The Blood of Dawnwalker will run at up to 40fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S when it launches, with no 60fps mode available on console. New gameplay footage from developer Rebel Wolves confirms the frame rate ceiling holds across every console version of the game, settling a question players have been asking since combat footage first surfaced.
No Dawnwalker 60fps mode at launch
Console footage published this week shows Rebel Wolves’ RPG capped at 40fps on both current-generation consoles. That’s a step up from the 30fps lock still common on console RPGs of this scale, but it stops short of the 60fps ceiling PC players with the hardware to hit it will be able to target. There’s no separate, lower-fidelity mode aiming for 60fps planned for console at launch, and no word of a resolution-first “quality” option alongside it either: on this footage, 40fps is simply what the console version does.
The “up to” in that figure matters. A locked 40fps mode holds steady at that number and relies on a 120Hz-capable display with VRR support to pace frames evenly; PS5 and Xbox Series X/S output the signal at 120Hz and lean on the display’s variable refresh rate rather than locking to the standard 30fps or 60fps windows. An uncapped “up to 40fps” mode, by contrast, is a ceiling the engine may not hold in demanding scenes, the same way a “quality” mode’s resolution can dip under load. Without a VRR-capable screen, a 40fps mode typically falls back to a 30fps lock regardless of what the game targets.
It’s also worth being precise about where the number comes from: this is developer-published gameplay footage, not an independent frame-time capture. Rebel Wolves controls the scene, the hardware and the encode, so the 40fps figure describes what the studio chose to show rather than a worst-case or an average verified by a third party.
Eurogamer’s console footage, sourced from Rebel Wolves and publisher Bandai Namco, pins the cap to both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S specifically, and confirms the game launches next month.
The size of the frame rate gap
By our arithmetic, the jump from 40fps to 60fps isn’t a rounding error: it’s a 50% increase in frame rate. That’s the difference between console gameplay that reads as smooth and gameplay that reads as fluid, and in a combat-focused RPG it shows up most in dodge windows, parries and camera pans, not just as a number in a settings menu. It’s also the gap PC players effectively buy their way past: with enough GPU headroom, nothing here caps the PC version at 40fps.
What to watch
Whether Rebel Wolves adds a 60fps performance mode after launch is an open question; nothing in this footage rules it out. Other console RPGs at this scale have added a performance option post-release before, usually by trading resolution or effects for frame rate. The Blood of Dawnwalker launches next month, when the console modes shown in this footage will be locked in for review copies and, shortly after, for players buying on day one.
