Game Freak made a public promise last week: fix Beast of Reincarnation's roughest edges within days of launch. Patch v1.0.7 dropped on August 9, and it's the studio making good on that word. Beast of Reincarnation launched on August 4 to a Mixed Steam rating, and that label hasn't shifted yet, but the update at least shows the developer is listening.
Can these patch fixes save Game Freak's new title?
What the Mixed reviews are actually saying
The Steam reception is worth understanding before getting into the patch itself. Players calling the game "bad and laughable" aren't necessarily describing the whole experience. The criticisms cluster around specific things: the camera behaving erratically during fights, story conversations repeating back-to-back in a way that feels like a bug, cutscenes defaulting to 24fps in Cinematic mode (which caused visible stuttering on PC), and text that was genuinely hard to read. These are fixable problems, which is part of why the discourse around Beast of Reincarnation feels so charged. The bones of the game seem to have defenders, but the launch state gave ammunition to its critics.
For context, the game currently sits at roughly 60 percent positive among English-language purchaser reviews on Steam. That's the threshold where "Mixed" kicks in, and it's a precarious spot for a Game Freak title stepping outside the Pokemon franchise for the first time in a serious way.
What v1.0.7 changes
Here's the thing: this patch addresses most of the loudest complaints, even if it doesn't fully resolve all of them.
The camera gets "various adjustments both in and out of combat," though Game Freak notes further camera work is still coming. Text size has been increased across the board, with subtitle adjustments also still in progress. Story pacing sees its first real tweak: affinity-building conversations, which were triggering multiple times in a row when returning to the Cleanse Walker, are now limited to once per day. It's a targeted fix for something that felt broken even if it was technically functioning as designed.
The cutscene situation gets a proper resolution. Performance mode is now the default instead of Cinematic, meaning cutscenes will no longer play at 24fps unless you actively choose that option. Players who already had Cinematic selected will need to manually switch over.
Other changes in v1.0.7 include:
- The Interact button is now fully remappable via a drop-down menu to prevent button conflicts
- Emma's parry window has been adjusted when taking damage
- Boss balance tuned across all difficulty levels
- Normal difficulty enemy encounters rebalanced
- Fixed a bug where the interact button mapped to Square/X would incorrectly trigger "rest until morning" during the Kagura story event on the Walker
- Upscaling settings no longer reset on game restart
- V-Sync changes no longer affect resolution settings
- The 6th golem in Subcity 01 is now easier to locate
- Fixed Emma becoming unable to interact after cancelling a Bloom Art
The fixes that didn't make it in
This is where it gets interesting. The patch notes confirm that several improvements Game Freak announced last week are still in progress. DLSS 4/4.5 (L/M) and FSR4 support aren't in v1.0.7. Cutscene replay functionality isn't here yet either. Further subtitle text size adjustments are still being planned. And while affinity conversations are now capped at once per day, Game Freak says additional story pacing work is ongoing.
Some players have pointed out that a week into a 30-40 hour campaign, many people have already pushed past the sections most affected by these issues. That's a fair frustration. The fixes are real, but the timing means a chunk of the player base experienced the roughest version of the game during the window when first impressions solidify into Steam reviews.
That said been said, the developer explicitly states: "Multiple additional patches are planned, and various fixes and adjustments will continue to be made in response to ongoing player feedback." The roadmap items mentioned include DLSS 4/FSR4, more story pacing work, and things described only as "much more."
Console players are waiting
Patch v1.0.7 launched for PC first. Beast of Reincarnation is also available on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S (the latter included in Xbox Game Pass), but the patch notes published by Fictions cover the Windows version specifically. No timeline has been given for when console players can expect the same fixes to arrive.
If you're playing on PS5 or Xbox and dealing with the camera or cutscene issues, the wait continues for now.
What this means for the game going forward
Game Freak stepping outside its comfort zone with Beast of Reincarnation was always going to be a story worth watching. The studio spent decades making Pokemon games and openly admitted this project "doesn't really fit our vibe" in terms of visual style. A rough launch isn't a death sentence for a game with genuine supporters, especially when the developer responds this quickly.
The real question is whether the patches arrive fast enough to shift the Steam rating before the game fades from the new release spotlight. Mixed reviews have a way of sticking. For players who are already in, the best PC settings for max FPS are worth checking out alongside this patch, since the upscaling bug fix in v1.0.7 makes those settings more reliable now.
For anyone still on the fence, the Beast of Reincarnation guides collection covers the systems worth understanding before you commit to a 30-40 hour run.
