Unreal Engine often gets flak for games running poorly or stuttering, but as Avowed demonstrates, it's really about how devs use it and the pressures of time

A screenshot from the PC version of Avowed, from Xbox Games Studios.

Here's a simple question for you: What do Black Myth: Wukong, Frostpunk 2, Palworld, Stalker 2, Tekken 8, Silent Hill 2, and Avowed all have in common? Yes, that's right, they were all made using the game development package Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Something that they also have in common is variable and somewhat confusing performance on PC. If one only goes by comments on social media, the problems all stem from UE5 but having spent a week testing Avowed, I'm not convinced that Epic's software is to blame.

That particular game has all kinds of odd things about it, such as the 1% low frame rates and wonky upscaling, but it looks great and for the most part, it runs pretty well too, though it's best to ignore the actual frame rates and judge it on feel. Avowed's developers, Obsidian Entertainment, aren't new to Unreal Engine as they made The Outer Worlds and Grounded with it, although it was the previous version.