Permafrost Preview: What We Learned

Hello, survivors!

Thank you to everyone who joined the Permafrost 2h Preview. Your time in the frozen world, and the crash reports you submitted, helped us understand where the game needs more work.

For some of you, technical issues cut that experience short far too early. We want to share what we've learned, what our testing has uncovered, and where we still need to investigate.

Stability Comes First

In one of the Preview builds we reviewed, GPU crashes made up roughly two-thirds of the crash reports we collected. That gives us a clear priority: understanding why rendering fails on affected systems. These crashes appeared across several graphics card generations and driver versions, and the evidence doesn't point to a single driver version as the cause. However, we saw proportionally fewer crashes when the game ran on DirectX 11. This still needs more testing.

If you're running into crashes, here are two things that helped many players during the Preview. They won't fix every case, but they're worth a try:

DirectX 11: in your Steam Library, right-click Permafrost > Properties > General, and add -dx11 to the Launch Options. Error 11c7 at launch: this comes from Windows Smart App Control blocking the game. Turning Smart App Control off fixed it for several players (Windows Security > App & browser control > Smart App Control settings).

Getting Into the Game

We're also looking at how we introduce players to the game, with particular attention to onboarding and clearer explanations of its mechanics. We'll make targeted adjustments to the story and quests where they can help the experience flow more naturally.

Alongside this, we're investigating reports of co-op sessions disconnecting and fixing localization issues. Framerates could be higher, and we have a few tricks to improve them; we just need to make sure they work for everyone.

Movement keys can now be rebound! This was one of the most requested changes during the Preview, and it's already in the newest builds.

What Comes Next

We'll keep providing fixes, and we're testing and retesting the game to make sure it's in the best possible shape for the launch.

Thank you again for taking part, especially if technical problems cut your session short. Your reports have turned broad stability concerns into specific problems we can investigate, and they give us a firmer basis for measuring future improvements.

Stay warm!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2254990/Permafrost/