Who is setting this standard? Is the general gaming population really upset if the graphics of the new CoD or sportsgame iteration is not hyperrealistic?z
Photogrametry has pretty much secured photorealistic baked-in effects without any additional computational power. Just by using real photos (especially 3D scan photos) you cut out mapping, toning, and forming (all together a 1hr+ process) all in one step. That, coupled with modern engine lighting and an eye for what makes things “real” and you get that one bodycam footage game that everyone was jaw-dropped about.
I know, Tears of the Kingdom the most graphically intensive game of all time took 6 years to make. I bet they could have cranked out that bad boy out in like 3 years if they had just used the same graphics as Breath of the Wild
The time sink was probably in prototyping for new ideas to serve as the core of the game, then in generating content that would be considered innovative and fun for people to use that core with. Games are often a moving target where they need to try things that don’t work before finding ideas that will last.
I believe they also said they spent a year on final gameplay tweaks alone before releasing; TotK is a great example of why we shouldn’t be mad when a game is delayed again in again
I suspect a lot of the development time was qa. A game that relies on physics takes a lot of work to get right, and an open world makes it way more open to things that go wrong.
I want more games like valheim. Could care less about the graphic HD quality. Just give me a good game that looks good enough I can forget about my actual life for a while.
I work in gamedev. Even with simple graphics, making a successful game generally takes a lot of time to make. It’s not just graphics. Design, writing, QA, art, console compliance, and a huge amount of engineering effort especially in multiplayer games. It takes time to get right. And we’ve all seen what happens when “AAA” games are released before they’re ready just because a bean counter said they had to.
The blockbuster hits with simple graphics that a solo dev made in a few months are the exception, not the rule.
Exactly. I’ve been working for several years in the industry and the most time consuming part of the development is not graphics; it’s design (in all shapes) + implementation + iteration until all is polished and the game is good no matter how it looks.
Same. I really appreciate the hyperrealistic, amazing graphics of stuff like Cyberpunk 2077 don’t get me wrong, but I would be more than happy to accept a game with even like Half-Life 1 levels of graphics as long as it has amazing gameplay and story and lots of real hand-crafted content. Obviously, you can have both (CP2077 again!) but you have to really pay for that, and I’d be okay with those games being rarer and having more games like I described.
I personally don’t appreciate it. As someone who has always worked on a budget-mid tier PC, I find that “high end” graphics just means “don’t download”. They tend to perform terribly regardless of the quality I set and they tend to look really bad with the quality dropped; compared to games that intentionally have low res textures and simpler game engines, which look and perform much better.
I like games that are more focused on providing me with new mechanics to learn and overcome. I like puzzles. I like strategy (e.g. RimWorld).
Cyberpunk is also a good example because it was all flash and no substance. It ran terribly and had nothing new to provide to the gaming world. I liked it a bit, but downloaded dozens of gigs just to get bored in an hour or two was not super fun. I often am comparing memory usage to how many hours I’ve put in a game. CS:GO, RimWorld, CitySkylines, etc are all relatively much smaller in total size and yet I’ve poured days into them. I just feel like at a certain point, these AAA titles are just spending money on design because they don’t have the patience to value mechanics. So we end up with 100GB of textures and a re-roll of the same classic mechanics we’ve been playing for a decade.
Too many AAA studios are trying too hard to deliver the best looking graphics because of “consumer expectations”. Yet there are games like Zelda or Elden Ring that may not have prettier graphics or cutting edge tech like some AAA games but they sure as hell have fun gameplay that people like. It’s expectations like this is what drives this constant issue of games launching broken. Developers have to keep crunching to meet deadlines with unrealistic scopes.
Who is setting this standard? Is the general gaming population really upset if the graphics of the new CoD or sportsgame iteration is not hyperrealistic?z
this, i despise the focus on polygon and texture counts so goddamn much
games from a decade ago are still popular and still look good, can we please just focus on performance and actual mechanics
And story/worldbuilding.
I don’t want a game of a movie of a book, but I like when there are reasons behind the actions and choices.
I want to upvote this twice
Eh, I think we’re about to hit complete photorealism on those things without it mattering at all anyway
What we really need is easier access to assets.
Photogrametry has pretty much secured photorealistic baked-in effects without any additional computational power. Just by using real photos (especially 3D scan photos) you cut out mapping, toning, and forming (all together a 1hr+ process) all in one step. That, coupled with modern engine lighting and an eye for what makes things “real” and you get that one bodycam footage game that everyone was jaw-dropped about.
I know, Tears of the Kingdom the most graphically intensive game of all time took 6 years to make. I bet they could have cranked out that bad boy out in like 3 years if they had just used the same graphics as Breath of the Wild
The time sink was probably in prototyping for new ideas to serve as the core of the game, then in generating content that would be considered innovative and fun for people to use that core with. Games are often a moving target where they need to try things that don’t work before finding ideas that will last.
Meaning that graphics really are not the reason for why games have such long development cycles at all.
They took an entire year for just polishing up the game. I’m sure everything else took great time too lol.
I believe they also said they spent a year on final gameplay tweaks alone before releasing; TotK is a great example of why we shouldn’t be mad when a game is delayed again in again
I suspect a lot of the development time was qa. A game that relies on physics takes a lot of work to get right, and an open world makes it way more open to things that go wrong.
I want more games like valheim. Could care less about the graphic HD quality. Just give me a good game that looks good enough I can forget about my actual life for a while.
Valheim took 4 years to make.
I work in gamedev. Even with simple graphics, making a successful game generally takes a lot of time to make. It’s not just graphics. Design, writing, QA, art, console compliance, and a huge amount of engineering effort especially in multiplayer games. It takes time to get right. And we’ve all seen what happens when “AAA” games are released before they’re ready just because a bean counter said they had to.
The blockbuster hits with simple graphics that a solo dev made in a few months are the exception, not the rule.
Exactly. I’ve been working for several years in the industry and the most time consuming part of the development is not graphics; it’s design (in all shapes) + implementation + iteration until all is polished and the game is good no matter how it looks.
Same. I really appreciate the hyperrealistic, amazing graphics of stuff like Cyberpunk 2077 don’t get me wrong, but I would be more than happy to accept a game with even like Half-Life 1 levels of graphics as long as it has amazing gameplay and story and lots of real hand-crafted content. Obviously, you can have both (CP2077 again!) but you have to really pay for that, and I’d be okay with those games being rarer and having more games like I described.
I personally don’t appreciate it. As someone who has always worked on a budget-mid tier PC, I find that “high end” graphics just means “don’t download”. They tend to perform terribly regardless of the quality I set and they tend to look really bad with the quality dropped; compared to games that intentionally have low res textures and simpler game engines, which look and perform much better.
I like games that are more focused on providing me with new mechanics to learn and overcome. I like puzzles. I like strategy (e.g. RimWorld).
Cyberpunk is also a good example because it was all flash and no substance. It ran terribly and had nothing new to provide to the gaming world. I liked it a bit, but downloaded dozens of gigs just to get bored in an hour or two was not super fun. I often am comparing memory usage to how many hours I’ve put in a game. CS:GO, RimWorld, CitySkylines, etc are all relatively much smaller in total size and yet I’ve poured days into them. I just feel like at a certain point, these AAA titles are just spending money on design because they don’t have the patience to value mechanics. So we end up with 100GB of textures and a re-roll of the same classic mechanics we’ve been playing for a decade.
Too many AAA studios are trying too hard to deliver the best looking graphics because of “consumer expectations”. Yet there are games like Zelda or Elden Ring that may not have prettier graphics or cutting edge tech like some AAA games but they sure as hell have fun gameplay that people like. It’s expectations like this is what drives this constant issue of games launching broken. Developers have to keep crunching to meet deadlines with unrealistic scopes.