The hot-button topic at the moment is cross-gen, and Sony’s decision to release games like God of War Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7 on the PlayStation 4 as well as the PS5. Many feel that, in addition to being misled by the platform holder, these games can’t possibly reach their full potential while still being shackled to ancient hardware. Mathijs de Jonge, the director on Horizon Forbidden West, disagrees.
“I don’t think the cross-generation development was limiting in any way,” he told Singapore News Live. “When we started with the concept of this game, we had so many great ideas that ended up being included – to the point that we didn’t really think about hardware limitations or anything, we just wanted to design a really nice, unique experience for the player. An awesome adventure.”
He continued: “That’s how we also brainstormed all the quests and events the player is going to go through. I think that the big delta between these two consoles – apart from the 3D audio, quick loading, and DualSense, of course – is on the graphical side of things. On the PS5, we can add so much more detail graphically. We can see the tiny hairs on Aloy’s face, for example. You can also see a ton of detail from far away.”
De Jonge added that there are some outrageous visual effects that will be present only in the PS5 version, including the existence of moss on rocks. “Each individual strand of moss is rendered individually,” he exclaimed. “So, this machine is so powerful, and it can add so much more detail to the image. I think that’s one of the biggest deltas, next to the processing power of the machine. We also use it for a specific lighting rig. This is a cinematic lighting rig that we normally only have time to use in cinematics. Because the PS5 is so much more powerful, we have it on all the time. During gameplay, there’s a very high-quality rendering and lighting system on a lot. So there are all these extra features that make the game look even better.”
To be fair, de Jonge is somewhat expected to toe the corporate line here, so he was never going to say that the game is being held back by the existence of the PS4 version. However, even if he’s carefully picking his words, we trust the director of the project more than your average forum poster. At the end of the day, he’s saying that cross-gen or not, Guerrilla Games is making the sequel it always intended to make. And if you’re planning to play on PS5, you’ll be getting all the bells and whistles – including a Performance Mode.
[source singaporenewslive.com]
Comments 103
Man, I dunno.
If he's really telling me that, graphics etc aside, all their ideas for the game were included on both consoles, then it doesn't sound like they were very ambitious.
Of course, I know nothing and the game isn't even out yet but this is my read on this.
Other than flying mounts of course.
Sounds like Xbox Smart Delivery.
Yes it has. Obviously. The entire game was designed around an old architecture. Being able to stream entire worlds on the fly, rendering only what’s on camera at any given time is, as an example, now a possibility. But not if you have to rely on the hard drive, cpu and throughput of the PS4.
If this was a true next gen game, they wouldn’t be wasting power rendering individual strains of moss on rocks, they can do that because advances on ps5 are limited to visuals and loading.
Now, it’s possible that it would take devs time to get to grips with the new architecture, so these initial games would be more evolution than revolution anyway, but I’m sure compromises have been made and opportunities for learning lost.
@nessisonett @munstre "We are aware that this feature is very, very high on the wishlists of many gamers, but I cannot confirm or deny anything about this. I can only talk about what’s in the actual gameplay demo that we showed."
Watch this space.
Well, I wasn’t sold on PS5 (or next gen in general) but... moss... on rocks... I’m in! 🤣
£500 well spent.
That's a lie, can ps4 render horizon 2 while aloy flying with bird machine? Of course not, that's why ps5 can't have that feature too 😕
£450 well spent if I can see Aloy's hairy face; plus my moss fetish is going to be in good hands.
Hoooo boy. Fake internet outrage about "why can't PS4 have moss on rocks as a texture" (Mossgate) in 3, 2, 1...
I'll repeat it again.
Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.
Morrowind on the OG Xbox essentially allowed you to fly around everywhere. Bethesda removed it for Oblivion on 360 because it turns out that flying passed all the encounters wasn't exactly engaging, and broke the game.
The PS4 could have had flying mounts if it was a priority for the devs. People need to stop thinking that stuff like this is limited by hardware and not by good game design.
As I explained yesterday, flying mounts sound cool but might not make sense in the general flow of the game. People honestly need to bloody chill. As long as the game's good it shouldn't matter whether it's on PS4 or not.
@Richnj That wasn't the actual reason - if it was they'd have removed invisibility magic and stealth as well. Even in Skyrim you can go into stealth right in front of someone and end combat with a high enough skill. They could've just made flying require a higher skill or only be accessible late game.
@Matroska what was the actual reason then?
@Richnj Hear, hear, and what I wanted to say.
So, because 3D is possible, no game should be made in 2D anymore? Because offline is possible all games should be online only? Because more realistic graphics are possible, we should stop making cell-shaded or cartoon style games? Because motion control is possible, all games should be motion control?
I've been playing Frozen Wilds, and having flying mounts in there would definitely ruin a lot of the gameplay. Sure, they might think of a workaround for that, but maybe... they don't want to?
I know that's kind of a hard thing for gamers to swallow: that devs make the game according to their own vision and not the "holy" gamer's.
The assumption that because of the power of the PS5 and the speed of its SSD it means that from now on every game will be revolutionary in their game design is a dangerous one to have. You are all setting up yourself for a big disappointment.
Breath of the Wild won GOTY and inspired a lot of game that came out and will come out on a mobile SoC barely more powerful than a PS3. Power isn't everything.
@Richnj Well bear in mind, they could've merely removed flying but left the towns like they were in Morrowind; not separated by loading zones. Morrowind had towns without loading zones, but they were much simpler towns with less NPCs and worse AI for them, so the OG Xbox could handle it. The 360 is more powerful but Oblivion has much larger, more complex towns, way more NPCs with more complex behaviour and night/day cycles. Clearly too much for consoles to handle then, and Bethesda said Oblivion targeted consoles then was ported to PC, the opposite to Morrowind.
Because they had to have towns in separate load zones, flying obviously couldn't be allowed or you'd be blocked midair outside towns by invisible walls, peering over into an empty, blocky version of what was meant to be there, with no NPCs.
Well i hope since they develop it on ps4 / ps5 and its a cross gen title they wont charge us $70 for the ps5 version.
@The_New_Butler As in, the game would struggle with flying with the level of detail the game has. There are games that have you fly around a map on PS4, they just tend to have a lower level of graphical fidelity.
And are we going to listen to GG when they say that the HDD was the limiting factor, but not listen to them when they say HFW wasn't limited by cross gen?
And what IF HFW turns out to have flying mounts?. As pointed out, they've not confirmed or denied the mechanic. I'd wager they are testing it to see how it works with the game.
And isn't there a glitch that let's you fly in the first game?
This is a PS4 game and should be treated as such which is fine, there's great ps4 games out there but it shouldn't be lumped in with actual PS5 games like Demon's Souls or Rift Apart.
@The_New_Butler @Richnj and like I've mentioned on another article, Guerilla started developping HZD at the start of the PS4 generation, they did not have access to current compression/decompression method that have made TLOU II and Ghost of Tsushima so quick to load, it might be entirely possible to make flyable mount on PS4 right now. There's always a gap between the start and end of a generation. Let's wait and see what they have in store before accusing the PS4 of holding features because ot its hardware.
@Texan_Survivor What do you expect the CPU, GPU and SSD to 'bring' to the table?
A faster GPU can push the visual quality, Lighting quality (Ray Tracing is an improvement to 'lighting' - whatever its used for - GI, Shadows, Reflections etc) and effects much more and/or boost the resolution too in a single 'frame', the CPU can call in more objects, process more particle effects, more physics (and that could be something like more complex destruction with smaller pieces of debris and more particles). The SSD can transfer many more higher quality assets with much higher quality textures. Audio too is improved with full 3D Surround Sound.
Not 'every' game is going to warp you from one world to the next to the next to take full advantage of SSD's. We have had Open World Games for years that 'stream' in assets for the immediate section with NO visible loading. You can run from one side of a Map to another with no Loading, no streaming issues etc. What SSD's allow is that those 'areas' can now be packed with more 'higher' quality Assets, higher quality Textures so Level of Detail is pushed dramatically up. Not only that, you can make the view appear much more complex and dense. A good example is the Witcher 3 on Switch vs PC where Foliage density and Complexity is severely scaled back for Switch. Fast travel can be 'instantaneous' with SSD's - so not only are you getting much higher complexity, density, resolution, Level of Detail, lighting effects, animation, physics, etc etc, you are getting all that loaded in and playing much much quicker.
SSD's aren't necessarily going to end the 'elevator' scenes for example as these can be important for exposition - like a Cut-scene can be used for exposition but also hide some background loading for the 'next' game-play section. We saw in UE5 PS5 demo where the character transitioned from inside a Cave to a more outdoor scene - often used to stream in assets, but sometimes, caves have narrow cracks to crawl through.
Its understandable why R&C isn't coming to PS4. Its not that it 'couldn't' run on a PS4, its just that it wouldn't be 'fun' to play and fit the Story as well. No one wants to be stuck in a Rift for 30+s waiting for the next area to load into RAM and I am sure the Story would make some references to being in one place one second and another place the next. The actual Game-play isn't any different from countless other R&C games - just looks like the visual quality of the Assets and Lighting have improved...
It would get real boring, real quick if 'every' game suddenly had 'Rifts' jumping you from one environment into another different environment - just because SSD's allow you to load that much 'data' in that quickly. Its likely to be much more subtle - like having many more assets at much higher quality and much further away from the camera. Distant trees could be actual 3D polygon trees instead of a 2D billboard used because HDDs can't stream that much Data, GPU can't cope with that many polygons, CPU can't decompress the files quick enough and by the time you get to that tree, its going to be replaced by a better quality asset anyway...
@Matroska Oblivion had less NPCs than Morrowind. Their goal with Oblivion was to make it more focused and detailed than Morrowind was, which informed their design choices regarding everything else.
Game design isn't more hardware more features. It's a balance of what works for your game.
@munstre the regalia in FFXV I guess, though the world isn’t that big
@munstre GTA V ? (well granted that was a PS3 game at first), the Just Cause games ? RAGE 2 ? Spider-Man (well it isn't really flying.)
Still don't get the whining unless some people feel cheesed off that they're not truly part of the PS5 'elite' club if us PS4 peasants get to play the same game.
It's still going to be absolutely magical on PS5 and turn PS4s into mini jet engines!
what the hell else would they say? lol
Some of the comments on here.
🤦
@Richnj Might have had less in total but there were towns in MW where you couldn't see any NPCs it was so sparsely populated. But even more than that, it comes down to how MW had to be installed on the HDD in the Xbox but IIRC Microsoft didn't want forced installs on 360 (if you remember, people criticised the PS3 for doing that). Oblivion had to be designed to work when loaded off the 360 disc drive (much slower than a HDD), MW was designed for PC where it could run at HDD speed, hence the Xbox version needing to be installed.
So it's actually the same as this HDD vs SSD thing now with HFW.
You can’t blame them in the current cost climate and shortages situation.
I think for all consoles this will be the longest generational cross over ever known in console gaming.
Welcome to Xbox my PS5 friends and being honest well done so far Sony for producing some great exclusives at launch and now.
As a PS5 owner, I look forward to seeing the moss. Man, the privilage
I don't think this means much either way. He's not going to say 'Yes Horizon was held back by being developed for the PS4'. It's like when football managers get asked if they're happy with the new transfers - they always say yes, even when they go on to bench the new guy for a year.
Guerrilla, visually your new game looks absolutely incredible, one of the best I’ve ever seen in fact! It’s a marvel of technical ingenuity. Unfortunately it’s just not good enough 🤪
I don’t believe you lol
Lots of armchair devs in the comments today… funniest highlight is some still cling to PS5 supposedly being RDNA2…
@The_New_Butler a lot of things seems impossible at the start of the generation, rhat's why end of generations games are usually a big leap from the game of the start and middle of the generation. Just look at Uncharted 1 and The Last of Us, same hardware. I'm sure rhey were a lot of things cut from Uncharted 1 that made it in Uncharted 3.
@The_New_Butler Then they should ask Ubisoft what black magic they used to put planes in the Far Cry games.
I guess all those 2060 out there are holding back PC games on my 3080 🙄
Publishers take advantage of top spec hardware and still deliver a game to lower end hardware all the time (for decades now).
You just do not see the sliders on consoles.
I don’t see what the fuss is about. Project started on PS4 and was always intended to release on that platform. What do you want, for them to cancel the PS4 version just to please the early adopters?
It’s exactly what Colin Moriarty had said a year ago, before even the announcement. Same for the new God of War.
I am totally okay with this.
@The_New_Butler HZD was mid gen, there is still a lot of changes between midgen and end of gen, again Ghost of Tsushima, an open world game is capable of loading the game in mere seconds on the old PS4 hardware and the devs said they slowed it down.
Guerilla Games probably learned a LOT when making their first open world and we will see how much they've learnt since HFW will be released on PS4 aswell. What might have seemed impossible when they made HZD might not be now.
"Ehrmagerd! They are lyyyyke so totally lying and I knowz it!" I expected a few to come out with this but there are many more people with this reaction than I thought. I think it would be slightly better developed only with one console in mind, it would get more time so that's natural. It's like I thought, though, it's not just a little polish they're giving and then saying it's a ps5 game and it's obvious they've taken what they were able to do on. The ps4 and then add to it greatly with the ps5. Cross gen has always and will always be a thing and it usually does last 2 years. If you don't understand that, you should probably get a PC build.
The game will be amazing on either platform there will definitely be concessions to make it a PS4 game. Otherwise what is the point of PS5 existing.
This situation has never happened before. A year into a new console generation there should not be shared games but with added moss and hair to demonstrate the difference.
@Jayofmaya Which PS3 launch games were made cross gen with PS2? Which PS4 launch games were made with PS3 in mind??
@munstre GTA5, Spider-Man, Miles Morales are instantly popping in my mind after reading your comment. You really didn't think this through.
@__jamiee https://www.ign.com/wikis/playstation-4/PlayStation_4_Launch_Titles
You can check liist here. There are many you will see which also released on ps3 simultaneously.
Dragon Age Inquisition, The Evil Within are favourites of mine since you see to count an entire year being launch titles. As for ps2 and ps3 honestly can't remember and there are no dedicated lists because no one cares really. I've seen plenty in the past, though.
@munstre I agree that Horizon has a bit more detail in it than Spider-Man but you can't just dismiss it. You are shooting yourself across the city and landing whenever and it's loading everything in just fine. Horizon will be able to do it if they scale back detail on ps4 and sure, they can have all those extra details and flying mount if they want. I just don't see why everyone is saying it is impossible to have this because of ps4 when that's just not true.
I couldn't think of any game mechanic that wouldn't be possible on previous console generations. I think PS5 owners have unrealistic expectations for the next-gen.
@BrainHacker Personally I was expecting some full on Ready Player One level immersion but I guess that's not happening since it's cross-gen.
Jokes aside, I'm more curious about the release date than anything else.
@Texan_Survivor
In regards to your point #2, Horizon II started development in 2017 I believe. It was originally either intended to be a PS4 title or crossgen, but not a next-gen only game as the PS5 hardware was not developed yet. Guerrilla have been working on this sequel for the last 4 years.
somebody's pants are on fire
The new PS5 Master Race, being held back by console and PC peasants.
Flying mounts? Really? Play Xenoblade Chronicles X on WiiU if you want to see what is and isn’t possible in an open-world game on older technology.
Innovation happens in design and is enabled by technology, not the other way around. As we recently learned, Portal’s innovation was technically achievable on an N64.
tl;dr the lowest common denominator is not the technology, but the audience.
@BrainHacker The loading in Ratchet & Clank could definitely lead to some innovate gameplay, but in that title it looks very scripted and not really impacting gameplay.
I imagine a 3D The Messenger or the Titanfall 2 stage (you know the one) kind of something really utilizing it, or having the jump-cuts in Virginia being possible in a high-fidelity interactive environment.
Truly having entire game worlds as create/destructible as physics objects are today should lead to something that could be as significant a jump as disc streaming technologies allowing open-worlds over zones that might only be achievable with Sony’s SSD tech currently, but it’s going to take a lot more imagination than AAA tends to have.
@Texan_Survivor All that stuff is likely true, but it begs the question - how? How was Horizon 2 supposed to be better than it is now? And please don’t say flying mounts.
You will have flying mounts on both consoles, but if you try to ride it on PS4, it will just pop up a screen for you to order a PS5 in order to continue the ride on PS5.
It was probably developed specifically for PS4 in the first place
Sounds like a repeat of Cyberpunk…
I really dislike when game devs make statements like this. Of course cross gen limits the game in some ways - these are the type of blanket statements that end up coming back to bite you
@zupertramp Tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if that is what the next-gen adopters are expecting from HFW lol.
@Spiders The dimensional jump of RC Rift Apart actually look like a cutscene that is being rendered in real time. It's an impressive usage of the PS5's "magical SSD" but the PS4 version of it could just have the same dimensional jump, albeit pre-rendered and it would still be the same game.
I'm not sure what kind of revolutionary game mechanic or feature the next-gen adopters are expecting from Sony developers. HFW is exactly what I expected it to be. It will have higher texture resolution and framerates, and new combat and traversal mechanic. It's the same game but better overall.
Sooooo.... Cerny lied, the PS5 doesn't offer anything to improve gameplay, and it really is just a PS4 Pro Plus with an SSD and better video card?
It's not about not crawling through cracks on walls, physics, AI improvements, bigger, seamless worlds with more density and environment dynamism. It's about rendering Every. Single. Moss Strand.
Nevermind that PS4 has a tablet CPU that was obsolete in 2013. Game design just doesnt need more than that on PS5!
Sigh I really wish they'd cut the spin to the point if contradicting their own marketing and just be honest. "We're making hfw for PS4 so more people can play the story and because we started development before anyone even knew Spider-Man existed." Honest, and good spin. "We're making hfw for PS4 because we can't think of any reason a game needs more than a decade old tablet processor and PS5 is only good for rendering every hair in detail", not really honest, and kind of torpedoes their own marketing strategies to try to damage control. Bad spin.
But if we're REALLY honest, of course PS4 isn't holding the game design back. The i5 1ghz, gt5xx, 4gb system ram, and 7200rpm HDD minimum system requirements are reason enough to stick with old design for maximizing the PC release to the largest Steam market is enough reason.
PS5 is nice hardware, but they really need to decide if it's a revolution or a new GPU upgrade.
@get2sammyb Im betting there will be flying mounts both on ps4 and 5. I trust Guerilla will pull this off. Just like R* who in the past have created fantastic routines and compression of data to pull off the rediculous amount of stuff in GTA5 back on the PS3 and forward. Its challenges like this which drives the devs to excel.
@munstre To be fair, apart from being next to impossible on the PS4, I can see a lot of reasons why you wouldn't include flying mounts. It would take a whole different approach to level design and progression in the game. That being said, it would be sweet as hell if you would get access to flying mounts as a reward for finishing the game. I can imagine spending hours just flying around taking in the sights. Not to mention people would go crazy with the photo mode.
So basically a PS4 game with shinier graphics. As expected.
They’re acting like the only improvement in the console is better graphics. But everything from the level design to the music could be improved if they didn’t have to make it so base PS4’s could run it.
@Col_McCafferty because it’s just not going to be as good as it could be. And if you ever upgrade to a PS5 (but why would you?) you will be disappointed that they wasted a horizon, god of war and gran tourismo on yet another game for an old console that has tons of games and you have nothing to play that actually uses the new features you were sold on.
@Oriion No, difference with that was that cyberpunk was made for the highest end PC. It shouldn’t have been and wasn’t originally planned to be, but someone got all excited about what they could do with the latest technology and completely exposed the PS4 for what it is.
I’d be okay with that. Make it so ‘play PS4 at your own risk but this is a next gen game designed for next gen, you can upgrade it when you get a PS5’ would be fine.
But right now we’re just getting PS4 games with graphics updates.
@Justin113 You don't know that though, neither does anybody else. It's all just speculation on your part.
People expected an overnight revolution when really it will be steady evolution this gen. Throwing their toys out of their prams yet again.
I have a PS4 but in all honesty I don't really want to play HFW on it because I know that compared to the PS5 version it will suck.
PS5 owners seem to think we'll be getting a great experience on PS4 and it will only be mildly slightly improved on PS5. I bet you the differences will be far bigger than what is currently known. Unless you think they've revealed all their secrets already?
I don't get some gamers and their constant need to bitch and whine about every little thing. This hobby seems to only generate displeasure in many on this and other sites.
😒
@Texan_Survivor Nah, GTA 4/5 had smarter AI than Cyberpunk. Newer hardware doesn't necessarily equate to newer experiences. Innovation on gaming mechanics/design still depends on the game developers and not solely on the hardware.
Even if we look at TLOU and the Uncharted series transition from PS3 to PS4. There is nothing revolutionary on each sequel in terms of game design. It is still the same game with newer and better mechanics. But I don't remember anyone crying about it because those games are still good nonetheless.
@Jayofmaya These aren't first party titles that were supposed to be PS4 exclusives. Was Killzone Shadow Fall available on PS3? No. Because it would have had to have been severely limited to run on PS3 at all.
Horizon and GoW are basically PS4 games with added sparkle. That shouldn't be happening a year after PS5 has launched.
This whole generation has a whiff of the Emperor's New Clothes about it.
I love Guerrilla games to death but I call BS and here is why. The game was developed for PS4. If it was developed for PS5 they probably had coop in their as they wanted that for the first game but weren't able as they had to sacrifice the visuals. It's a PS4 game with an added PS5 update for visuals but level design and gameplay are for an 8 year old console. That is fine but they should have mentioned that and not introduce the game as a next gen game.
@The_New_Butler "They literally said it was something they couldn't do on PS4. They said that, not me."
While it's true one developer DID say that, I always read his statement more as if it wasn't possible within scope or budget more than it wasn't technically possible.
Many other open world games have flying and stream in assets, it just would have taken a LOT of work and some sacrifices. e.g. creating new systems to handle different LODs, sacrificing speed, detail or draw distance in the air etc. That doesn't mean they lied either, there's more nuance to speech, words have multiple meanings and it doesn't have to always be so literal.
@Richnj "Then they should ask Ubisoft what black magic they used to put planes in the Far Cry games." While I completely agree with your point, Far Cry used a horrible "lets blur everything to give an impression of speed, even though we're traveling at a snails pace, and also hide the low poly and low texture in air models"
@Texan_Survivor You are NOT wrong about any of those - but that's not the whole truth either.
Point 1: The Jaguar CPU is the 'weak' link and why many games are capped at 30fps because its not that 'fast' in the world of CPU's. Also the PS4 uses the CPU for decompression and audio - both of which are now offloaded to a separate area on the PS5 APU.
Therefore the Devs are quite limited - things like AC:Unity, Just Cause 4 and even Rise of the Tomb Raider hit CPU limitations - either because of too many unique AI models and objects, too much 'physics' on destructions or just more CPU intensive so even a Pro/XB1X struggle to hit 60fps at lower res.
The SSD can have a big impact on game and level design BUT that doesn't mean that ALL games will suddenly be completely different. They may not 'need' transition areas to allow enough time to 'stream' the next area in, but sometimes, that design makes sense for narrative, for realism etc. One advantage is that you can 'fill' the screen with much higher quality assets and do so much much quicker.
As for AMD saying RDNA2 is 2.25 faster, that is helpful to process all those higher quality Assets in much quicker time. Going from 30fps to 60fps means that the CPU, GPU and Streaming assets has to be done in much less time. Each 'frame' has to be delivered in 16.6ms. Assuming that NO changes are made to the PS4 version, to go from 1080/30 to 4k/60 requires a big leap. The GPU is essentially doing 8x the work. The CPU and data streaming at the very least must be doing 2x the work as its double the frame rate.
Now add in much higher quality assets and more of them - that puts a massive increase on the data that has to be streamed in, All that puts extra work on the CPU too, calling in objects, telling the GPU what to draw, Improve particles, physics, tessellation etc. That, as well as improvements to Lighting (Shadows, Reflections, Global Illumination) is going really tax the GPU.
That's without considering Loading times and Fast Travel - which can take 'minutes' on some big open world games.
As for games like GT7, what do you think they could do that wouldn't work on a PS4? GTS was a stunning game but apart from improvements to lighting (RT), loading and perhaps more cars on track, the game could be scaled down to PS4. It wouldn't be the first 'multi-generational' game to have different numbers.
Whilst I am not disputing that 'some' of these aspects of the next gen Hardware could lead to games being designed that couldn't work on PS4, there will be others that can/could be scaled down. R&C could be scaled down - if they were OK to release a game where players are stuck in Rifts for 30s or so - the rest of the game-play doesn't look vastly different from all the other R&C games - with obvious Asset and Audio improvements and of course the DS5 implementation. Demon Souls released on PS5 only - yet was designed with PS3 hardware in mind.
Point is that the 'new' hardware at its core is designed to 'improve' the gaming experience at higher resolutions than the previous generation. The SSD is more about transferring a LOT more data much faster to increase Level of Detail, objects etc, reduce/eliminate pop-in of objects/textures and improve loading times - make fast travel 'Fast'. Yes it could lead to changes in game design, but can also be used to take a 'current' gen game and take it to a next gen visual with next gen playability and quality of life improvements
Gotta say, really getting sick of game developers and now apparently push Square writers talking down to us like we are stupid. The implication that making these games cross gen won't hold them back in ANY WAY, is beyond ridiculous
@get2sammyb Could game journos and game developers stop talking to us like we are morons. To say you trust a company spokesman more than forum comments in regards to holding back next gen games us beyond ridiculous. It is BLATANTLY obvious and unavoidable that making a game cross gen limits that game, its that simple.
@themightyant you're right, it's a good point, bad example.
Though I'd argue that low textures and low polygons are acceptable in these circumstances. Obviously distance from the assets will hide much of the mush until you get close anyway, and any flying mechanic will be speed limited because 1) it would break gameplay to be too fast, 2) it would be too fast for a player to enjoy or maybe control, and 3) if your goal is to create a super fast travel system, then fast travel may be a better option (which again, is a mechanic which an SSD greatly improves, but isn't dependent on).
@Texan_Survivor I expect game developers to talk down to us like we are stupid, but when game journalists start to do it to by saying they trust a company spokesman more than fans in regards to the limitations of cross gen games, we'll that's just patronising us to a whole new level.
So anything about level design and stuff Mr. Cerny talked about a whole hour, has been bs then?
@Col_McCafferty so far all cross gen games with the exception of one, have been upscaled from the last gen. Bringing PS5 down rather than PS4 up.
Where is the haptic feedback for example, or the improved AI? It’s non existence. We simply get graphics and frame improvements. Because for the game to run well on PS4 thats all they can do. Otherwise it ends up like Cyberpunk. And companies aren’t going to want to risk all the abuse and damage to their reputation that CDPR got from current gen owners expecting their base PS4 to run it the same as a high end PC.
I hope you’re right personally. I hope Horizon explodes peoples PS4s and is a fantastic next gen experience. But I’m sure it will just be another limited PS4 game with prettier graphics. We’re stuck with TLOU2 as the benchmark quality until people start making exclusives. It’s the maximum a PS4 can run.
And Halo Infinite isn't limited by the Xbox One... Really wish these people would just be honest for once.
From the graphics POV it's clear it will be more detailed on PS5 and less detailed on PS4... i'm no expert at "game making" but a cosmetic change seems easier to achieve than a base, "support pillar" feature like loading times.
So what I'm pretty sure it won't include is full SSD support, to take advantage of the super fast loading times the PS5 offers. Not unless they do separate versions, one for PS4 designed to load from HDD/SATA SSD and one for PS5 that makes full use of it's integrated NVMe SSD. Which they won't do.
So my guess is it'll end up like AC Odyssey which loads at almost the same speed no matter the platform you play it on (even the PC version installed on the latest PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD with a high end CPU to handle the processing, loads the game only marginally faster than a PS4 PRO with a SATA SSD).
@The_New_Butler "They were either talking rubbish or lying. No other options."
That's a false dichotomy, the world is far more nuanced. It's not as boolean, or regressive, as only having just two options.
Shades of grey in most things.
@thefourfoldroot Exactly. It makes no sense to use part of your frame budget on rendering individual moss threads what so ever. The only reason they would do that is because the PS5 is not pushed to its limit with the rest of the scene, and this would be easy and cool to try. If it was not limited by PS4, some of the scenarios should, would, and could be completely different from what we are used to. Like amazing flight combat scenes for example.
I'm really not against a PS4 version honestly. And I fully respect it will take another few years before we see the full potential of PS5. But to say there hasn't been compromises is just ... Well wrong.
That said. I'm sure it's gonna be a really good game, and I look forward to it
@The_New_Butler I was trying, and failed, to find the original developer statement to confirm EXACTLY what they did say, rather than the hearsay version that's circumnavigated the internet a few times. I think it was a GDC talk. Did they say it was "impossible" and was that the only interpretation?
As I said MY interpretation at the time was that it wasn't possible within scope or budget more than it wasn't technically possible.
It likely could have been viewed as "impossible" in the game engine as it was and with the time given. But I have no doubt that the talented devs at Guerilla could have solved all the problems and created a flying mount had they really wanted to and had the time/budget to attack the problem in depth. Many other open world games managed it so why couldn't they?
What I did find is this GDC talk where they talked about similar and relevant things including things that weren't possible on PS4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wavnKZNSYqU
E.g. the the shaders used on the Grass and why most of it DOESN'T react to Aloy - it tanked the CPU.
Yet the Snow did deform in the DLC, by then, and given more time they created a new system to handle this that wasn't as taxing.
This is relevant in that having these sort of additional systems is something that they are doing on PS5. Some features and additional systems will be PS5 only, the PS4 won't get them. Which is what they mean when they say the PS5 game isn't held back by the PS4's limitations.
@Talon_Zanarkand I'm sure we WILL see some games developed as per Cerny's talk. But that was never going to happen in the first year or two of launch.
I remember similar complaints in the early years of PS4. "most games look worse than The Last of Us" or "It's a minor upgrade, perhaps a little sharper but not the leap I was expecting". Then a few years in the games actually developed with the PS4 from the beginning started dropping.
These changes don't happen overnight and for a game to TRULY be built from the ground up to take advantage of new tech takes time, including devs, experimenting, learning new tools and processes etc. We won't see those (AAA) games until several years after the consoles release.
@Tharsman Because it is Rdna 2. Look on AMDs website... Or any of the other various sources
@Talon_Zanarkand you don't know that to be true. Insomniac, for example, has completely different technologies and strategies at work for how hair is rendered for ps4 and ps5 versions of Miles Morales. It's not simply higher res. Game engines have to be completely reworked to take advantage of the new hardware. These games you all are complaining about started development a while ago.
@__jamiie So, first party is the criteria you wanted to specify. I understand now. Resogun and LBP3 are the only ones that instantly comes to mind now and they've been mentioned already. I'm sure there are some ps3/2 ones, though. Memory doesn't serve that well, though.
@__jamiie Just had a look and also Entwined, Helldivers and MLB The Show (all of them basically) are ps3 and ps4 developed games by Sony.
@Texan_Survivor That should be true, but remains to be seen. There’s examples of games with better AI in the PS2 era than anything going forward - it comes down to what publishers want to do, and maybe I’m just being cynical but so don’t believe any AAA game is going to prioritize anything over graphics, no matter what opportunities they have. So sure they could have, but doesn’t mean they would. Single-strand moss seems to be the priority.
@AdamNovice I agree 100%. I read another comment somewhere that pointed out that that the map isn't THAT big. Flying mounts would make this a lot more obvious.
@Jayofmaya You're either completely missing the point here or are trying to be difficult.
@Justin113 ugh so this is actually worse than the cyberpunk debacle.
@Texan_Survivor PS3 and PS4 is indeed have been held back a weaker CPU. the Zen 2 based CPU of the PS5 will give the developers more power to create graphically beautiful games that also runs smoothly. it will also reduce game development because game developers will spent less time optimizing the game. But in terms of game design. I can see the developers using more physics implementations and adding more destructable environments. They could add more AI in the background that actively and dynamically do things, just like what we see in the RC Rift Apart demo. However, all of this can be scaled back for previous generations. Much like how The Witcher 3 can be ported over to Switch. I think next-games wouldn't be much different from the previous generations until on it's last years. The Uncharted 1-3 to 4 and TLOU1 to 2 isn't any different in terms of combat mechanic and game design. Game developers optimize their games for the lowest common denominator which is mainly consoles and lower-end PC specs to capture the most revenue. As someone who plays on PC and bought a 3080. I'm happy that the next-gen of consoles isn't hindered by a weaker hardware, because theoretically game developers will be able to create games with better interactive environments. However, in terms of game design and mechanic. I think it would still be the same thing but generally better.
@Talon_Zanarkand Somehow I only read your last paragraph. I was simply pointing out that the first party games so far aren't just resolution bumps. They incorporate all the ps5 features. But true next Gen experiences won't come until mid cycle. I think we're essentially saying the same thing. Horizon and GoW were never announced as PS5 exclusives.
@__jamiie I must be missing your point. The point you're trying to make seems ro be that the games that were ps4 exclusive games were exclusive which isn't really a revelation to me -shrugs-
@The_New_Butler "I lost patience trying to find the original quote" You and me both!
But it wasn't all wasted time, I got to listen to some of the Guerrilla dev's talk passionately about their games and all the systems they created to other developers at GDC. Which is always worthwhile.
Really looking forward to Horizon FW and what their team can do, including seeing what PS5 enhancements/ PS4 downgrades (whichever glass half full/empty people see it).
And I agree the Sony messaging could definitely be clearer.
Have a good weekend and hope you get some gaming in!
@mvhess it has some rdna2 features, reason it’s on the page. There is plenty of info about it out there clarifying it isn’t RDNA2, from a Sony engineer clarifying it, to die shots comparing how much is missing.
https://www.pcgamer.com/ps5-die-shots-reveal-missing-zen-2-rdna-2-features/
https://respawnfirst.com/sony-engineer-confirms-ps5-rdna2/
@Jayofmaya Yes you have missed the point. Don't worry about it though. It's fine.
@BrainHacker
Actually the Cell, when used properly, was more powerful than the Jaguars used in the PS4/Xbone.
The Jags were based on cores built for ultrabook class laptops. They were low wattage, designed for energy efficiency first and foremost.
The Cell was a desktop class high watt CPU. The issue with the Cell wasn’t power, it and then Xenon (which funny enough uses variants of the Cell’s PPE for its triple core set up) in the 360 were actually overkill CPUs for the games being developed at the time. It was the complex code needed to program the SPEs properly that caused developers headaches on the Cell.
Writing Hello World for an x86 based machine is literally child’s play. Writing Hello World for an SPE needs 100x more code to work. It was a pain in the ass and most developers early on weren’t willing to spend the time since the 360 was the more successful console early on and became the default starting point.
What developers complained about during the 7th generation was one, RAM, two, GPUs, and three, I/O bandwidth, all things that were advancing much faster than CPU performance on the PC side of things back then. To keep costs down Sony and Microsoft prioritized those aspects of their 8th Gen consoles and cut back on the CPU performance, since developers were mostly satisfied with what they had (except for the Cell’s SPEs, no one liked those things).
The issue was that all the sudden developers found theirselves hitting CPU related bottlenecks with the Jaguars. And it hobbled the entire generation; developers have spent countless hours working around the Jaguar’s limitations. That’s why Sony and Microsoft prioritized CPU and I/O for this generation.
@Tharsman
That is correct.
They aren’t true RDNA 2 GPUs, since those weren’t going to be available for the expected launch of the machines.
They took some elements from the RDNA 2 architecture and applied it to the PS5 and Series GPUs that were in development and expected to be completed sooner than RDNA 2.
@TheRedComet they would had been available, they were available for the Series X, that does have full RDNA2. It would had meant waiting longer to start manufacturing, though.
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/10/28/a-closer-look-at-how-xbox-series-xs-integrates-full-amd-rdna-2-architecture/
@TheRedComet Isn't it because consoles are CPU bound? The game direction of PS5 exclusives still depend on the game developer and not the hardware. Sure, they could add more advanced level of physics, AI and particle effects but it can be scalable for previous gens. Based on their comments. it seems like they want HFW and GoW Ragnarok to be an entirely different game by bloating it with different game mechanics and features. Witcher 3 and Doom Eternal ports on the switch was possible even though it had a weaker processor than the PS4. The visuals were downgraded but the core gameplay mechanic is still in the game.
The headline of this article is offensive.
They expect us to see that crap and not be offended?
Well, if the Nintendo Switch didn't held down The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from snatching GOTY awards left & right...
Cole_Phelps_Doubt.jpg
Yeah no, PS4 version is definitely holding them back...hopefully they won't do this with the inevitable third Horizon game.
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