Uncharted Dev: 60 FPS is "Really F**king Hard" to Reach

You’ll know, if you’re the type to follow console-based news, that there’s a pretty giant controversy surrounding framerate.  One of the great advantages of the Playstation 4/Xbox One, Sony and Microsoft were quick to point out when the consoles were being advertised, was that they could reach 60 frames per second.  Which was cool, except now we’re a year and a half into the new console generation and the number of 60 FPS games are actually fairly small; with several developers saying they ‘chose’ 30 FPS over 60 because it feels better, or because it’s more cinematic, or any number of excuses.

But today, talking with Game Informer, Naughty Dog dev and Uncharted  game director Neil Druckmann may have finally given us the first straight answer explaining why more developers don’t use 60 FPS: “It’s really f**king hard”.

"That's true for any game.   It was really hard on The Last of Us Remastered, and that's a game we had finished and we knew exactly what the end result needs to look like. And here [with Uncharted 4] we're trying to push the boundaries of what this game can look like; and do realistic, real-time cutscenes; and trying to do 60fps is really hard."

He later confessed that he wasn’t sure if they were still going to be able to make the 60 FPS landmark, or even if they were still going to shoot for it; rather, he just said “…right now we're trying to push the look. Then we'll see where we're at and reassess. We're constantly making choices to our production about what's going to make the game feel best and look its best."

Frankly, this is really gratifying to hear.  Yeah, you could make the artistic argument until the cows came home, but hearing a developer just straight-up say ‘It’s difficult’ is both revealing and a nice taste of honesty, where PR tends to make a habit out of muddying the truth.   It’ll also give dedicated PC gamers something else to feel smug about, I guess.  Congratulations, PC gamers, you… really needed the boon.