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[anyasok]

Doesn't that answer your own question?

The game is gonna be something we have never seen, i think they should take all the time they need.

Time for polishing is never wasted.

They will need more time after the union busting shit and getting rid of talented staff

 

[coachmcguirk91]

Rush? no. Its been 8 years since RDR2. I dont think they are rushing anything.

They just went too big with the scope and now have to spend 2+ years trying to polish it. Its kind of ridiculous tbh.

Not really. I love that we have one studio that is using an ungodly amount of resources towards one game. Rockstar is going to show the massive technical leap that GTA 6 is compared to every other game. I thought you of all people would respect that

And GTA is a franchise that can be developed once every 10-15 years and I would be fine with it. Make it count and have it be as revolutionary as possible

 

[SlimySnake]

Not really. I love that we have one studio that is using an ungodly amount of resources towards one game. Rockstar is going to show the massive technical leap that GTA 6 is compared to every other game. I thought you of all people would respect that

And GTA is a franchise that can be developed once every 10-15 years and I would be fine with it. Make it count and have it be as revolutionary as possible

cant be taking 10-15 years to make one game. im sorry. i dont care if its the mona lisa of video games.

 

[SlimySnake]

Looks like the next game from Guerrila Games is the Horizon MP. This is not the same as the one revealed earlier today by NC Soft which is an MMO just for mobile and PC.

I was wondering why it's taken them almost 4 years to reveal Horizon 3. Especially when they had revealed Horizon 2 by this time in the dev cycle. They are literally wasting time on GaaS.

I just find it bizarre that devs are taking 4-5 years just to reveal a game. And some devs dont even do that. Figured i'd track some of them.

Crystal Dynamics - Released Avengers in August 2020. 5+ years with not a single screenshot to show for it. Supposedly working on Tomb raider on UE5.
Coalition Games - Released Gears 5 in November 2019. 6 years and only one trailer which was made by Blur Studios. So basically have shown nothing in 6 years.
Cory Barlog - Released GOW in April 2018. Then started working on a new game with some developers. 7.5 years later, no news let alone screenshot.
Naughty Dog - Released TLOU2 in June 2020. 5.5 years, only one small teaser shown. No gameplay.
CD Project Red - Released Cyberpunk in December 2020. 5 years, showed one CG trailer and one tech demo. No gameplay, no story trailer, no vertical slice.
Bluepoint - Released Demon Souls in November 2020. 5 years. nothing since.
Bend - Released Days Gone in April 2019. 5 years. Nothing since.
Halo Studios - Released Halo Infinite in November 2021. 4 years, one lousy remake trailer.
Far Cry Studio - Released Far Cry 6 in November 2021. 4 years, nothing since.

I am sure im missing a few. I honestly cant even be mad at MS or Sony or EA for shutting down these studios. You cant keep paying developers who refuse to put stuff out. We call developers who refuse to put Ray tracing and mesh shader support in their games lazy. But what about devs who take half a decade and have nothing to show for it? They will blame execs for forcing them to work on GaaS or their leaders for not having a vision leading to repeated cancellations, but at what point do we actually blame the developers for not making anything that their publishers can show off?

These are some of the best studios in the business and I am pretty sure that the reason why we have had such a mid generation is because the cream of the crop has been MIA all gen. Partly why i hate the constant GTA delays.

 

[icecold1983]

Looks like the next game from Guerrila Games is the Horizon MP. This is not the same as the one revealed earlier today by NC Soft which is an MMO just for mobile and PC.

I was wondering why it's taken them almost 4 years to reveal Horizon 3. Especially when they had revealed Horizon 2 by this time in the dev cycle. They are literally wasting time on GaaS.

I just find it bizarre that devs are taking 4-5 years just to reveal a game. And some devs dont even do that. Figured i'd track some of them.

Crystal Dynamics - Released Avengers in August 2020. 5+ years with not a single screenshot to show for it. Supposedly working on Tomb raider on UE5.
Coalition Games - Released Gears 5 in November 2019. 6 years and only one trailer which was made by Blur Studios. So basically have shown nothing in 6 years.
Cory Barlog - Released GOW in April 2018. Then started working on a new game with some developers. 7.5 years later, no news let alone screenshot.
Naughty Dog - Released TLOU2 in June 2020. 5.5 years, only one small teaser shown. No gameplay.
CD Project Red - Released Cyberpunk in December 2020. 5 years, showed one CG trailer and one tech demo. No gameplay, no story trailer, no vertical slice.
Bluepoint - Released Demon Souls in November 2020. 5 years. nothing since.
Bend - Released Days Gone in April 2019. 5 years. Nothing since.
Halo Studios - Released Halo Infinite in November 2021. 4 years, one lousy remake trailer.
Far Cry Studio - Released Far Cry 6 in November 2021. 4 years, nothing since.

I am sure im missing a few. I honestly cant even be mad at MS or Sony or EA for shutting down these studios. You cant keep paying developers who refuse to put stuff out. We call developers who refuse to put Ray tracing and mesh shader support in their games lazy. But what about devs who take half a decade and have nothing to show for it? They will blame execs for forcing them to work on GaaS or their leaders for not having a vision leading to repeated cancellations, but at what point do we actually blame the developers for not making anything that their publishers can show off?

These are some of the best studios in the business and I am pretty sure that the reason why we have had such a mid generation is because the cream of the crop has been MIA all gen. Partly why i hate the constant GTA delays.

ND and Bend both spent a significant amount of time working on live service games that were canceled.

 

[Killer8]

CD Project Red - Released Cyberpunk in December 2020. 5 years, showed one CG trailer and one tech demo. No gameplay, no story trailer, no vertical slice.

CDPR actually post fairly detailed breakdowns of what their staff do. A lot of them were taken up with Phantom Liberty, which was a meaty expansion, and I guess actually finishing Cyberpunk which wasn't really ready for 2020.

They only really started Witcher 4 development in mid-2022 and Cyberpunk 2 in early 2024. This is why the former isn't expected until 2027 at the earliest and CP2 in maybe 2030. There is a gradual ramp up of staff on each project which takes years to move people around and get to full capacity.

Let's also not forget that they are shifting from their own in-house tools to using UE5. That will take time to learn the engine and commit improvements to it.

 

[SlimySnake]

CDPR actually post fairly detailed breakdowns of what their staff do. A lot of them were taken up with Phantom Liberty, which was a meaty expansion, and I guess actually finishing Cyberpunk which wasn't really ready for 2020.

They only really started Witcher 4 development in mid-2022 and Cyberpunk 2 in early 2024. This is why the former isn't expected until 2027 at the earliest and CP2 in maybe 2030. There is a gradual ramp up of staff on each project which takes years to move people around and get to full capacity.

Let's also not forget that they are shifting from their own in-house tools to using UE5. That will take time to learn the engine and commit improvements to it.

Interesting. So much time wasted on fixing cyberpunk. I also don't understand taking 3 years to make dlc. We used to get entire sequels in two years.

ND and Bend both spent a significant amount of time working on live service games that were canceled.

Yep and their dev said that they didn't make any progress. Like how go you work on something for that long and make no progress?

If you and i had worked at a firm for 6 years and left it with nothing to show for it, we would be sued for fraud. I can understand 6 months or losing maybe a years worth of progress but five to six years? Shut them all down, they are scamming you.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

Interesting. So much time wasted on fixing cyberpunk. I also don't understand taking 3 years to make dlc. We used to get entire sequels in two years.


Yep and their dev said that they didn't make any progress. Like how go you work on something for that long and make no progress?

If you and i had worked at a firm for 6 years and left it with nothing to show for it, we would be sued for fraud. I can understand 6 months or losing maybe a years worth of progress but five to six years? Shut them all down, they are scamming you.

Dude, you are the #1 on Gaf about holding studios feet to fire about how average most games look this generation..... and you are complaining why games are taking 6-7 years to make? The irony of that is hilarious

You have some games that look on par with top tier animated films. Do you know how long most animated films take to render? 4+ years. Those films are roughly 90min. A lot of games have CGI cinematics that are 5hrs. And that is before all the other bullshit that is required to develop a game

I hate the comparison to movies being released and video games being canceled. With movies, you don't know what you have until the editing process, after you have filmed. Filming production takes up the vast majority of the budget. It would be absurd to cancel a movie after it has been filmed

With games, it is all about finding a gameplay loop that works. That hopefully gets figured out in pre-production before the budget sky rockets. There are so many more moving parts in games compared to movies that you don't know how it will come together until you start full production

If a studio believes a game will flop financially, it is not worth the next 3-4 years of investment. That is part of the business of every game studio

 

[SlimySnake]

Dude, you are the #1 on Gaf about holding studios feet to fire about how average most games look this generation..... and you are complaining why games are taking 6-7 years to make? The irony of that is hilarious

But they didnt make anything in those 6-7 years!! Thats the point! Show me a single screenshot from the Bend or Bluepoint game. You cant. That means they spent 7 years making something the publisher thought looked so ugly they couldnt even tease it in a short trailer.

You've got Crystal Dynamics spending 5 years on a Tomb Raider game with nothing to show for it. Coalition Games spending 6 years making a Gears prequel and again nothing to show for it, had to hire blur studios to make a CG trailer. ND showed a tiny teaser set mostly in a small room. CDPR showed a CG trailer and a tech demo. Initiative before they were shut down made a vertical slice in 6 years that was apparently all fake. No game there.

And it's not like the games that do come out after 5-6 years are all that next gen. Kojima took 5.5 years to make DS2 and it was a last gen looking copy pasta sequel with zero new ideas. Ghosts 2 also took over 5 years and was copy pasta. Clearly time != next gen goodness.

I dont understand why we are defending devs who now take 3 years to make DLC. When last gen they took 6 months. By this time last gen, ND had released a 15 hour game with multiplayer, an 8 hour game, and had already revealed an amazing gameplay trailer for TLOU2. we still dont know what intergallactic plays like.

Defending output like this from the best AAA studios with blank checks is insane. And then we cry when these publishers shut down studios, layoff devs, and replace them with AI. I say good. Fuck em all. lazy bastards are essentially defrauding people. You and I couldnt get away with producing nothing for 6 years and still collect our salaries. So why are standards different for them?

 

[RodriGames40]

But they didnt make anything in those 6-7 years!! Thats the point! Show me a single screenshot from the Bend or Bluepoint game. You cant. That means they spent 7 years making something the publisher thought looked so ugly they couldnt even tease it in a short trailer.

You've got Crystal Dynamics spending 5 years on a Tomb Raider game with nothing to show for it. Coalition Games spending 6 years making a Gears prequel and again nothing to show for it, had to hire blur studios to make a CG trailer. ND showed a tiny teaser set mostly in a small room. CDPR showed a CG trailer and a tech demo. Initiative before they were shut down made a vertical slice in 6 years that was apparently all fake. No game there.

And it's not like the games that do come out after 5-6 years are all that next gen. Kojima took 5.5 years to make DS2 and it was a last gen looking copy pasta sequel with zero new ideas. Ghosts 2 also took over 5 years and was copy pasta. Clearly time != next gen goodness.

I dont understand why we are defending devs who now take 3 years to make DLC. When last gen they took 6 months. By this time last gen, ND had released a 15 hour game with multiplayer, an 8 hour game, and had already revealed an amazing gameplay trailer for TLOU2. we still dont know what intergallactic plays like.

Defending output like this from the best AAA studios with blank checks is insane. And then we cry when these publishers shut down studios, layoff devs, and replace them with AI. I say good. Fuck em all. lazy bastards are essentially defrauding people. You and I couldnt get away with producing nothing for 6 years and still collect our salaries. So why are standards different for them?

Gotta say, I'll always be that guy to claim that videogames at the scope we want them these days takes time, but this... This is just terrible. It's way too fucking long all around, we are seeing development times increase even for Nintendo games that can't even get to early PS4 tier fidelity consistently. The pipelines in this industry are, objectively, whack since last gen and haven't recovered at all. If it wasn't by UE5 aiding smaller developers we'd have even less games... Let that sink in.

 

[SlimySnake]

Gotta say, I'll always be that guy to claim that videogames at the scope we want them these days takes time, but this... This is just terrible. It's way too fucking long all around, we are seeing development times increase even for Nintendo games that can't even get to early PS4 tier fidelity consistently. The pipelines in this industry are, objectively, whack since last gen and haven't recovered at all. If it wasn't by UE5 aiding smaller developers we'd have even less games... Let that sink in.

Same, I am all for advancement, but at what cost? lets say GTA6 is the greatest most advanced next gen game with destruction, physics, NPC AI simulations, water fluid simulations, combat, and all the next gen stuff we've been asking for. It wouldve take 8 years. Thats longer than an entire gen. Way too long. Bring down the scope of the game. It took Michaelangelo 4 years to paint the Sisteen Chapel. Who the fuck are these guys?

Same goes for ND. lets say if they show up with an insane next gen combat trailer next month at the VGA. Thats 5.5 years to reveal what they've been working on, and maybe another 2 years to complete it. 7 years for one game? Come on.

 

[RodriGames40]

Same, I am all for advancement, but at what cost? lets say GTA6 is the greatest most advanced next gen game with destruction, physics, NPC AI simulations, water fluid simulations, combat, and all the next gen stuff we've been asking for. It wouldve take 8 years. Thats longer than an entire gen. Way too long. Bring down the scope of the game. It took Michaelangelo 4 years to paint the Sisteen Chapel. Who the fuck are these guys?

Same goes for ND. lets say if they show up with an insane next gen combat trailer next month at the VGA. Thats 5.5 years to reveal what they've been working on, and maybe another 2 years to complete it. 7 years for one game? Come on.

It's hard to keep a healthy industry going like this, you just can't go on so many years without shipping a product and many studios are starting to find out. Then again, something really serious happened to development pipelines last gen. It's difficult to explain why stuff that used to be done in way less time (and to better/more soulful results some would say!) now takes easily twice as long. Rockstar has a pass because they're the absolute goats, you just know they are making good use of the every few months they choose to delay GTA... But what about the rest? Intergalactic isn't even fucking open world apparently, what the hell is going on?!

 

[USIGSJ]

That's why XBox 360 and PS3 era was my favorite gen and most productive that one team did full trilogy in a single generation.
I cannot imagine something like this ever repeating with AAA games.

Crysis Trilogy
Mass Effect Trilogy
Dragon Age Trilogy
Batman Arkham Trilogy
Uncharted Trilogy
Gears of War Trilogy
Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy
Dead Space Trilogy
BioShock Trilogy
Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim

Not only that game cycle was 2-3 years, but they often had nice tech advancements too. Crysis 2 had SVOGI, tesselation. Gears 3 introduced lightmass into UE. Each Arhkam game was leap beyond tech wise previous one.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

First off, Bend and Blue Point were support studios until 2022. Ghost 2 started development after Iki Island in 2021, which is four years of development time. Secondly, Studios are not showing off games 3-4 years in advance like they used to. There is little financial incentive to do so

It is up to you in what to believe. It is either every major AAA studio turned lazy or game development has become significantly harder because expectations set by gamers is through the roof. Graphics and overall presentation of games is the biggest reason why game development is taking so long. It is not developer laziness

You are annoyed at games like Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2. Those are made on short development cycles. Would you rather have that or wait an extra 2 years for games that provide top tier experiences? You cant complain about lengthy dev cycles and then get upset when a game doesn't have cutting edge graphics. Pick one lane

 

[analog_future]

Same, I am all for advancement, but at what cost? lets say GTA6 is the greatest most advanced next gen game with destruction, physics, NPC AI simulations, water fluid simulations, combat, and all the next gen stuff we've been asking for. It wouldve take 8 years. Thats longer than an entire gen. Way too long. Bring down the scope of the game. It took Michaelangelo 4 years to paint the Sisteen Chapel. Who the fuck are these guys?

Same goes for ND. lets say if they show up with an insane next gen combat trailer next month at the VGA. Thats 5.5 years to reveal what they've been working on, and maybe another 2 years to complete it. 7 years for one game? Come on.

I mean, in all seriousness, building a game like GTA VI is unquestionably an exponentially more substantial task than painting the Sisteen Chapel. Just in pure labor/manhours/scope alone.

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah i'm with coach on this one, you get what you waited for.

You are not gonna make a tlou2 or a cyberpunk in 3 years.

Fucking wukong started development in 2018, so they are like what? 6 years?

Also true that sometimes devs take 5-6 years and have nothing good to show like yotei or shit turding 2 that if it wasn't for the metahumans models nobody would give 2 fucks about it.

 

[GymWolf]

I mean, in all seriousness, building a game like GTA VI is unquestionably an exponentially more substantial task than painting the Sisteen Chapel. Just in pure labor/manhours/scope alone.

I was about to say the same thing, making a game like gta6 is probably orders of magnitudes harder than painting a chapel...

They probably need 1 year alone just for the bug squashing.

 

[Flabagast]

Looks like the next game from Guerrila Games is the Horizon MP. This is not the same as the one revealed earlier today by NC Soft which is an MMO just for mobile and PC.

I was wondering why it's taken them almost 4 years to reveal Horizon 3. Especially when they had revealed Horizon 2 by this time in the dev cycle. They are literally wasting time on GaaS.

I just find it bizarre that devs are taking 4-5 years just to reveal a game. And some devs dont even do that. Figured i'd track some of them.

Crystal Dynamics - Released Avengers in August 2020. 5+ years with not a single screenshot to show for it. Supposedly working on Tomb raider on UE5.
Coalition Games - Released Gears 5 in November 2019. 6 years and only one trailer which was made by Blur Studios. So basically have shown nothing in 6 years.
Cory Barlog - Released GOW in April 2018. Then started working on a new game with some developers. 7.5 years later, no news let alone screenshot.
Naughty Dog - Released TLOU2 in June 2020. 5.5 years, only one small teaser shown. No gameplay.
CD Project Red - Released Cyberpunk in December 2020. 5 years, showed one CG trailer and one tech demo. No gameplay, no story trailer, no vertical slice.
Bluepoint - Released Demon Souls in November 2020. 5 years. nothing since.
Bend - Released Days Gone in April 2019. 5 years. Nothing since.
Halo Studios - Released Halo Infinite in November 2021. 4 years, one lousy remake trailer.
Far Cry Studio - Released Far Cry 6 in November 2021. 4 years, nothing since.

I am sure im missing a few. I honestly cant even be mad at MS or Sony or EA for shutting down these studios. You cant keep paying developers who refuse to put stuff out. We call developers who refuse to put Ray tracing and mesh shader support in their games lazy. But what about devs who take half a decade and have nothing to show for it? They will blame execs for forcing them to work on GaaS or their leaders for not having a vision leading to repeated cancellations, but at what point do we actually blame the developers for not making anything that their publishers can show off?

These are some of the best studios in the business and I am pretty sure that the reason why we have had such a mid generation is because the cream of the crop has been MIA all gen. Partly why i hate the constant GTA delays.

For CDPR you forget that they spent nearly 3 years mostly patching up Cyberpunk and creating its DLC. Witcher 4 has only went into full prod a year and a half ago

For sony studios dont forget that nearly all of them wasted an average 3 years of work on GaaS ended up being cancelled

 

[Flabagast]

CDPR actually post fairly detailed breakdowns of what their staff do. A lot of them were taken up with Phantom Liberty, which was a meaty expansion, and I guess actually finishing Cyberpunk which wasn't really ready for 2020.

They only really started Witcher 4 development in mid-2022 and Cyberpunk 2 in early 2024. This is why the former isn't expected until 2027 at the earliest and CP2 in maybe 2030. There is a gradual ramp up of staff on each project which takes years to move people around and get to full capacity.

Let's also not forget that they are shifting from their own in-house tools to using UE5. That will take time to learn the engine and commit improvements to it.

Gosh I did not know that so many people were working on Cyberpunk 2 already. Thats good

 

[T4keD0wN]

Yeah i'm with coach on this one, you get what you waited for.

You are not gonna make a tlou2 or a cyberpunk in 3 years.

Fucking wukong started development in 2018, so they are like what? 6 years?

Youre right that youre not gonna make tlou2 or cyberpunk in 3 years, but a debut game like Wukong taking 6 years with its small team size and zero know-how in console/PC space is not really how we should expect industry leading veteran studios with enough funding like CDPR and ND to operate.

The expectations should be more optimistic for teams that are fully established (and already performing instead of forming) in every aspect. They should achieve more in less time (not saying they dont, i am quite happy with the industry overall) its weird how gaming is the only industry (that i know of) where typical management stuff doesnt apply and in some cases is the opposite.

 

[GymWolf]

Youre right that youre not gonna make tlou2 or cyberpunk in 3 years, but a debut game like Wukong taking 6 years with its small team size and zero know-how in console/PC space is not really how we should expect industry leading veteran studios with enough funding like CDPR and ND to operate.

The expectations should be more optimistic for teams that are fully established (and already performing instead of forming) in every aspect. They should achieve more in less time (not saying they dont, i am quite happy with the industry overall) its weird how gaming is the only industry (that i know of) where typical management stuff doesnt apply and in some cases is the opposite.

Being more experienced can cut some time but you are still not gonna make a cyberpunk or witcher 4 in 3-4 years.

 

[mrMUR_96]

Gotta say, I'll always be that guy to claim that videogames at the scope we want them these days takes time, but this... This is just terrible. It's way too fucking long all around, we are seeing development times increase even for Nintendo games that can't even get to early PS4 tier fidelity consistently. The pipelines in this industry are, objectively, whack since last gen and haven't recovered at all. If it wasn't by UE5 aiding smaller developers we'd have even less games... Let that sink in.

It would be nice to see a splinter team working on smaller projects whilst the main team work on the big budget stuff. Things like lost legacy that build off the main game but take far less time to make and have more room to innovate. I wish we saw a lot more of that style of production.

 

[T4keD0wN]

It is one of the best looking game of the gen, a pretty long game with a lot of content and with first in class animations, i think 6 years was ok as development time if you consider that it dwarf AAA stuff like ds2, sp2 or yotei...

To clarify: I was saying CDPR and ND should be expected to have faster dev cycles along with larger scope and that Wukong should take longer for how good it is.

To be fair Wukong has a massive advantage of not having a proprietary engine and lumen/RT to speed things up relative to the other 2. Now that CDPR is on UE5 too they should easily make better looking games than Wukong devs and faster, well at least if their scopes were the same, which they arent, so its not happening.

 

[GymWolf]

To clarify: I was saying CDPR and ND should be expected to have faster dev cycles along with larger scope and that Wukong should take longer for how good it is.

To be fair Wukong has a massive advantage of not having a proprietary engine and lumen/RT to speed things up relative to the other 2. Now that CDPR is on UE5 too they should easily make better looking games than Wukong devs and faster, well at least if their scopes were the same, which they arent, so its not happening.

I edited my post entirely, i misread what you said.

 

[SlimySnake]

For CDPR you forget that they spent nearly 3 years mostly patching up Cyberpunk and creating its DLC. Witcher 4 has only went into full prod a year and a half ago

For sony studios dont forget that nearly all of them wasted an average 3 years of work on GaaS ended up being cancelled

You have to question why it took 3 years to patch up a game that already had 5 years of dev time. Not to mention 3 years to make DLC.

And of course i know they wasted years on GaaS. but i can promise you if they had something they wouldve shown it at the very least. A Bend developer straight up came out and said they made no progress. They had also worked on uncharted for a year and a half before quitting that too. They blamed ND's constant meddling but lets face it, it was all just excuses. they just dont work.

You are not gonna make a tlou2 or a cyberpunk in 3 years.

But TLOU2 was made in 3 years. Under 3 years. Lost Legacy was released in August and TLOU2 came out in June less than 3 years later and this after the covid delay, the hack delay, and the shipment issue delay.

They have now officially gone 5.5 years without releasing any gameplay footage. ND is scamming Sony at this point. just like how Initiative scammed Phil Spencer for 6 years producing a fake vertical slice in those 6 years.

 

[SlimySnake]

That's why XBox 360 and PS3 era was my favorite gen and most productive that one team did full trilogy in a single generation.
I cannot imagine ever something like this repeating with AAA games.

Crysis Trilogy
Mass Effect Trilogy
Dragon Age Trilogy
Batman Arkham Trilogy
Uncharted Trilogy
Gears of War Trilogy
Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy
Dead Space Trilogy
BioShock Trilogy
Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim

Not only that game cycle was 2-3 years, but they often had nice tech advancements too. Crysis 2 had SVOGI, tesselation. Gears 3 introduced lightmass into UE. Each Arhkam game was leap beyond tech wise previous one.

Not just tech advancements, but gameplay leaps we got from U1 to U2, AC1 to AC2, Arkham Asylum to Arkham City, ME1 to ME2 were huge.

Now these devs take 5-6 years and at best, we get a copy paste sequel with last gen graphics.

 

[GymWolf]

You have to question why it took 3 years to patch up a game that already had 5 years of dev time. Not to mention 3 years to make DLC.

And of course i know they wasted years on GaaS. but i can promise you if they had something they wouldve shown it at the very least. A Bend developer straight up came out and said they made no progress. They had also worked on uncharted for a year and a half before quitting that too. They blamed ND's constant meddling but lets face it, it was all just excuses. they just dont work.


But TLOU2 was made in 3 years. Under 3 years. Lost Legacy was released in August and TLOU2 came out in June less than 3 years later and this after the covid delay, the hack delay, and the shipment issue delay.

They have now officially gone 5.5 years without releasing any gameplay footage. ND is scamming Sony at this point. just like how Initiative scammed Phil Spencer for 6 years producing a fake vertical slice in those 6 years.

Gemini ai says that they started developing tlou2 after the first one so more like 6 years...

 

[SlimySnake]

Gemini ai says that they started developing tlou2 after the first one so more like 6 years...

Yeah, thats bullshit. They might have a small team working on it, but the studio was hands down working on Uncharted 4 (both bruce and neil had to drop TLOU2 after forcing out Amy Henning) and then the entire studio had to work on Lost Legacy because it became bigger than it was. There were several reports on how the crunch was so bad for Lost legacy that the entire studio was working on it.

But lets suppose a smaller team was working on sorting out the entire gameplay loop for the game for the first three years while the main studio worked on U4 and Lost Legacy. Why didnt this happen with Intergallactic? Shouldnt it have started development in 2017 while the main team worked on TLOU2? Thats supposedly what Barlog was doing while the main team worked on Ragnorak. Well, its been 3 years since ragnorak released. And not only have they not released Cory's game which had already been in pre-production for 4 years, but after 7.5 years we still havent seen a single screenshot from it.

At this point, my standards are so low that i will just take a damn gameplay trailer for Intergallctic, Cory's new IP, Tomb Raider, and Witcher 4. Just to see what next gen shit 5-7 years of dev time gets us. But lets face it, it will be the same old shit because the devs are lazy and just jerked each other around for the last 5-7 eyras. it doesnt take 5 years to release a gameplay trailer.

 

[timothet]

To clarify: I was saying CDPR and ND should be expected to have faster dev cycles along with larger scope and that Wukong should take longer for how good it is.

To be fair Wukong has a massive advantage of not having a proprietary engine and lumen/RT to speed things up relative to the other 2. Now that CDPR is on UE5 too they should easily make better looking games than Wukong devs and faster, well at least if their scopes were the same, which they arent, so its not happening.

They are planning to release The Witcher 4-6 within 6 year window following W4 release. Add to that Cyberpunk sequel, Witcher 1 remake, project Sirius and whatever unannounced project they are working on and in the next decade we will have a new game from them on average every 2-3 years or so. They are also working on a completely new IP(project Hadar), but that's most definitely more than a decade away.

 

[mrMUR_96]

Mafia the old country has some underrated visuals imo, mix of gameplay and cutscenes and gameplay. This it as 1080p (dlaa) too and I think maybe shadows was one down from max. Very good work on the faces and some nice work with lumen too.

 

[mrMUR_96]

Battlefield 6 can look like ass

 

[geary]

I can see how 5 years can go in creating Night City + new building new assets, not just placement.

 

[mrMUR_96]

Indiana Jones is surprisingly inconsistent even with path tracing maxed out. Looks terrible in these few shots I took (many more I need to search my screenshots folder for)

 

[SlimySnake]

Mafia the old country has some underrated visuals imo, mix of gameplay and cutscenes and gameplay. This it as 1080p (dlaa) too and I think maybe shadows was one down from max. Very good work on the faces and some nice work with lumen too.

Ive always felt that its missing something. I am just not technical or artistic enough to point out what. I dont think Lumen and Nanite come together all that well in this game like they do in other titles.

BF6 impressed me more. yes, shitty interiors but my goodness, on a whole the atmosphere and scale is so much more impressive. I played it for a 100 hours in one month before my sub expired and i was in awe of some of the shit i was seeing even on the last day.

Maybe next gen they can have their own nanite and lumen tech going to make those indirectly lit interiors and some textures look better.

 

[Alex11]

You have to question why it took 3 years to patch up a game that already had 5 years of dev time. Not to mention 3 years to make DLC.

I don't want to make excuses for CDPR, but you have to remember that even before the whole CP 2077 fiasco and then the departures from the studio, it still took them 4 yrs between Witcher 2 and Witcher 3 and of course it paid off in full.

And that was also when they didn't have any other games, now with CP2, Witcher Remake and Witcher 4, I guess it's normal?? to take a bit much longer.

 

[SlimySnake]

I don't want to make excuses for CDPR, but you have to remember that even before the whole CP 2077 fiasco and then the departures from the studio, it still took them 4 yrs between Witcher 2 and Witcher 3 and of course it paid off in full.

And that was also when they didn't have any other games, now with CP2, Witcher Remake and Witcher 4, I guess it's normal?? to take a bit much longer.

4 years to make a next gen only sequel sounds fine.

4 years to make a CG trailer not so much.

 

[Alex11]

4 years to make a next gen only sequel sounds fine.

4 years to make a CG trailer not so much.

Yeah, that's also true, I don't know, maybe they don't want to show too much or false promises, something that they can't deliver.

And, sure, 3 yrs to fix CP and release an expansion may seem too long, but maybe it was too much for them, you know, fixing CP.

On top of that, all the projects they have, they still have Gwent, released Thronebreaker, and something like 2 mobile games. Plus Project Sirius, some multiplayer game in the Witcher universe.

So maybe we would have had Witcher 4 by now if not for this other stuff, IMO unnecessary.

 

[BlownUpRich]

Battlefield 6 can look like ass

It has always looked subpar, but it is "optimized" so it doesn't matter for many people sadly.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Obsidian is making games at a steady pace and Neogaf is making fun of them.

 

[SlimySnake]

Obsidian is making games at a steady pace and Neogaf is making fun of them.

steady pace?

they took 6 years to release outerworlds 2 and avowed 2 after releasing outer worlds 1 in 2019. granted they made them both at the same time so they are better than most, and their UE5 usage is above average, but they can and should definitely do better.

 

[BlownUpRich]

People of this thread, I want your opinions & thoughts on this, it's fine if you disagree, the imperative here is in sharing your thoughts.

OK...so I will begin detailing my thoughts, I have been thinking about this peculiar topic that I am sure has been discussed in this thread a plethora of times, and it's about the scalability & the degrees to which developers can stretch (or, let's be honest downgrade) the baseline or the scalability of their games.

- First: We had the Xbox Series S, it brought genuine concerns from quite a lot of developers in the industry and we kept seeing their concerns trickling out as the years go by during this generation.

- Second: Nintendo Switch 2, its absolute killer sales records would indicate to developers that they should somehow downgrade their games even further, thus redefining the generational baseline in someway.

- Third: The rise of Portable gaming devices, ASUS ROG devices, Aya Neo, Steam Deck, you name it, now we have a verification check that ascertains if a certain game is "Steam Deck Verified" or not.

- Fourth: This is what hit me the most I swear, it's the gameplay reveal of this new Mobile Horizon game, and the backlash that came with it.

I think we are witnessing a very concerning prospect, the main reason why people were bothered to hear that it isn't coming to PS5 or PC is because it...looked just like a Console or PC fidelity experience, it didn't look archaic or laughably outdated game typically associated with Mobile devices, if it looked like how people view Mobile games as, no one would bat an eye on why it's not coming to PS5, but it looked like something you'd get from a PlayStation 4, it quickly hit me with real certainty that the extent to which developers have been holding their games back is huge, it just cannot be understated, and that reason can be traced back to their profit & revenue margin goals, they want their games to run everywhere, that, combined with games taking more budget & time to develop than ever, has fostered a new nebulous "generational" baseline to where developers would like to rest their laurels in, it's this unclear baseline that games have to work on all systems from Steam Deck to the highest-end PC with RTX 5090s, graphics can be scaled up massively, but the core systems of those games, the nuts & bolts of those games, WILL HAVE to scale down to a meager CPU like Switch 2 (which is hardly any better than the Jaguar cores in the PS4 mind you).

Even Sony is jumping in on it, they will be releasing two PS6s, 1 is the home console, the other is the Portable, that holds the PS6 back harder than Series S with the PS5/Series X.

I do not like where this is going, these Mobile devices are holding us generations back, and the funny part about it, is they (your iPhones, Androids, Steam Decks, ASUS ROGs) do not rake in as many sales as companies would like them to.

That leads me back to thinking about GTA 6, will GTA 6 be able to conjure a specific standard that people come to expect from other game developers as to what a true current-gen should strive for? We are almost certainly expecting the game to run at 30FPS on PS5 & Series X with extensive use of Ray Tracing (as seen in the trailers), so I don't think a Switch 2 version will ever materialize without breaking its visual identity & core simulation systems.

 

[geary]

 

[Gonzito]

People of this thread, I want your opinions & thoughts on this, it's fine if you disagree, the imperative here is in sharing your thoughts.

OK...so I will begin detailing my thoughts, I have been thinking about this peculiar topic that I am sure has been discussed in this thread a plethora of times, and it's about the scalability & the degrees to which developers can stretch (or, let's be honest downgrade) the baseline or the scalability of their games.

- First: We had the Xbox Series S, it brought genuine concerns from quite a lot of developers in the industry and we kept seeing their concerns trickling out as the years go by during this generation.

- Second: Nintendo Switch 2, its absolute killer sales records would indicate to developers that they should somehow downgrade their games even further, thus redefining the generational baseline in someway.

- Third: The rise of Portable gaming devices, ASUS ROG devices, Aya Neo, Steam Deck, you name it, now we have a verification check that ascertains if a certain game is "Steam Deck Verified" or not.

- Fourth: This is what hit me the most I swear, it's the gameplay reveal of this new Mobile Horizon game, and the backlash that came with it.

I think we are witnessing a very concerning prospect, the main reason why people were bothered to hear that it isn't coming to PS5 or PC is because it...looked just like a Console or PC fidelity experience, it didn't look archaic or laughably outdated game typically associated with Mobile devices, if it looked like how people view Mobile games as, no one would bat an eye on why it's not coming to PS5, but it looked like something you'd get from a PlayStation 4, it quickly hit me with real certainty that the extent to which developers have been holding their games back is huge, it just cannot be understated, and that reason can be traced back to their profit & revenue margin goals, they want their games to run everywhere, that, combined with games taking more budget & time to develop than ever, has fostered a new nebulous "generational" baseline to where developers would like to rest their laurels in, it's this unclear baseline that games have to work on all systems from Steam Deck to the highest-end PC with RTX 5090s, graphics can be scaled up massively, but the core systems of those games, the nuts & bolts of those games, WILL HAVE to scale down to a meager CPU like Switch 2 (which is hardly any better than the Jaguar cores in the PS4 mind you).

Even Sony is jumping in on it, they will be releasing two PS6s, 1 is the home console, the other is the Portable, that holds the PS6 back harder than Series S with the PS5/Series X.

I do not like where this is going, these Mobile devices are holding us generations back, and the funny part about it, is they (your iPhones, Androids, Steam Decks, ASUS ROGs) do not rake in as many sales as companies would like them to.

That leads me back to thinking about GTA 6, will GTA 6 be able to conjure a specific standard that people come to expect from other game developers as to what a true current-gen should strive for? We are almost certainly expecting the game to run at 30FPS on PS5 & Series X with extensive use of Ray Tracing (as seen in the trailers), so I don't think a Switch 2 version will ever materialize without breaking its visual identity & core simulation systems.

Is this written by Chatgpt?

 

[BlownUpRich]

Is this written by Chatgpt?

What? Nooooo

 

[mrMUR_96]

It has always looked subpar, but it is "optimized" so it doesn't matter for many people sadly.

It can also look visually amazing too though, it's just a shame to see so much inconsistency.

 

[mrMUR_96]

People of this thread, I want your opinions & thoughts on this, it's fine if you disagree, the imperative here is in sharing your thoughts.

OK...so I will begin detailing my thoughts, I have been thinking about this peculiar topic that I am sure has been discussed in this thread a plethora of times, and it's about the scalability & the degrees to which developers can stretch (or, let's be honest downgrade) the baseline or the scalability of their games.

- First: We had the Xbox Series S, it brought genuine concerns from quite a lot of developers in the industry and we kept seeing their concerns trickling out as the years go by during this generation.

- Second: Nintendo Switch 2, its absolute killer sales records would indicate to developers that they should somehow downgrade their games even further, thus redefining the generational baseline in someway.

- Third: The rise of Portable gaming devices, ASUS ROG devices, Aya Neo, Steam Deck, you name it, now we have a verification check that ascertains if a certain game is "Steam Deck Verified" or not.

- Fourth: This is what hit me the most I swear, it's the gameplay reveal of this new Mobile Horizon game, and the backlash that came with it.

I think we are witnessing a very concerning prospect, the main reason why people were bothered to hear that it isn't coming to PS5 or PC is because it...looked just like a Console or PC fidelity experience, it didn't look archaic or laughably outdated game typically associated with Mobile devices, if it looked like how people view Mobile games as, no one would bat an eye on why it's not coming to PS5, but it looked like something you'd get from a PlayStation 4, it quickly hit me with real certainty that the extent to which developers have been holding their games back is huge, it just cannot be understated, and that reason can be traced back to their profit & revenue margin goals, they want their games to run everywhere, that, combined with games taking more budget & time to develop than ever, has fostered a new nebulous "generational" baseline to where developers would like to rest their laurels in, it's this unclear baseline that games have to work on all systems from Steam Deck to the highest-end PC with RTX 5090s, graphics can be scaled up massively, but the core systems of those games, the nuts & bolts of those games, WILL HAVE to scale down to a meager CPU like Switch 2 (which is hardly any better than the Jaguar cores in the PS4 mind you).

Even Sony is jumping in on it, they will be releasing two PS6s, 1 is the home console, the other is the Portable, that holds the PS6 back harder than Series S with the PS5/Series X.

I do not like where this is going, these Mobile devices are holding us generations back, and the funny part about it, is they (your iPhones, Androids, Steam Decks, ASUS ROGs) do not rake in as many sales as companies would like them to.

That leads me back to thinking about GTA 6, will GTA 6 be able to conjure a specific standard that people come to expect from other game developers as to what a true current-gen should strive for? We are almost certainly expecting the game to run at 30FPS on PS5 & Series X with extensive use of Ray Tracing (as seen in the trailers), so I don't think a Switch 2 version will ever materialize without breaking its visual identity & core simulation systems.

And now we have the steam machine with a low performance 8GB gpu with loads of valve simps defending it. I just feel like the opinion of gamers has really changed this generation and there really doesn't seem to be much demand for pushing graphics like they used to which is a massive shame imo. I blame crappy youtubers attacking visually demanding games without any understanding of why that would mean they would be more demanding than last gen tech based games. I also think that midrange PCs ran ps3 and ps4 games really easily, but now high end games can easily push even high end hardware and they just blame poor optimisation.

 

[The artful mincer]

Looks like the next game from Guerrila Games is the Horizon MP. This is not the same as the one revealed earlier today by NC Soft which is an MMO just for mobile and PC.

I was wondering why it's taken them almost 4 years to reveal Horizon 3. Especially when they had revealed Horizon 2 by this time in the dev cycle. They are literally wasting time on GaaS.

I just find it bizarre that devs are taking 4-5 years just to reveal a game. And some devs dont even do that. Figured i'd track some of them.

Crystal Dynamics - Released Avengers in August 2020. 5+ years with not a single screenshot to show for it. Supposedly working on Tomb raider on UE5.
Coalition Games - Released Gears 5 in November 2019. 6 years and only one trailer which was made by Blur Studios. So basically have shown nothing in 6 years.
Cory Barlog - Released GOW in April 2018. Then started working on a new game with some developers. 7.5 years later, no news let alone screenshot.
Naughty Dog - Released TLOU2 in June 2020. 5.5 years, only one small teaser shown. No gameplay.
CD Project Red - Released Cyberpunk in December 2020. 5 years, showed one CG trailer and one tech demo. No gameplay, no story trailer, no vertical slice.
Bluepoint - Released Demon Souls in November 2020. 5 years. nothing since.
Bend - Released Days Gone in April 2019. 5 years. Nothing since.
Halo Studios - Released Halo Infinite in November 2021. 4 years, one lousy remake trailer.
Far Cry Studio - Released Far Cry 6 in November 2021. 4 years, nothing since.

I am sure im missing a few. I honestly cant even be mad at MS or Sony or EA for shutting down these studios. You cant keep paying developers who refuse to put stuff out. We call developers who refuse to put Ray tracing and mesh shader support in their games lazy. But what about devs who take half a decade and have nothing to show for it? They will blame execs for forcing them to work on GaaS or their leaders for not having a vision leading to repeated cancellations, but at what point do we actually blame the developers for not making anything that their publishers can show off?

These are some of the best studios in the business and I am pretty sure that the reason why we have had such a mid generation is because the cream of the crop has been MIA all gen. Partly why i hate the constant GTA delays.

If it were one or two games you would have a point but the fact that it's all those games suggest it's not a dev issue it's just how long games take to develop these days.

Do you have any counter examples? Games that were shipped in a reasonable time with cutting edge graphics and had a ot of content? Most games today are 20+ hours minimum for better or worse.

Only game that has impressed me with it's development time was FF7 Rebirth....and you guys certainly had a lot to say about that game's graphical shortcomings!

 

[YeulEmeralda]

And now we have the steam machine with a low performance 8GB gpu with loads of valve simps defending it. I just feel like the opinion of gamers has really changed this generation and there really doesn't seem to be much demand for pushing graphics like they used to which is a massive shame imo. I blame crappy youtubers attacking visually demanding games without any understanding of why that would mean they would be more demanding than last gen tech based games. I also think that midrange PCs ran ps3 and ps4 games really easily, but now high end games can easily push even high end hardware and they just blame poor optimisation.

I was playing Indiana Jones and that game made fun of my 16 gigabyte 5080!

Considering this topic is for graphics whores the Steam machine must be quite problematic.

 

[Utherellus]

Indiana Jones really did it for me.
Path Tracing was transformative in this game.

 

[SlimySnake]

If it were one or two games you would have a point but the fact that it's all those games suggest it's not a dev issue it's just how long games take to develop these days.

Do you have any counter examples? Games that were shipped in a reasonable time with cutting edge graphics and had a ot of content? Most games today are 20+ hours minimum for better or worse.

Only game that has impressed me with it's development time was FF7 Rebirth....and you guys certainly had a lot to say about that game's graphical shortcomings!

its definitely an industry wide issue. thats why im not for blaming singular publishers like Phil Spencer or Bobby Kotick, I think it's a developer issue. There was a Ubisoft dev on twitter who was dismissing reports of the Splinter Cell team being forced to work on Defiant, a GaaS game, and he's like nah, Ubisoft lets their devs do their own thing.

We know Microsoft and Sony were both very hands off as well. We know for a fact that ND has probably the most autonomy of any studio in the world. Maybe Rockstar is different. But it's the developers who have gone lazy, stopped working efficiently and/or just cant make up their minds.

I think Ubisoft studios have done a pretty decent job delivering cutting edge graphics this gen. Problem is that they have never been great at delivering GOTY caliber content. That's why its so important to have those GOTY caliber developers deliver consistently, and they have literally all been MIA for the first 5 years of this gen.