viveks86
Member
As far as the subject at hand goes, has there been any official comment as to why the gameplay revealed was so limited?
Frankly, I love what I have seen so far and the tech and stuff that these guys use is amazing. There was a siggraph talk last year that showed off a bunch of their physically based rendering stuff and the way the artists composite and layer materials. You can check it out at the link below, the pdf has a bunch of slides with some fantastic shots of their material rendering and physics engines. Also a video of how they scanned base materials. GLORIOUS stuff at work here! I can't wait to see the finished product.
http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course/
My theory: it's their first foray into major console development. May be they are the type of dev that gets the game up to snuff towards the very end and work on the core components first. This would be at odds with PR cycles, since you need an extremely polished vertical slice of the game to show to the public. We would tear it apart otherwise. With current expectations of seeing substantial footage several months before release, they are forced to put something out. And that's what we got today. Something.
My reasoning behind this is that the press is still seeing a rough version of the game, as pointed out by IGN. There clearly isn't enough cleaned up footage to show the public. People can keep blaming Sony for not showing us more, but they simply can't do so if the output doesn't meet standards. Remember the drive club footage around gamescom? Yeah. No way in hell are they doing that again.
This doesn't necessarily mean the game will not be ready for a fall release. That's still 8 months away. Plenty of time for a linear single player game!
P.S: Loved the Siggraph presentation. Absolutely stunning attention to detail.