We've been having a good time with The Ascent around these parts. Andy scored the isometric RPG 84%, citing its breathtaking cyberpunk world and crisp combat. The only notable blemish was a weird lack of technical parity between the Steam and Game Pass versions of the game. Not only has co-op been a chore while using crossplay, but key graphical features like ray tracing and DLSS were completely absent from the Game Pass version at launch.
Developer Neon Giant says some of these issues have now been fixed thanks to a patch deployed this morning to Steam and on the way very soon for Windows 10, following submission to MS. Here's the full list of performance enhancements only relevant to the PC versions:
- Fixes to improve performance in DX12, also with Ray Tracing.
- Note to Players: on first running of the update, there will be a 20-25 second ‘stall’ on loading to Main Menu to allow some caching to happen before you play. This is a one time event.
- Ray Tracing is now available to Players on the Windows Store.
- Improved loading in of NPCs
- CPU performance mode for lower-end PCs
Progress! Though, it's a shame that DLSS was left off the list for this patch. If you're a Game Pass subscriber like me patiently waiting for the Windows 10 version to be fully featured, we might be waiting a bit longer.
If troubles with The Ascent's co-op connectivity have been dragging you down, then today's patch may be exactly what you're looking for. Crossplay should be working as intended now and loading times have been improved for the non-host player in a co-op session.
Also, some good news around save data: "Introduced a new system to circumvent situations where save files could become corrupted." A corrupted save is the quickest way to completely lose steam in an RPG, so I'm glad I'm starting the game post-patch.
For the full scoop on today's fixes, read the full patch notes here.
