E3 2018: The Last of Us: Part II Runs on a Completely Overhauled Engine

It's going to be alright, this

It certainly put me in the mood to fire up the first game again. What a cracking trailer that was. The expressions in Ellie's face was phenomenal.

Very impressive, looking forward to it! The combat looks really intense.

The impressive thing for me was the fluidity of it all. It moved from melee to shooting, sneaking and moving through scenery so smoothly. Amazing, Sony studios have some ridiculously impressive game engines.

@NintendoFan4Lyf if they can achieve this level of graphics quality from the PS4, just imagine what will be possible at this stage in the PS5's life cycle drooolll

Hated the first game's dreadfully boring mix of plank/box dragging, forced walking, barely interactive setpieces and stealth combat, and I'm not getting the sense that this will be any different. Hard pass for me.

@NintendoFan4Lyf Probably because the PS4 (and Pro) can't offer this in 4k - the 'standard' by which pretty much all displays are being made at. It can't offer the full object based audio that Dolby Atmos/DTS-X offers either. Another aspect of course is 'frame rate'. It may well be as good as locked to 30fps but it 'could' be improved by being 60fps. Even if its not locked to 60fps, Game VRR could greatly improve the performance so that any drops don't cause screen tear or 'judder' from being out of sync with the displays refresh rate.

Who knows what else could have been improved with a LOT more RAM (better textures, better loading etc), much better CPU (better physics, better AI, more enemies etc) and a superior GPU.

You could argue why we needed a PS4 with games like the Last of Us on PS3 and how great that looked at the time. Granted the Last of Us 2 is a 'big' step up but that also shows what Devs can do when they have resources and push things to the limit. Maybe if we get a Last of Us 3 on PS5, we will see what ND manage to achieve over 2 and if it does come at the 'end' of the PS5's life-cycle, people will still be saying 'why do we need PS6 with games like LoU3'.

As great as games like this look and probably are to play too, ND would have had to make compromises - whether its just as simple as turning a few settings down from the 'highest' possible or capping the frame-rate to 30fps, dropping the resolution down etc. They had to do so with U4 too - hence we had 60fps for MP but only 900p and 1080p for campaign but only 30fps.

Point is, you won't know what 'next gen' could of offered ND that may have improved this (or any other games) or whether it would impact on their choices - more than just compromising on visuals/frame rates or not.

I was so looking forward to this. Then ND gave us this one big UGH!
Ellie is back, now a tough young woman who can take care of herself. Brilliant.
But the lesbian moment to slap us round the face with how contemporary and relevant the game was, how brave ND are in taking the story in a radical direction.
Okay guys, well done, ten out of ten.
I would have been far more wowed if I first came across this in the game.
The gradual rise of awareness through the media would have been a joy to behold. But clearly the guys at ND just couldn't wait could they? To literally show it off at E3 was nothing more than politically correct showboating of the worst kind.

@NintendoFan4Lyf Its always the case. We don't know what fundamental gaming decisions were limited by the current hardware - the amount of enemies, the decision on what objects may be interacted with and how the react - whether breakable or not, whether they had to make the environment much more enclosed because the draw distance was creating frame rate issues etc. As great as God of War is, there are 'trees' that can be broken and similar trees that can't, some 'jars' that can be smashed and some that can't. Its not a criticism but its an indication of some limitations.

Ray Tracing cannot be implemented on current gen consoles - at least not to the level that are being built into current GPUs and API's. Its inevitable that Devs will use this technology going forward and could change the way games use lighting. I wouldn't be surprised if Xbox has it with DXR (DirectX Raytracing) and Sony may will use AMD's Vulcan solution that is in but AMD are working with MS on integrating DXR into its GPU's so its likely we could see each of these methods in the next gen consoles. It seems logical that the next (Direct)X-Box would support DXR and no doubt Sony will use AMD's option.

If you look at the games we had on last gen - big open worlds, incredible visuals (for the time), you can't see what the next gen could offer - other than say a jump up in resolution to 'Full-HD'. Lighting, polygon counts, particle effects, shadows, much better streaming of assets so you don't have those 'narrow' loading sections in open world games etc etc. Look at Nathan Drake - even the remastered version and compare that to U4 - that shows its more than just 'resolution'. Games like Shadow of War and Ghost Recon: Wildlands show what that extra RAM can do for textures if you look at the X vs Pro versions. Games like 'Rise of the TR' also can show the visual setting downgrades you get with 'enhanced' visual options (that still aren't all on 'Max') but improve the realism by pushing out the shadow draw distances, ambient occlusion, higher LODs etc to much greater level - as well as higher quality shadows, reflections, etc too. It can be the difference between a pixelated 'impression' of the trees in a 10ft radius without leaves to more realistic and real time trees with the leaves blowing in the wind and as far into the distance as you can see - for example.

I don't recall anyone complaining that the Last of Us was 'visually' poor but you would have to blind not to see how much of a leap up the new game is. If it was on a PS4 at 1080p, that's only a jump up from 720p - still both HD, yet the difference is far more significant than say watching a movie at 720p and comparing that at 1080p which is 'just' resolution. I bet the game-play will be very different too - not so much the 'basic mechanics' but the structure - those little 'sections' in the first where you are 'locked in' until you clear the enemies to progress into the 'next' little section - whether its almost seem-less because the sections are loaded during a cut-scene or little narrow and 'empty' walk so the next section loads in the background. Again not criticisms but it does highlight the limitations of that technology and methods used to 'hide' those. It wasn't just ND either of course but now they can do so much more, and no doubt more again on next gen too that could change the 'structure' of games beyond just the basic mechanics.

As I said, you could argue that games like Uncharted 3, Last of Us etc prove that there was 'no need' to bring out a new generation but then you wouldn't have had games like H:ZD, God of War or Uncharted 4 (let alone the third party games). Its clear that this gen has its 'limitations' too as games are having to use dynamic resolution and unlocked and 'capped' frame rates to run as well as the choice of visual settings that they are limited with (like Shadow quality, anti-aliasing etc and rendering techniques (temporal filtering and reconstruction) etc - the things we can actually see and or measure let alone any 'design' compromises they had to make (like enemy count, environmental layout, using 'breakable' items in certain places but having to fix them in place in others etc etc that we don't (often) get to find out about. Sometimes you do with 'next gen' sequels as the devs may use some of that 'ambition' now they have hardware that can implement it. Bethesda for example have said they were not prepared to make ES6 until the hardware was in place to realise that ambition - maybe why they are prepare to reveal it now with next gen just around the corner...

@BAMozzy no matter how powerful the console, there will always be limitations. that is the nature of the video game medium so is it really worth analysing? gaming is not about power, it is about creating a viable product that will be well received by the market at large. that means creating tech that fits into that $400usd or below price point. "underpowered" or not, i am seeing the most beautiful games in history on ps4 (yes, even more beautiful than any pc games running on 10X the power), so i don't see a problem with the current situation we are in.

@Porco Of course there will be limitations. The point of 'new' generations is to limit the limitations to a minimum and allow the developers to have the hardware to realise their ambition. When the hardware though gets to the point that its not just some visual limits - like resolution or visual settings, when its affecting the way you build your games and compromise on the design, like limiting the enemies, the physics and/or destructible objects, having to limit the way the game plays because you have to cap the frame rate much lower than you really wanted etc then its indicative that its time to move on.

That doesn't mean that they can't still deliver great games but just means its stifling the creativity and ambition...

the market wants pretty and shiny graphics... that is why emphasis is placed on visual fidelity over other categories. sure, developers could be putting more effort into ai systems, physics or destructible environments, but they aren't because fidelity is the most demanded feature in games these days (at the expense of innovations in other areas of gaming). i don't agree with this, but the industry is what it is. come next gen, we will have more power but developers will not change their mentality on this issue and will focus yet again on fidelity and 4k resolution nonsense over and above the other categories mentioned. i would much rather stick with 1080p gaming at 60fps with innovations in ai over a 4k/30 experience any day, but that is just me. i feel like rending games at 4X the resolution is a giant waste of resources and completely unnecessary for many people.

@NintendoFan4Lyf I think there will be ps5 version of this game with true 4k resolution and 60 fps gameplay, like tlou remastered on ps4 but rather than new game, it's will be a patch.

The true ps5 games will be super amazing though

@Porco The MAIN issue with the way games are running - ie 30fps, AI/Physic limitations etc is because of the CPU in current consoles - not the GPU which is responsible primarily for the resolution and all the 'fancy' processing and effects like shadows, reflections, lighting etc.

The fact that the Pro has a 2.3x GPU boost and the X a 4.6x (over the OG XB1 - 4.3 over the Slim) hasn't affected the ability to hit 60fps in a LOT of games. dropping to say 1080p saves on the rendering time which, combined with all the physics and AI calculations handled by the CPU, mus be completed within 16.6ms to achieve 60fps. If it takes say 20ms to render at 4k, dropping to 1080p may save 10ms (or more) so it can get everything done within a much quicker time which can then boost frame rates BUT the CPU still has to do ALL the processing and instruct the GPU on what to draw and where these objects are. Greater draw distance affects the CPU because it has to track more objects and tell the GPU where they are. If the CPU is struggling to keep up with the AI, the Physics, the objects in the world, any particle effects and how they interact with everything etc and can't do that, as well as instruct the GPU on what to draw inside 16.6ms as well as the GPU being able to render and process that image at whatever resolution you are aiming for, then you will never get 60fps. Of course the bigger the image, the longer it will take for the GPU to draw that frame and one way to save time to boost frame rates is to reduce the image size. If it takes 20ms to draw and process a 4k image, dropping that down to 1080p will enable that GPU to render that frame much quicker. Its the same as 1 person digging a hole - it will take them much less time to dig a 'smaller' hole but they are waiting for someone to tell them where to dig and what shape that hole needs to be. The CPU is the brain and the GPU the artist. The brain in this gen isn't that 'quick' or that capable. Its why Just Cause 3 struggles to even hit 30fps on Pro/X because the physics is too much for it to calculate in enough time to hit the 33ms needed to hit 30fps. Its not the massive GPU (relative to the base consoles) that are bottlenecking!!

@nathanSF hush boi

I was hugely impressed and my other half was astounded by what she saw she couldnt believe it was a video game, now ND need to get this a release date so I can work out when to replay the first one on ps4