As much as I enjoy Sega’s Yakuza Zero PC port, it definitely had its fair share of issues. Not to mention the lack of 21:9 or ultra-widescreen support – I mean, really Sega? This is one of the first things we asked for. Thankfully they’re correcting this and more with an upcoming beta that’s currently in beta.
In addition to the ultrawide-screen support, I’m glad to see the FOV slider update and finally addressing the alt+tab behavior. Sometimes that even lead to a lock or crashing of the game. I’ve lost plenty of sessions due to this.
That said, since this is a beta patch, there could be some things that end up not working correctly. You’ll also have to install the patch manually by going to the games property tab in Steam and entering the password “DragonOfDojima”. This will unlock the “community_test_branch”, so be sure to select it.
List of changes and updates can be found below.
• Fixed an issue related to shaders and shadow rendering affecting lighting/skin tone (most noticeable during cut scene at the end of chapter 6)
• Fixed an issue where certain particle effects were not being displayed (most noticeable when using certain weapons like the cannon)
• Improved ultrawide display support
• Added FOV slider in advanced graphics menu
• Added border artwork displayed during areas with locked aspect ratio when played in non-16:9 display modes
• Added Background audio slider in audio menu
• Added UI toggle in settings menu
• Added target monitor output selection option for multi monitor setups in advanced graphics menu
• Added support for QWERTZ and AZERTY keyboard layouts
• Fixed an issue where disconnecting a controller during conversation could cause a soft lock
• Fixed an issue where mouse cursor would be confined within application window while in menus
• Fixed an issue which could cause a crash when playing the fishing mini game
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash if the installation folder path includes a dot
• Improved behaviour of camera control when using a mouse to use raw mouse input
• Improved mouse scroll wheel behaviour
• Improved Alt+Tab behaviour
The final bit of news, not announced by Sega, is the removal of Denuvo. The beta patch updates the game *.exe file and trims it from 220MB to just 20MB. Denuvo is added to a game *.exe file, so this goes to confirm that this has been removed from the title. Seeya and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
After installing the beta update, I can firm that not only does the game start up much faster, but the game performance has improved. The FOV slider is nice but could do with a numbered slider. Gone is the stutter that plagued the game previously and I’m able to run the game at 120fps, with everything maxed out. This is the version of the game we all wanted and thanks to Sega’s efforts, we finally have it.
This also bodes well for the upcoming release of Yakuza Kiwami. Seeing how Sega has Yakuza Zero back on track, they should be able to take what they learned implemented here into that port.
Speaking of which, Yakuza Kiwami releases this month – February 19, 2019, to be exact.
