We've already covered Beast of Reincarnation on PS5 Pro, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and now it's time to look at the PC version. Some of the console settings choices are just bizarre, so does the PC version allow you to tweak your way into a better balance of fidelity and performance? And what are the best optimised settings for Game Freak's long-awaited extracurricular outing into PC and Unreal Engine 5 development?

Before we get to those settings, a quick word on the game's PC-specific features. In short, the odd decision-making that characterised the console releases is present and correct on PC too, with the chief head-scratcher being the decision to eschew a dedicated shader compilation step on first boot. Instead, the game relies on background compilation, meaning that most new effects are accompanied by severe stutters on a first playthrough - and this is repeated whenever new graphics driver versions are released. These do eventually abate, but it's an odd zag from industry norms that feels wholly avoidable.

The game also suffers from worse-than-expected performance scaling, ie disabling visually intensive features doesn't net as much of a frame-rate benefit as you might expect. Despite this, there are sensible cuts you can make that raise performance without a huge impact on visuals, and we recommend starting with the medium preset as your baseline and then raising individual settings from there. Our test system here is an RTX 4060 using a 1440p output resolution with DLSS balanced, specifically the Model K preset.

For example, raising mesh quality to high reduces LOD pop-in and lower-quality geometry while being relatively performant. There's also an RT toggle for Lumen reflections, which has almost no performance impact so we'd recommend keeping it enabled unless you prefer the look of SSR. As with the console versions, there's no labelled chromatic aberration or film grain setting, but you can disable these features by setting post-processing to low - which also nets a nice performance win.

From here, it's about balancing VRAM usage against your graphics card. For 8GB cards, texture quality can be set to maximum, while reducing the VRAM limit slider to its middle or lowest position. For higher-end cards with more VRAM, the upper setting can be used.

With the optimised settings selected (as shown in the table above), we gain around 18 percent in terms of performance versus the highest preset. Given that we're often using similar settings to the PS5 in performance mode, it's interesting to see that we're much more often maintaining 60fps, while PS5 often drops below that mark in combat. Of course, PS5 is running at a higher resolution, but the DLSS upscaling is so much better than FSR 1 that our mainstream PC is also producing a cleaner image.

Overall, Beast of Reincarnation is a bit of a mixed bag from a technical point of view, perhaps showing an under-resourced development team less familiar with PC and indeed Unreal Engine 5 development. The addition of a proper shader compilation burn before allowing players to start the game would provide a more consistent first impression, while further optimisation work might allow for better scaling on PC too. The game is far from a disaster zone, but there's still a sense that the PC version hasn't quite launched in a finished state.