The recent Unreal Engine 5 demo has certainly left an impression. Running on a PlayStation 5, it was all real-time footage, captured while someone actually played through the thing. It was pretty much our first in-depth look at what Sony's next-gen console is capable of, and it was gorgeous.
But many have been quick to point out a potential concern with the demo. Not far into the video, the character squeezes through a tight gap in order to reach the next area, and as we all know, tight gap squeezing is usually a surefire sign that the game's masking a necessary loading screen.
Why is this a concern? Well, much has been said about the PS5's custom SSD, which, along with the rest of the system's build, allows for near instantaneous loading -- it's a huge selling point. And seeing what could be a disguised loading screen in our first PS5 tech demo doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
But according to Epic Games special projects technical director Jeff Farris, the featured gap squeeze was not a loading trick. Farris writes on Twitter: "The squeeze served several purposes for us (close-in detail, animation, audio, demo flow), but we did have a tiny worry that folks would think it was necessary to hide loading. It wasn’t." There you have it, then.
It's nice to get some clarification, especially since the conversation surrounding the supposed loading has rumbled on over the past few days to the point where people are making memes about it. Hopefully's Farris' tweet helps clear things up.
[source twitter.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 63
I was one of the worried folks.
Thanks for clarifying, Jeff!
Ohh thank god for the clarification
puts down pitchforks
Lol. People crack me up. She is literally flying around a massive environment later with physics based nonsense occurring everywhere. Didnt see her slip thru a crack there. Haters gon hate
The Internet is full of losers. You can't avoid them. Hell, one popped up on the Push Square article about Sony's Gravity Rush IP the other day. It's pathetic.
I've never been bothered by The Squeeze because it works as a good way to do big reveals, the empty wind-y corridor though? I am looking forward to that vanishing.
If they want to convince the remaining doubters that it isn't there for loading just do another run of the demo and remove the squeeze, it was a trigger volume and 2-4 meshes that'd be simple to move back to open that cave up so she could run straight though.
To be honest, I don't think I'd have made it through Resi 7 without those loading sections when you squeezed behind the wallspace etc. A brief respite for my heart rate to drop...
I remember the mud from Shadow of the Tomb Raider. If you manage to jump over it, the whole game freezes and has to load the next area lol.
Who genuinely thought it was? All I've seen the last few days online is that the majority have little idea how these things work and are too busy trying to bash one console or another to satisfy their own childish needs
I like them and hope they stay in next gen but with a larger variety of animations. The new Star Wars did a pretty good job.
I never used to mind gap squeezing in games until FFVIIR. It was stupidly noticable and I'm not even sure if it was necessary.
Didn't bother me. If you could guarantee all AAA will look and sound that good on the PS5 then I can live with squeezing through a few cracks!
Gamers gotta moan though.
🙄
@phil_j That's good design right there, aligning the game's mechanical needs with the player's via proper pacing.
The best games have been marrying the necessity of a load screen with useful game moments for some time. Fact is, some of the things we're used to seeing that hide load screens won't disappear no matter how fast that drive is. They'll just become conscious choices for dramatic effect instead of cleverly disguised necessary evils.
Has any of these people actual explored caves and ancient tombs? Of course there's places where it's going to be a tight squeeze.
It's probably the same people who think GoT has had a "downgrade" based off the streaming quality.
am i the only person who doesn't have ANY issue with this in games?
it's no different than holding a button to open a door or using a lift
@Nyne11Tyme Just so you know, being weary of PR statements doesn't make you a hater.
@phil_j I’m not convinced those are load screens. If you wear the X Ray glasses. Items show up in those Rooms before you squeeze through the walls.
This stuff never really bothers me while playing, you just keep moving forward, but having just finished watching my son play SWJFO, man there were a lot of those. And no fast travel meant going through them more than once on occasion. Though in hindsight I think it was always the same direction, can't recall ever backtracking through one, hmm? But there were a lot of them, and some of them took awhile. I'd be ok if they were gone. And slidling too, nobody wants to slidle anywhere, ever. Though the couple of times they used it in RotTR to highlight the undead army massing was kinda cool. So I guess everything has it' splace.
Ghost of Tsushima sold me w/ it's fast travel, I'm serious.
It's either have loading screens pop up between areas or use slow moving sections to mask the loading screens.
I have no problem with it. It keeps things seamless and doesn't disrupt the flow of the game, and the way games are pushing graphical boundaries and fidelity in games nowadays, developers need all the tricks up their sleeves.
Pretty sure most people commenting on this were joking (myself included)
Why would there need to be a loading screen a minute into a bloody demo??
@roe Some people were definitely serious.
I thought it was a thematic choice and shown to display the level of contextual AI. Or maybe something audio related.
People have too many time in theyre hands now.wtf.they complain about everything.word up son
@Octane ran into something like that in Jedi Fallen Order when I would realize I started going the wrong direction and had to turn around
People are questioning it because...epic.
@playstation1995 Mark Cerny appears on stage.
He says that games ever since the ps2 era had loading times integrated in the gameplay and developers had to create stages around that bottleneck.
He assures us that the ps5 won't have such things.
Epic shows a tech demo for the ps5 containing a scene which resembles said bottleneck.
I think some people were right to be weary.
But don't get me wrong, I'm happy it turned out to be a feature and not a flaw.
@Col_McCafferty games for many years have disguises loading times behind gameplay features.
When someone is able to recognise the use of one of these features in a ps5 tech demo for platform with no loading times, I think it is correct to query the use of said feature. Especially people working in the industry.
Maybe focus on the adults using the internet rather than whining kids, you might realise where these (i agree) over-reactions come from.
The salt from certain sections of the internet has been laughable... Good old Windows Central, (the ones with "sources" claiming failing ps5's,remember?),led the charge with "its only only 1440p, 30fps & no ray tracing"! Erm,yes and what was their point? It still blew away anything Xbox had been preaching about 12 teraflops ultimate power "render at approximate XBSX specs" nonsense, thus far!
@Mince Fair enough.
I was very impressed by the demo and if this is the future of gaming then count me in!
just there because someone has a perversion for caves at epic
Definitely a loading screen
If that squeeze was a load screen it would not be an annoying load for me.
Very impressive demo. Any info on if it is 30 fps or 60 fps.
I dont know why folks would be worried.
It's not like they are selling a second hand car and people have to question everything even if they dont know better. Why would they tell shameless lies?
This is the thing that made me excited for next gen. The end of the year can't come soon enough
@NoCode23
Why would it matter if its 30fps?
It's not a real game but a demo to showcase graphics. I don t get it.
Any next gen game with a slow down mechanic I will be avoiding! Don't give cahoots if it's a big franchise or not! Never ever did pacman had to stop midgame to present 5 seconds of eat-da-pill slowmo! Nor did zelda ever slowmo to cut down grass! Any more cracks and it'll crack me up!
More nonsense to rage over.
Developers should just put fake loading screens in their games and see how many people loose it. At this point they should just have some fun with gamers.
I would play that game regardless. Not assuming every game will have no loading come Jan 2021.
I understand the skepticism. We've been fooled by tech demos before.
I mean it clearing wasn't there hiding a loading screen. And if it was it's one of the shortest I've seen. People clearly have way to much time on their hands these days.
@teknium_ I don't know much about Epic but I take it from your comment that they can't be trusted.
I want this to be an actual game. Sort of Tomb Raider or Uncharted but in a really awesome fantasy world and the main character has magical tattoos? Yes please.
@Col_McCafferty It was impressive, I hope it comes sooner than later. I also look forward to seeing animation graphics, like little nightmare. I know media has suggested it Could be years away, but who knows!!
@Nickolaidas I think you mean wary or leery, not weary.
And what if a load screen were to be hidden behind it? What would’ve been done about it? I dunno man, seems like this coming gen is gonna be full of gaming fans who are worse than Star Wars fans. Every little meaningless thing becomes a “controversy”.
Do you know what's better than hiding load screens? Literal load screens. Seriously, just give me a fat HL2 loading bar. If people can see through it so transparently, I don't know why developers keep trying to misdirect.
With respect to the "squeeze", if that wasn't loading, I don't have a clue why it existed. Is doing these bits actually interesting to anybody?
@FullbringIchigo I don't have an issue with if it's there because the devs want it there, but I'd rather it not be there if it's just to hide a loading screen and the devs wouldn't have it otherwise. so it's perfectly fine here.
@Mitsui Well, maybe, but there are about a dozen ways you can achieve that effect. Purposely slowing the player down in a situation where the only input they give is to move forward or backward just doesn't sound fun to me. I also don't trust any big developers these days, so I'll believe it doesn't hide a loading screen when I can confirm it personally.
@doctommaso Indeed. Thanks!
@Nyne11Tyme
Spot on! The last section of flying shows the PS5 hard drive can do want it claims it can do!
@1_W1NG3D_4NG3L Did you bother to watch Cerny's speech? He made it clear how hardware limitations were restraining developers and forcing them to create an entire stage according to said limitations.
Did it ever occur to you that the devs may never wanted a cave with narrow gaps every now and then?
What memes are you talking about I did a search for memes on this and nothing came up
@1_W1NG3D_4NG3L I can assure you the majority of gamers would be ok with caves in games not having narrow passages.
But no reason to keep at this. We both made our points.
@Nickolaidas Don't speak on behalf of gamers. That's a tad arrogant mate.
Didn't bother me in the slightest plus if you want more realism than guess what, caves have tight spaces and passages which to navigate!
What a load of old fuss over nothing. The so-called gaming community continues to find ways to embarrass itself.
🙄
@Col_McCafferty Okay.
I'm going to use a different example to understand where you are totally missing the point. By a mile.
Lets assume that Cerny comes up and says that the PS5 will be not have a game where the screen will have less than 4 billion polygons at the same time. It's going to have 4 billion +. Always.
Then they show a demo where the game screen has 3 billion polygons.
Some guys say "Hey, you said that the game screen will not have less than 4 billion polygons - what's the deal?"
Then comes a guy like you who says "It never bothered me if games have less than 4 billion polygons in screen - gamers are so spoiled these days eye roll "
It's not about whether it bothers you or not. It's about a statement from the lead architect coming into question. (which admittedly turned out to be a false alarm)
Can you grasp the difference?
@Nickolaidas Yes I get it BUT I still don't care.
Anyway, maybe they really just wanted to show a close up of the rocks. Maybe this is all a load of fuss over nothing.
@Col_McCafferty That's exactly what Epic said it was.
Again, it was proven to be a false alarm.
All I'm saying is that people who heard 'no more load times' had a right to - y'know what? I'm going in circles now.
@lacerz @ me if you have problems with me, instead of calling me (or any of the other people who pointed out your twisted, fanboyish logic, as I wasn't the only one) a loser, otherwise you will look like one.
It's easy to manipulate things in your favor when they're out of context, isn't it?
But hey, anything to make yourself look better, right?
That's really low and cowardly, especially considering that this article and "outcry" has nothing to do with that argument.
Wow.. who would be so daft as to think that?? How many games have people squeezing through areas? lol Suddenly we've forgotten standard game data streaming and we've jumped back to loading chunks of data like 15 years ago? With a brand-new engine like Unreal 5?? Who would think something so dumb??
Oh those silly flat-earthers think everything is a conspiracy!!
Did people not see the last sequence of the demo? Of course it wasnt for loading.
@clvr
Peace man. You started it. Man up if you don't like being challenged over calling people "butthurt". It's stupid and immature. Grow up.
By the way, I got the opportunity to visit Italy in October before the world went to ISH. Lovely country. I was in Sorrento. Drove the Amalfi Coast. Tried to visit Naples, but the parking was non-existent. Driving is insanely stressful in metros. Finished my trip in Rome. Didn't drive...took the subway and buses. Beautiful country.
@lacerz again, you "man up" if you can't take on another person's opinion from beyond a screen. I wonder what you'd do IRL.
Pretty hypocritical coming from someone who didn't even reply to me on the last comment where the argument actually was, and then felt the need to insult me publicly in another, completely unrelated thread without even tagging me.
"Man up if you don't wanna be challenged": yeah and you maybe let me know if I am. You're not challenging anyone if you don't even have the balls to me tag me when you call me a loser publicly. Now that is stupid and immature, I don't think you're in the position to lecture anyone.
If anyone needs to grow a pair, it's you, you pathetic coward.
I didn't have a problem with you after that argument: it was all good for me and I had absolutely no ill will towards you, but this really is low.
Again, if you had something to say to me there was an appropriate place and time, not this sycophantic, like-begging, demagogic tripe you spewed out to make yourself look good at my expense. Wanna do that? Ok, but go all the way and tag me, otherwise shut the hell up.
And don't even try buttering me up. I'm not even in that part of Italy for the record.
@lacerz wow, what a thoughtful reply. Silly me for expecting anything meaningful from such a lowly person.
If you wanna play that game, "man up" if you can't get over being told that you sound butthurt, cause it sure sounds like you still haven't from the looks of it.
I won't reply anymore, by the way, since it's clear that you can't handle an argument but have to resort to cowardice and childish replies.
The gameplay can't all be as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog Poor Haters trying very hard to find something to ruin a good PlayStation week
@Nyne11Tyme
add to that the distance of the horizon and all the huge amount of geometry she was flying past at breakneck speeds and not ,one,single, pop-up.
That should have been enough to take that worry away in the very same vid indeed.
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