Have we actually seen any PS4 footage yet? the game is so well optimized for PC, what's to say the console version will be capped at 30?
I found this interview with YS from all the way back in 2015 where he says they were targeting 30, but back then, the PS4 Pro wasn't even a thing, and the game has been expanded and polished significantly since...
G: What frame rate are you aiming for on PS4?
YS: For the moment, I’m thinking about 30 frames per second. 60 might be too difficult, but I’m not sure yet.
There are almost no modern open world games on Xbox One or PS4 (even Pro)
that can handle 60 fps. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 even struggle with 30 fps
because the hardware is at 100% pretty much all the time and it just needs one small intense scene to tank the framerate.
Same for Witcher 3 for example, there are framerate drops below 30 fps even in 1080p mode on the Pro.
GTA 5 and Horizon Zero Dawn are 30 fps games too and they have framedrops.
The only game that i can remember right now that had pretty much locked 60 fps
was Metal Gear Solid 5 but the open world is not the same as in RDR 2, or HZD or Shenmue.
There are only seperate enemy bases with footsoldiers, thats not such a big problem.
I watched a couple of backer trial demo streams on Twitch and there were dozens of people
where you could see that their PC was not capable of maintaining stable 60 fps in the middle of that small village.
(very high, 1080p)
Now imagine how much worse it will be in the real city with way more NPCs and shops + the limitations of consoles.
If they dont cap it at 30 fps, there is a very very very very high chance that it will constantly
change between smooth and not smooth because the framerate will be all over the place.
60 fps outside in the nature, 45 fps in small villages, 30 fps in busy areas
and it will also probably change with every camera angle. This can be suuuuuuuper annoying
because the average framerate will be somewhere between 30 and 60,
up down, up down, up down, up down and thats not smooth, thats rough.
If you cant hit 100% stable 60 fps, its better to just cap it at 30 because then you have a locked average number
and you have a bit of hardware headroom so that even very intense scenes wont tank the framerate.