Rough times in Kamurocho as Yakuza 0 rolls back its initial patch
Crashes just charge up your Heat gauge.
While I've been lucky enough to have had a problem-free time with Japanese street-crime adventure Yakuza 0 on PC, I admit that I'm not too far into the game. There have been reports of some nasty crash bugs lurking around Kamurocho, and Sega have been trying to figure out how to banish them. Unfortunately the time-tested Yakuza approach of 'punching things until they apologise' doesn't seem to be working, as they've had to roll back their first patch mere hours after it went live, as it apparently introduced more issues than it solved.
The initial patch was intended to address several semi-common crashes, most notably during certain story sequences. According to the initial patch notes, these were the problems they were hoping to knock out:
Fix for crashes on boot and in cutscenes/gameplay.
Fix for crash when using Staminans to gain consecutive Heat abilities during Chapter 10 Fight.
Fix for crash in Pocket Circuit mini-game after selecting a rematch with an opponent.
Right now, those facing the worst of the crashing issues (some people found the game immediately donking out to desktop after launch) are left with Sega's previous advice, which includes an INI tweak that appears to work for some, but not everyone. I've seen others on Twitter claim that once you're in-game, forcing the priority of the Yakuza 0 process to 'High' seems to reduce the frequency of problems, but that may well be a placebo, and a common one amongst PC games to boot.
It's a real pity to see people having a rough time with Yakuza 0, as it's a truly lovely experience when it's firing on all cylinders, according to both myself (a long-time fan of the series) and our man of the streets Edwin in his review here. Hopefully it won't be too much longer until they've cracked this nut. If nothing else, they could try hitting it with a bicycle. That usually solves Yakuza-related problems for me, at least.
For those who feel like tempting fate before the all-clear sign is given, Yakuza 0 is out now on Steam for £14.99/19.99€/$19.99.