Ready at Dawn’s upcoming historical adventure The Order: 1886 is certainly set to push the PlayStation 4 to its limits, but company co-founder Ru Weerasuriya doesn’t believe that higher polygon counts and image resolutions will be the highlight of the next generation. Instead, the studio head reckons that it’s more “filmic” effects such as chromatic aberration and lens distortion that will underline the advancements of the coming console cycle.
“We concentrate on the important part of what makes something feel like a movie,” the budding photographer explained in an interview with Eurogamer.net. “It's not about making a game that just has a string of things that happen, like a movie. But, how can we inject some of the things you've seen in films?”
He added: “It's really about how the craft of making a movie is different from the craft of making a game. We are different as industries, but we have so much commonality. One gap that we haven't bridged yet is that we create engines, cameras, and lighting. All of those things are done for the purpose of a game, in a very game-centric way. We decided, okay, let's make the gameplay, but let's take the techniques that we've seen in movies.”
One of the things that the studio’s doing to replicate the big screen is emulate lenses. “How do lenses work? We felt that we could build gameplay and at the same time build lenses that were real,” he continued. “In the engine, the lenses that we shoot with I actually emulated from real lenses that I've used to shoot photography. The guy who directs the game with me has done the same. He does cinematography. I do photography in my free time.”
The company is also using effects such as fog to create atmosphere. “That’s filmic,” the developer noted. “Graphically it's not a question of making things look better because it's a new generation. It's not in how many polygons or how much better the fidelity is. It's those little techniques like chromatic aberration, like lens distortion.”
Unfortunately, the studio’s still not saying much about the gameplay. The developer’s promised a story-driven adventure that will take place in an alternate interpretation of Victorian London, but that’s all that we really know. One thing that Weerasuriya is willing to share is that the whole experience is inspired by the feeling that he felt upon finishing Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.
"It was one of the first times in my life when I felt, ‘Wow, you know what? That was an amazing ride,’” he admitted. “There was no single moment when I was like, ‘That was just cool and that's the thing that I love.’ The feeling at the end was, ‘I just want more of this. This is what I want to do. This is what gaming is for me.' That's what drove us to do this."
Now we just need a strong gust of wind to clear away the fog and give us a proper look at The Order: 1886 in action.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 13
I just finished reading this article and all I can say is that they better make like a midwife and deliver.
Everything about the game sounds fantastic and with R@D being made up of former Naughty Dog and Blizzard employees,I'm not at all surprised. If I don't get some gameplay of The Order injected into my eyes sometime soon, I'll blow up the Eart... Oh, wait.
Was anyone else left confused after all the talk about the lenses? I have no idea how this will effect the game.
@Jaz007 He's talking about the way it looks. Rather than have a "clean" camera like most games, they're trying to accurately model the effects employed in films. So, they're emulating specific lenses that will give the visuals a specific tone, perspective, shape, etc. That's what I get from it.
To be honest, it's the kind of thing that you'd probably never notice if it wasn't explicitly pointed out, but it's something that should give the game a very unique atmosphere and style.
Still no gameplay. Come on Sony.
@IAmNotWill They will show gameplay at the right time.
@PMasterTy9 If you release in game screenshots you should also release in game footage.
@IAmNotWill Were they gameplay screenshots or just screenshots?? Also, devs like to tease you with screenshots before they show you real footage. It's all part of the tease. They could be waiting to show the footage until a special event like the VGAs or something like that. Usually movies work the same way.
I might be alone in here, but what I want more than anything in this generation is gameplay innovation, not necessarily proximity to other medias such as films. What I would really like to feel is that I'm playing something that gameplay-wise was never done before and was only made possible because of sheer hardware power — game worlds that could not be brought to life before. I hope that there are studios out there willing to think out of the box in this sense.
Im hoping this has damn good or even new gamplay!!! and is super long!!! a game that would take like 2 or 3 months to complete is what im hoping for with next gen!!! Wounder how they will utilize every last feature in the DS4, and wounder if they will make certain things u can only do with the camera!
@fchinaski I agree with you, however my BIGGEST want is a game with a grand story to accompany such grand gameplay. Something with as grand a story as, say, Final Fantasy 7 or Star Ocean 3. What I would like most though, is a fully dynamic story. I'm talking about a game where every action has the potential to dramatically change the story. Think Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, where every choice you made completely and dramatically changed how to end panned out. Now imagine it outside a Visual novel-style puzzle game, such as Mass Effect 4 or Killzone: Shadow Fall. Hypothetically: >Yes, you can kill your commanding officer in the second level, but that might mean the difference between the Helghast or ISA winning the war<
I'm looking forward to getting more information on this game. I'm not sold on it, but the game has to be a big hit to make the PS4's first year much more appealing for those of us who need more than just another old school style indie shoot 'em up. Given Ready at Dawn's track record it could deliver but unfortunately far too little is still known about this game. It should've been played up at Gamescom.
@PMasterTy9 Gameplay. Also, hardly anyone does that anymore.
G1886 is a Technology Blog that covers 1880s to 1980s.
Industrial Gilded Age and High tech Victorian Age.
The Roaring Twenties and Art Deco.
www.g1886.com
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