The PS4 version of The Evil Within is "borderline unplayable in places" prior to installing the day one patch, according to tech experts Digital Foundry, who note that the game saw major improvements to its frame rate, resolution and texture streaming between submitting the game for print and release.
According to the site, the version that ships on disc renders at 900p with a frame rate that dips "all the way down into the teens" and frame times that can stretch beyond 200ms.
"It's so low, in fact," the site says, "that we needed to modify the values of our frame-time graph when creating the performance video, in order to accommodate gameplay pauses of up to 100ms (and even then, sometimes The Evil Within stalls still further)."
Texture pop-in is also an issue in the original unpatched release, resulting in cutscenes that "stutter as textures load in".
After installing the day one patch, the PS4 version is boosted to a 1080p resolution, texture pop-in is reduced and its frame rate manages to hit the 30fps target far more regularly.
"On the one hand the developer has pulled off a miracle in improving the game so much between submitting the final disc to Sony and finishing the day one patch," Digital Foundry says. "Both performance and resolution are radically improved. However, there are a minority of gamers out there who don't have their consoles connected to the internet and for them, the pre-patched version of The Evil Within... is their entire experience of the game. It's far, far worse and borderline unplayable in places.
"Day one patches are now commponlace for most games," it continues, "but we can't help but feel that developers, publishers and the QA departments of the platform holders have a responsibility to ensure a decent level of performance for those who aren't connected to the internet, especially in the case of a single-player game like this one."
