KOEI Tecmo has lifted the review embargo for FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE. Powered by the Katana Engine, it’s time now to benchmark it and examine its performance on PC.

For our benchmarks, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, RX 9070XT, as well as NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080, RTX 4090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 595.76, and the Radeon Adrenalin Edition 26.2.2 drivers.

Team Ninja has added a few graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Textures, Ambient Occlusion, Shadows, Reflections, and more. The game also supports NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR. However, there is no support for Intel XeSS or any in-game support for Frame Gen.

Another weird thing is that the game can only be played at 30FPS and 60FPS, with the cut-scenes locked at 30FPS. In fact, the PC version is the only platform that supports 60FPS. All console versions, even those for PS5 Pro or Xbox Series X, are locked at 30FPS. Therefore, the PC version is by default the definitive version. PC gamers can unlock the framerate via the game’s config file. However, framerates that are not locked at 60FPS or 120FPS will feel choppy. This is the exact same issue we saw in Nioh 3. So, I don’t really recommend unlocking the framerate, unless you figure out a way to keep a locked 120FPS.

FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE does not feature any built-in benchmark tool. So, for our tests, I used this scene. This appeared to be one of the most demanding scenes I could find early in the game.

FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE is a GPU-bound title, and it does not require a high-end CPU. At 1080p/Max Settings, our top five GPUs were able to offer a constant 60FPS experience.

Things went downhill the moment we raised our resolution to 1440p. At 1440p/Max Settings, the only GPUs that were able to run the game smoothly were the NVIDIA RTX 4090, the RTX 5080, and the RTX 5090. Both the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX and the RX 9070XT could drop to 55FPS. As for Native 4K/Max Settings, the only GPU that was able to run the game with 60FPS was the NVIDIA RTX 5090.

When I unlocked my framerate, I got a minimum of 72FPS and an average of 77FPS on my NVIDIA RTX 5090 at Native 4K/Max Settings. So, to put things into perspective, FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE runs worse than Nioh 3. Not only that, but Nioh 3 looks better and has larger environments.

Graphics-wise, I was not impressed with FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE. While it looks leagues better than its original version, it’s not particularly impressive for a 2026 title. Character models feel fine, but they are nowhere close to those we’ve seen in games like Resident Evil Requiem. The environments also look fine, but again. There is nothing here to “wow” you.

To be honest, the game’s visuals do not justify its high GPU requirements. This is a rasterized game, and it does not look that great. It also suffers from numerous pop-in issues, though its dark environments can cleverly mask them.

The good news is that I did not experience any major stuttering issues. I did get a few rare stutters here and there. Overall, though, most of you won’t notice them (unless you’re staring at the MSI Afterburner Overlay).

Overall, FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE feels like a step backwards for a Team Ninja game. Although it uses the Katana Engine, it’s not as polished as Nioh 3. The good news is that the PC version looks and runs better than the console version. The consoles can’t even maintain a locked 30FPS experience. The PC controls, KB&M, are also excellent. So, this isn’t a technical disaster on PC. At the same time, it’s not among the best we’ve gotten. If you can brute-force your way, you will be able to enjoy it!