With Unreal Engine 5 games becoming increasingly common on PC, it is always interesting to see which developers can actually tame Epic Games’ state-of-the-art engine rather than simply brute-forcing their way to good visuals at a massive performance cost. Fatekeeper is a very interesting case in that regard.
THQ Nordic and Paraglacial’s dark fantasy first-person RPG is still in a very early access state, so it would be unfair to judge it as if it were a finished product. However, from a technical standpoint, Fatekeeper already manages to stand out as one of the most impressive Unreal Engine 5 releases we have tested recently. The game makes heavy use of modern UE5 rendering features, including Nanite Virtualized Geometry, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Software Lumen ray-traced global illumination and reflections, and yet it can still run surprisingly well when tuned correctly.
That is especially impressive considering the very small size of the development team. Plenty of much larger studios have struggled to ship UE5 games that look this good while maintaining reasonable performance, so Fatekeeper deserves some real credit here. At the same time, the game is not perfect. Some graphics settings behave strangely, HDR does not appear to work properly in the latest tested build, the MegaLights toggle does not seem to do anything, and at least three graphics settings appear to be either broken.
This guide should hopefully help you strike a better balance between visuals and performance in Fatekeeper. In it, we will first provide a gameplay and technical overview of the game, then break down the visuals-to-performance profile of each relevant graphics setting to establish our optimized graphics settings, and compare them to the game’s Ultra/maxed-out graphics preset.
Gameplay And Technical Overview Of Fatekeeper
Released in Early Access on June 2, 2026, on PC via Steam, Fatekeeper is a first-person action RPG developed by Paraglacial and published by THQ Nordic. The game takes players into a dark fantasy world built around melee combat, magic, exploration, character progression, weapons, armor, artifacts, and a focused narrative path that rewards player curiosity and exploration.
Gameplay-wise, Fatekeeper mixes sword-and-sorcery combat with immersive sim-adjacent exploration and RPG progression. Players can block, dodge, cast spells, experiment with different weapons, and adjust their character build around different combat styles. In its current Early Access state, the game is clearly not content-complete, but the core idea is already easy to understand: a visually rich, handcrafted, first-person fantasy RPG with reactive combat and strong environmental atmosphere.
From a technical standpoint, Fatekeeper is a very impressive Unreal Engine 5 title. The game uses Nanite Virtualized Geometry to push dense environmental detail, Virtual Shadow Maps for high-resolution dynamic shadowing, and Software Lumen ray tracing for global illumination and reflections. The result is a game that can look genuinely excellent in the right scenes, especially when dense geometry, natural and indirect bounce lighting, reflective surfaces, foliage, and fantasy architecture all come together.
What makes this even more impressive is that Fatekeeper does not run nearly as badly as some other visually ambitious UE5 games. In fact, in our experience, this is both one of the best-looking and best-running UE5 titles we have tested recently. That does not mean it is light on the GPU, because it is still using some very expensive rendering features, but the overall visuals-to-performance balance is much better than we expected from such an early build.
The game also includes a pipeline state object, or PSO, compilation step during the initial loading process. In our testing, this appears to do a good job of catching the most important PSOs, as we did not experience the kind of constant shader compilation stuttering that has hurt many other Unreal Engine 5 games on PC. That alone is worth praising, as a competent PSO precompilation step can make a huge difference to the perceived smoothness of a modern DirectX 12/Vulkan PC game.
With that said, Fatekeeper is still very much an Early Access title. We expect both visuals and performance to keep improving with future updates, and we also hope the developers fix some of the broken graphics settings we found in the current build.
Let’s begin by taking a look at the game’s PC system requirements, courtesy of the developers:
| Tier | CPU | GPU | RAM | Storage | OS / API |
| Minimum | Intel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT with 8 GB VRAM | 16 GB | 45 GB | Windows 10/11 64-bit / DirectX 12 |
| Recommended | Intel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT with 8 GB VRAM | 32 GB | 45 GB | Windows 10/11 64-bit / DirectX 12 |
As we can see from the above table, Fatekeeper has rather unusual PC system requirements. The minimum and recommended CPU/GPU requirements are identical, with the only major difference being the jump from 16 GB to 32 GB of system memory. This makes the requirements less useful than they should be, as they do not provide clear performance targets, resolutions, presets, or upscaling assumptions.
On paper, an RTX 3070 or RX 6800 XT — which is a bit of a strange pairing given that the RX 6800 XT is usually on par with the RTX 3080 in UE5 games — as a minimum GPU sounds quite high, especially for an Early Access game. In practice, however, Fatekeeper appears to scale better than these specs might suggest, provided you avoid some of the more wasteful Ultra-level graphics settings. Still, the 8 GB VRAM requirement should be taken seriously, as the game can be quite VRAM-heavy (especially at higher resolutions) due to its dense assets, high-quality textures, Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps.
Test Systems And Methodology
For our graphics settings comparisons, we used our desktop PC test system with the following relevant specs:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-14700K
- RAM: 32 GB DDR5-7000 CL34
- Storage: 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB
- Operating System: Windows 11 25H2
- All system firmware, BIOS, OS, and graphics drivers were fully updated before testing.
All graphics settings comparisons were performed at a resolution of 2560x1440 (1440p) using the maxed-out Ultra preset, with Unreal Engine 5’s Temporal Super Resolution (TSR) enabled and the TSR Screen Percentage set to 100%, meaning native internal rendering resolution. This was done to isolate the visual and performance impact of each graphics setting without introducing additional temporal upscaling artifacts.
We also used a CapFrameX/RivaTuner Statistics Server-based performance overlay to monitor relevant metrics such as GPU usage, real-time framerate, frametime behavior, and dedicated GPU memory usage. This allows us to judge each graphics setting not only by visual fidelity, but also by its actual performance cost during gameplay.
While the individual graphics settings comparisons in this section were performed on our desktop test system, the final Ultra preset versus optimized graphics settings comparison was performed on our more constrained laptop test system, which should give us a better idea of how much these optimized graphics settings can help on a more realistic entry-level gaming machine. Our laptop test system has the following relevant specs:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-12700H
- RAM: 16 GB DDR4-3200 CL22
- Storage: 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU 8 GB
- Operating System: Windows 11 25H2
- All system firmware, BIOS, OS, and graphics drivers were fully updated before testing.
One quick note about CPU performance: we are not including a dedicated CPU benchmark section for this guide because Fatekeeper does not appear to need one in its current Early Access state. As expected from a UE5 game with a relatively limited scope, CPU performance is excellent. We were still GPU-bound on our laptop test system even at 720p using the Ultra preset with TSR set to just 30% internal render resolution. As such, any modern 6-core CPU from roughly the last six years or so should provide a very good experience in Fatekeeper, and your GPU will almost certainly be the limiting factor of your performance, not your CPU.
A Deep Dive Into Fatekeeper’s Graphics Settings
In this section, we will explore Fatekeeper’s graphics settings via comparison videos that should showcase both the visual and performance profiles of each relevant option. This should allow us to determine which graphics settings are worth keeping at Ultra and which ones should be lowered for a much better visuals-to-performance balance.
Fatekeeper’s graphics menu is fairly interesting. Alongside the expected graphics quality settings, the game also includes a “Run Benchmark” option, which appears to run a system/GPU benchmark and then automatically determine the best graphics settings or preset for the PC being used. This is a welcome addition, and more PC games should include something similar, provided the resulting recommendations are sensible.
There are also a few issues worth mentioning right away. HDR does not appear to work properly in the latest tested build of the game. The game also includes a UE5 MegaLights toggle, but this setting does not seem to have any visible or measurable impact in the current build. Hopefully, both issues will be addressed in future updates.
With that said, let’s now take a closer look at how each graphics setting affects both visual fidelity and performance.
View Distance Quality
View Distance Quality adjusts the distance at which far distant objects and NPCs render.
In many open-world or large-environment games, View Distance can be a meaningful performance setting, as it often affects object culling, draw distance, NPC visibility, and distant geometry complexity. In Fatekeeper, however, we did not notice a meaningful enough performance or visual difference to justify lowering it.
Because the game’s world is not a giant open-world environment with huge city-scale visibility distances, the Ultra setting appears to be perfectly reasonable here. Lowering the setting does not buy us enough performance to be worth the potential reduction in distant detail or object stability.
Recommendation: Ultra
AntiAliasing Quality
AntiAliasing Quality controls the fidelity of UE5’s TSR implementation.
This setting only applies when using TSR, but it is still worth paying attention to because TSR quality can influence image stability, sharpness, ghosting, and the handling of fine detail. In our testing, Medium provided the best overall balance between image quality and performance.
Going lower can make the image less stable and less refined, while pushing the setting higher does not appear to provide a large enough visual improvement to justify the extra cost. Since Fatekeeper is already a visually dense UE5 game, Medium is the sensible compromise here.
Recommendation: Medium
Shadow Quality
Shadow Quality controls the detail, resolution, and distance quality of the game’s Virtual Shadow Maps.
This is one of the most important settings in Fatekeeper from a performance perspective. In fact, Shadow Quality was the most impactful graphics setting in our testing when it came to freeing up GPU performance. That is not surprising, as Virtual Shadow Maps can be expensive, especially in scenes with dense Nanite geometry, foliage, architecture, and many shadow-casting details.
The good news is that High still preserves most of the intended shadow presentation. Shadows remain detailed, contact depth remains convincing, and the game does not suddenly lose the grounded look that makes its environments feel so impressive. Ultra can look slightly cleaner in some scenes, but the performance cost is not worth it for our optimized profile.
This is one of the first settings we would lower from Ultra.
Recommendation: High
Global Illumination Quality
Global Illumination Quality adjusts the quality of the game’s indirect diffuse lighting, which appears to be handled through Software Lumen ray tracing.
This setting has a huge impact on Fatekeeper’s visual identity. The game relies heavily on bounced light, indirect shadowing, and natural ambient lighting to sell its fantasy environments. Lowering global illumination too aggressively can therefore make scenes look flatter, uglier, and less grounded.
Unfortunately, the Low setting appears to be completely broken in the latest tested build. Not only does it severely damage the game’s lighting, but performance also inexplicably goes down on our test system. That makes Low an easy setting to avoid.
High is the best option here. It preserves the game’s rich indirect lighting while avoiding the extra cost of Ultra. Given how important Lumen GI is to the game’s overall look, we strongly recommend not dropping below High until the developers fix the current Low-quality behavior.
Recommendation: High
Reflection Quality
Reflection Quality controls the quality of the game’s Lumen reflections.
This is another setting where players need to be careful, because lowering it can change more than just reflection resolution. In our testing, Medium appears to disable Lumen reflections, which makes reflective surfaces look much flatter and less convincing. Low should also be avoided, as it appears broken in the current build.
High is the best choice here because it preserves the more complete Lumen reflection path without pushing the cost as high as Ultra. This is important in Fatekeeper, as reflections contribute to the look of wet surfaces, shiny materials, metallic objects, and many of the game’s high-quality environmental details.
Ultra can look a little better in select scenes, but High is the better optimized setting.
Recommendation: High
PostProcess Quality
PostProcess Quality adjusts the quality of the game’s post-processing effects, including bloom, color grading, tone mapping, and other screen-space presentation features.
In our testing, PostProcess Quality did not have a meaningful performance impact, which makes this an easy setting to leave at Ultra. The main reason not to lower it is that Low disables effects such as vignette and bloom, which can alter the intended look of the game.
Of course, some players dislike effects such as vignette or strong bloom, so there is still a subjective element here. However, for an optimized settings profile that tries to preserve the developer’s intended presentation, Ultra is the best recommendation.
Recommendation: Ultra
Texture Quality
Texture Quality should control texture resolution and quality, but this setting appears to be either broken or not properly exposed in the latest tested build of Fatekeeper.
In our testing, we did not notice a meaningful difference in texture quality or dedicated GPU VRAM usage between Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. This is unusual, as texture quality settings normally function as a VRAM management lever. Lowering textures should reduce memory pressure on lower-VRAM GPUs, especially at higher output resolutions.
For now, players should not expect Texture Quality to solve VRAM-related issues in Fatekeeper. Based on our testing, 1080p requires at least 8 GB of VRAM, 1440p requires at least 10 GB, and 4K requires at least 12 GB for a comfortable experience. Higher internal resolutions and future content updates could increase these requirements further.
Because the setting does not appear to meaningfully change either visuals or VRAM usage right now, we recommend leaving it at Ultra if you have enough VRAM. If a future patch makes this setting work properly, then it may become more useful for 8 GB GPUs and lower-end systems.
Recommendation: Ultra for now, but keep an eye on future patches
Effects Quality
Effects Quality adjusts the detail and complexity of the game’s GPU-accelerated particles and visual effects.
Fatekeeper is not as explosion-heavy as some action games, but its fantasy atmosphere still benefits from good effects quality. Spell effects, particles, environmental effects, and other GPU-driven visual elements all contribute to the game’s presentation.
High is the best compromise here. It preserves most of the game’s intended effects presentation while avoiding the unnecessary cost of Ultra. Lower values can help weaker GPUs, but they are not the first settings we would target unless performance is still poor after lowering shadows, global illumination, reflections, and TSR internal resolution.
Recommendation: High
Foliage Quality
Foliage Quality controls the density and detail of the game’s vegetation and plants.
In many UE5 games, foliage can be one of the most expensive parts of the renderer due to alpha-tested geometry, shadowing, overdraw, and lighting costs. In Fatekeeper, however, we did not notice a meaningful enough performance or visual difference between the tested quality levels to justify lowering this setting.
Since foliage contributes a lot to the game’s natural environments and fantasy atmosphere, Ultra is the best choice here. Lowering it does not provide enough benefit in the current build.
Recommendation: Ultra
Shading Quality
Shading Quality adjusts the complexity and quality of the game’s lighting and shading.
In our testing, Ultra ran slightly worse than High, while High, Medium, and Low performed very similarly. We also noticed very little visual difference between the various quality levels during normal gameplay, which makes Ultra a little hard to justify.
High is therefore the best optimized choice. It avoids the slight performance penalty of Ultra while preserving essentially the same visual presentation. Since Medium and Low do not appear to provide meaningful additional performance, there is not much reason to drop below High.
Recommendation: High
Landscape Quality
Landscape Quality controls the fidelity of the game’s terrain, distant geometry, and large-environment detail.
In our testing, this setting did not produce a meaningful performance or visual difference. Because of that, there is no real reason to lower it from Ultra in the current build. Terrain and large-scale environmental detail are important to Fatekeeper’s visual identity, and lowering this setting does not appear to be an effective optimization lever right now.
Recommendation: Ultra
Optimized Graphics Settings For Fatekeeper
Based on all of the above testing, these are our optimized graphics settings for Fatekeeper:
| Graphics Setting | Optimized Value |
| Anti-Aliasing / Upscaling | TSR, with Screen Percentage adjusted based on GPU performance |
| View Distance Quality | Ultra |
| AntiAliasing Quality | Medium |
| Shadow Quality | High |
| Global Illumination Quality | High |
| Reflection Quality | High |
| PostProcess Quality | Ultra |
| Texture Quality | Ultra for now, but monitor future patches |
| Effects Quality | High |
| Foliage Quality | Ultra |
| Shading Quality | High |
| Landscape Quality | Ultra |
| MegaLights | Leave unchanged for now, as the toggle does not appear to work properly |
These settings are designed to preserve most of Fatekeeper’s intended visual presentation while cutting some expensive or wasteful Ultra-level settings. The most important changes are Shadow Quality, Global Illumination Quality, Reflection Quality, AntiAliasing Quality, Effects Quality, and Shading Quality.
As usual, if you still need more performance after applying these optimized settings, the next best step is to lower internal resolution through TSR (or DLSS Super Resolution if you have an RTX GPU) rather than gutting the game’s lighting and reflections too aggressively. Fatekeeper is a visually rich UE5 game, and its presentation depends heavily on Lumen GI, Lumen reflections, Virtual Shadow Maps, and dense Nanite geometry. Further, should you have a high refresh rate monitor and be able to achieve at least a 50-60 average FPS baseline with good frametime consistency, then enabling frame generation to further boost your smoothness could be a great boon to help enhance your Fatekeeper experience.
Ultra Preset vs Optimized Graphics Settings
To quantify the benefit of our optimized graphics settings, we compared the Ultra preset against our optimized graphics settings in a GPU-limited test scene, using a CapFrameX/RTSS-powered overlay that tracks relevant performance metrics such as real-time framerate/frametime, average framerate, 1% lows, and 0.1% lows.
At the end of the benchmark runs, we obtained the following averaged-out performance metrics:
| Graphics Settings | Average FPS | 1% Low FPS | 0.1% Low FPS |
| Ultra Preset | 42 | 27 | 24 |
| Optimized Graphics Settings | 65 | 41 | 36 |
| Improvement | +55% | +52% | +50% |
As we can see from the above results, our optimized graphics settings improved the average framerate by 55%, while also improving 1% lows by 52% and 0.1% lows by 50%. That is a very substantial performance uplift, especially considering that the visual downgrade is not severe during normal gameplay.
This is exactly what we like to see from optimized graphics settings in a modern PC game. The goal is not to make the game look drastically worse just to chase higher FPS numbers. The goal is to identify which Ultra settings are genuinely worth keeping and which ones are mostly wasting GPU resources. In Fatekeeper, several graphics settings are safe to lower from Ultra to High or Medium, while others should simply be left maxed out because they do not meaningfully affect performance.
Final Words
In the end, Fatekeeper is one of the most impressive Unreal Engine 5 games we have tested recently. It looks excellent, runs better than expected, and shows that even a small team can deliver a visually ambitious UE5 game that does not completely fall apart on the performance side.
That does not mean the PC version is perfect. HDR does not appear to work properly in the latest tested build, the MegaLights toggle seems non-functional, and many graphics settings don’t seem to scale as they should. These issues should absolutely be fixed as the game moves through Early Access.
Still, the foundation is very strong. The shader compilation step appears to do a good job, CPU performance is excellent, and the game is primarily GPU-limited even on weaker systems. That makes Fatekeeper much easier to optimize than many other recent UE5 games, as you can focus on the graphics settings that actually matter rather than fighting major CPU bottlenecks or constant shader compilation stutter. With our optimized graphics settings, Fatekeeper can deliver a much smoother PC experience while preserving most of the visual presentation that makes it stand out in the first place. If Paraglacial can keep improving performance, fix the broken settings, and expand the game’s content throughout Early Access, this could become one of the more exciting UE5 PC games to keep an eye on.
About the author: Sebastian Castellanos is a data scientist by education and training. He's also deeply passionate about PC gaming hardware and software. He has recently started writing technical articles and guides on Wccftech about PC hardware, games and mods.
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