Usually it's just PC players that get stiffed when it comes to launch day bugs—the disastrous Arkham Knight port being a prime example—but Just Cause 3 is reportedly causing problems on PC and console. Reports are coming in from multiple media outlets and Reddit users that JC3 is suffering from random frame rate drops, crashes, and disappearing oceans, to name just a few problems.

An early analysis of the the Xbox One version from NX Gamer claims that playing the game for more than hour leads to loading times of over 15 minutes, with the frame rate dropping to as low as 17FPS. NX Gamer also experienced multiple crashes—which is a particularly big problem for a console game—and other problems which could only be resolved by a full system reboot.

"This just looks like memory leakages where it's clearing out RAM," NX Gamer's video analysis says. "Some of the AI goes mad, the physics can react really oddly, and unfortunately on top of all these problems, the performance with a game that's totally designed around blowing stuff up and having this chaotic world doesn't perform very well at all."

While the Xbox One version of the game seems be suffering the most, the PS4 version—which runs at 1080p, rather the Xbox One's 900p—also has frame rate drops. According to Digital Foundry, both the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game are unable to sustain their 30FPS target, although it notes that the console versions look "equivalent to the high setting on the PC game."

"Avalanche pushes the boat out there with the Havok [physics engine] middleware," says Digital Foundry, "but this does cause performance issues on both consoles. Blowing up a bridge with C4 explosives causes a mid-20s dip on both machines as the structure crumbles into its component parts. Bearing in mind that not a huge amount is happening from a visual perspective otherwise, it does suggest that the Jaguar CPU architecture of both consoles is being pushed to its limit."

As we noted in our review of JC3, the PC version of the game suffers from multiple problems, even on relatively good hardware (a GTX 770). This included regular freezing, audio desyncing from video, random disconnects from Square Enix's servers, and the entire ocean disappearing. The later appears to be a common problem for PC users, with multiple Reddit threads commenting on disappearing water, as well as glitchy mountain ranges.

Nvidia has released a new Game Ready driver to help alleviate some of the issues, while AMD has pushed out a beta driver. However, issues still remain for many users, particularly those with AMD cards.

"There are some known issues that occur with the most recent official release AMD/ATi graphics card drivers," said Square Enix in a statement on Steam. "We’re working with AMD to fix the issue via an upcoming official driver update—however to ensure you don’t experience these issues yourself right now please make sure you are using the latest beta driver available."

JC3 sports some hefty system requirements, which makes its poor performance all the more disappointing. They include a minimum Core i5-2500K or AMD Phenom II X6, 6GB of RAM, plus an Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 2GB or AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB graphics card. 8GB of RAM, a Core i7, and a GTX 780 3GB or AMD R9 290 4GB are recommended.

It's worth noting that not everyone has been experiencing problems with the game, although those that aren't are typically running much beefier systems. In my own testing at the weekend the game ran fine, but on a system running an i7, a fast SSD, 16GB of RAM, and a Titan X GPU.

While economics dictate that Square Enix is likely to work on fixing the console versions of the game before the PC version, here's hoping that it doesn't pull a Warner Brothers and just give up before the job is finished. We've reached out to Square Enix for comment on the performance problems and will update the story with its response.