Developers of RiME Explains Game’s “Hiccups” On Switch

Developers of RiME Explains Game’s “Hiccups” On Switch

When adventure game RiME launched on the Xbox One and PS4 earlier this year, there were complains of choppy frame-rates during quite a number of parts of the game. Unfortunately, it seems that the problems still persist on the Nintendo Switch version. In fact, the problem seems to exacerbate on the Nintendo Switch.

In a Reddit AMA, the developers of RiMe, Tequila Works explains the game’s choppy frame-rate on the Switch.

RiME runs at 30 FPS in 720p throughout most of the game while docked. This is a considerable improvement from where the game was at earlier this year when we announced the first delay.

While we have done an excellent job at bringing the standard frame rate up, the one problem we were unable to address completely were loading hitches. RiME uses a technique called streaming which allows us to have portions of the level loaded and unloaded in order to save on memory utilization.

With RiME being very open in many locations, it’s incredibly difficult to get these level segments small enough to not cause a hiccup in performance. We were faced with the choice of adding loading screens throughout the stages, rebuilding the game completely to be more closed in (undermining the product vision in the process), or living with these small hiccups to preserve what the game was intended to be. We chose the latter.

It’s worth noting that these hiccups do occur on the other platforms as well, though slightly less pronounced.

It is really sad to see that problem still persist, especially considering how beautiful RiME’s art style is. You can head to the AMA thread here.