Dishonored 2 Game Director Harvey Smith has been by far the most responsive representative of Arkane and Bethesda when it comes to discussing the game's unfortunate performance issues on PC.
He replied to literally dozens of questions via his Twitter account. To begin with, the Dishonored 2 Game Director said he's distressed about the problems PC users are having and that the development team is focused on solving those as soon as possible, even during this weekend. He then added that the game was tested on PC before release since it's not a port from other platforms.
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797111575186378752
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797093588362493952
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797388359098388480
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797099670770188288
At least it seems like data collection after release from all the gamers who submitted their technical feedback helped the developers in identifying the culprits.
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797495303507247104
There's been speculation in the gaming community that this was caused by the engine. Dishonored 2 uses the Void engine, which is supposedly derived from idTech 5, a problematic engine (unlike DOOM's idTech 6). However, Dishonored 2 Game Director Harvey Smith stated that it has pieces of both idTech 5 &6, but ultimately Void engine has been rewritten for about 90% of its code.
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797089059483090944
The Dishonored 2 Game Director then stressed multiple times, as you can see below, that performance in this game is also taken up by other departments than just graphics. However, on this topic we have to say that there are many games nowadays featuring non-linear levels and even far bigger worlds than Dishonored 2 without any such performance issues, so it's not really an excuse.
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797189410085306369
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797188507827666944
https://twitter.com/Harvey1966/status/797352601721458688
Still, while the situation is not ideal on PC right now it's worth pointing out that the underlying game is fantastic and a worthy successor to the first Dishonored. Hopefully, Arkane and Bethesda can quickly solve the most pressing issues causing disappointing performance and when that happens Dishonored 2 will be an easy recommendation to any gamer.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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