Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3 PS3 And Xbox 360 Have Much Worse Framerate

So here’s some more bad news if you were hoping to enjoy Call of Duty: Black Ops III on last gen consoles: The team at Beenox is hoping to bring in the final product at just 30 fps for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

For a game that’s all about future soldiers going to war with cutting-edge technology, it seems a bit odd that the latest entry in the Call of Duty series would be coming to consoles that are, for most intents and purposes, lost to the past.

That’s not a knock against the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360; they’re dandy consoles. But when you’re heading into year three of a newer console generation, maybe that’s the time to stop bringing your game out on machines that are nearly a decade old, yeah?

But since that’s not the case with Black Ops III, the team at Beenox is doing their best to get the game ready for last-gen consoles, and it doesn’t sound like things are going too well.

It was announced last month that Black Ops III will not have a story campaign on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, making it an exclusively multiplayer affair on those two consoles (though no word yet on if that will affect the price point). I’ve said for years that the series should just switch over to a similar model and bring out annual updates instead of constant new game launches, but having one version of the game support a campaign and the gimped version not makes me wonder why they’re even bothering in the first place.

Now the latest announcement from the developer confirms that the PS4 and Xbox 360 versions of the game will only clock in at 30 frames per second. I’m not one of those people who needs all of my games to be at 60 fps but, in a competitive first-person shooter, that’s pretty much the baseline these days.

Speaking with Develop, Creative Director Thomas Wilson said that hitting 60fps simply wasn’t possible for the last-gen versions of the game.

We’re basically looking more at something like 30fps. But still, the experience is very enjoyable, otherwise it’s not Call of Duty.

Unsurprisingly, Wilson goes on to say that the disparity between current and last gen consoles is making it harder and harder to develop a game that bridges that gap. Again, in a AAA series like Call of Duty, I’m not sure that should even be part of the equation. I’m not faulting Beenox by any means here, as I’m sure they’re doing the best they can with a rough situation. It’ll be interesting to see how folks still gaming on the PS3 and Xbox 360 respond to Call of Duty: Black Ops III, though. We’ll find out when the game launches on Nov. 6.

Ryan Winslett

Staff Writer for CinemaBlend.