On September 10 the game hung five times during automated runs, and every hang had the same signature: the engine’s virtual shadow maps together with its detailed geometry culling. Each one struck on the fourth frame of a run.
Play has used a workaround since, switching those shadows off at every launch. The workaround turned out to be fragile in its own way, because a subtly mis-quoted launch argument silently switched the shadows back on. The exact form is now pinned by an automated check. The root cause has not been found.
The same investigation turned up two other things. A packaging audit found that the game had never been packaged, and identified three problems that would have left content, configuration files and interface images out of a build. And the logs showed Windows resampling the game’s 48 kHz audio for a 44.1 kHz audio interface on the way out. The game now matches the output device’s rate when it starts.
