EA and Omega Force have released a much-needed first patch to improve the PC performance of their huge monster battle game Wild Hearts, but early reports from players suggest it hasn’t actually managed to improve performance much.
Word of Wild Hearts’ performance issues began to spread even before its official release last week, when EA Play Early Access players began reporting everything from slow frame rates and persistent stutters to slow pop-ups on Windows. all platforms.
In response, Omega Force vowed to address the performance issues, saying that it was “continually working to improve performance and optimize gameplay” across all platforms, and that it would be releasing a patch for PC this week to fix a neck issue. CPU bottle which he claimed should “improve performance on upper-middle-range CPUs.”
that patch has arrived nowaddressing the aforementioned ‘unintentional CPU limit’, some missing or lagging sounds, an RX 7900 XTX rendering issue, and a corrupt save bug, as well as making 16:9/1080p the default setting on initial startup.
Unfortunately, first words from post-patch PC gamers don’t seem to be good, with many on the Wild Hearts subreddit reporting no noticeable (or limited) performance improvements after applying the update. This is also consistent with my own experience, the game still exhibits significant stuttering and slow pop-in at 1080p/60fps regardless of graphics settings, and that’s on a system well above EA’s recommended specs.
This is disappointing news, especially given that Omega Force have created an absolutely stellar entry into the monster hunting genre with Wild Hearts. I called it a “thoughtful and incredibly energizing spin on a beloved formula” in my review last week, and it’s a game that deserves so much better on the performance front.
Along with today’s PC update, Omega Force also released a small update for PS5, intended to fix a crash that would occur on systems with more than 100 users on their block list. The developer says it’s working to get the audio and save/load fixes seen in today’s PC patch rolling out to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S next week, and will share more “as soon as we can.”