how the in-game map loads "to ensure that all the relevant info displays immediately and correctly, as it should".

Cover image for YouTube videoControl Console Analysis: A Brilliant Game But What's Up With Performance?

Remedy also explained Control's lack of HDR support, and confirmed it doesn't plan to add it to the game post-launch.

"Early on in Control's development, it was decided that HDR would not be implemented in-game. This is a decision based on the fact that development resources are limited, and we need to allocate what we have in a certain way. Moving into post launch, we prefer to use the resources we have to focus on future free content for Control like the Photo Mode. We realise this may disappoint some players, but we hope the additions we plan to bring to Control more than make up for the absence of HDR."

Remedy closed out its blog post by saying "this is just the beginning", and more information about the future of Control will come next week.

"In the meantime, we hope this update reassures our players that we're working behind the scenes on improving and bringing new content to Control. Just please be patient as the development team at Remedy is doing its best. Thanks once again for your continued show of support."

Control launched this week and very good it is, too. Be sure to check out Donlan's Control review for more.