One of my worst fears has come true: a game developer is officially using frame generation as a crutch to achieve 30 FPS. And I don't mean 30 FPS doubled to 60 FPS through frame gen – I'm talking about a 30 FPS output with frame generation enabled. That's a render rate of just 15 FPS, listed on an official spec sheet for an upcoming title. This may be a troubling new precedent for how performance is communicated to PC gamers.

The game in question is Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight , due out May 22. The official PC system requirements were published this past week, and on the surface they look unremarkable. The recommended tier calls for a Core i7-12700 or Ryzen 7 5800X , 16GB of RAM, and either a GeForce RTX 2070 Super , Radeon RX 6650 XT , or Intel Arc B580 – modest, mid-range hardware from a few years back.

The 4K tier steps up to a Core i7-14700K or Ryzen 7 9700X paired with an RTX 4070 or RX 9070 XT .…