Assassin’s Creed, as a franchise, has had massive ups and downs over the last decade. From the ambitious first release back in 2007 to this year’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, we’ve seen nine different mainline releases that vary wildly in both setting and overall quality. Last year’s Assassin’s Creed Unity was a low point for the series, so it’s important that Ubisoft nails this year’s game to get everything back on track.

From a game design perspective, this release seems like a significant improvement over last year’s game. Our sister site IGN gave it a very respectable score of 8.2/10, and it currently holds a score of 77/100 on Metacritic. If you’re dying for a palate cleanser to get the bad taste of Unity out of your mouth, this seems like a decent installment, but how does it hold up from a technical perspective?

Over at Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry, both the Xbox One and PS4 versions of Syndicate have received a preliminary analysis. Unfortunately, the PC version won’t ship until the second half of next month, so we’re still unsure of how well that version will run. And after last year’s embarrassing showing, you definitely shouldn’t buy-in until we know if it’s broken or not.

As you can see in the video above, both console versions are nearly identical. They’re both running at 900p, and it seems that all of the effects and filters are identical. And while the sub-1080p resolution is disappointing, the game is still visually stunning. If nothing else, Ubisoft is still capable of executing gorgeous worlds with loads of intricate detail.

However, the two versions start to diverge when it comes to frame rate. The PS4 version stays at 30fps for the majority of the game, but the Xbox One simply can’t keep up. And even when the PS4 does stumble for short periods, the Xbox One version tends to experience an even larger drop in frame rate.

Considering that Unity was one of the very few games that performed better on the Xbox One, it feels a bit odd that the PS4 version of Syndicate is unambiguously superior. And since Ubisoft co-marketed the Assassin’s Creed series with Microsoft last year (before quickly switching back to Sony), it makes me wonder if that had anything to do with that notable performance anomaly.

Of course, it’s not surprising that the PS4 version holds up better under a heavy load. The fact of the matter is that the PS4 has substantially more GPU horsepower at its disposal. For the vast majority of multi-platform releases, the PS4 is the better option from a performance perspective.

Beyond the nitty-gritty of this single release, I’m still very disappointed that devs continue to ship games with unstable frame rates on consoles. Even with a sub-1080p resolution and a target of only 30fps, they can’t keep it stable. It’s more than a little infuriating at this point. Back in June of 2014, I pondered if the rise of 60fps video distribution would drive game developers to double-down on frame rate. Alas, nothing has changed.

After seeing Metal Gear Solid V deliver a 1080p image at a mostly solid 60fps, it’s clear that the problem isn’t solely hardware limitations here. Business priorities, time constraints, and budget limitations dictate how well the finished product runs on the established hardware.