Support NeoGAF

[GymWolf]

The RDR2 maps are amazing. Full of wonder and full of little details and animals and everything is just "alive".

But all that dissapears when you actual play the missions, completely. We are talking about some of the most linear, repetitive, restricted, downright boring mission design ever created in an open world game.

The game shines when you just ride your horse all over the map, that's it. Otherwise that beautiful "open world" is useless.

(edit: spelling big fingerrs)

Yes, i think everyone is aware of the dogshit mission design in recent rockstar games.

They chose a super cinematic approach with no freedom.

On the other hand the zeldas have complete freedom but also complete dogshit stories and charas, you can beat the dungeons in tokt in any order and to assure that the "plot" make sense, they just let the npcs say the exact same shit 4 times in a row.

There must be a balance of storytelling and freedom.

 

[Carmen Winstead]

Yes, i think everyone is aware of the dogshit mission design in recent rockstar games.

They chose a super cinematic approach with no freedom.

On the other hand the zeldas have complete freedom but also complete dogshit stories and charas, you can beat the dungeons in tokt in any order and to assure that the "plot" make sense, they just let the npcs say the exact same shit 4 times in a row.

There must be a balance of storytelling and freedom.

Let's hope R* takes GTA VI a step further and evolves their mission design at last even though I'm pretty pessimistic on that.
And if they don't, they better deliver a killer story like RDR2 did to make up for it.

 

[Trilobit]

My problem with this is that it feels like at a certain point we need to start having physics simulations for water/fire/smoke/destruction/objects - in order to push graphics forward in general. Like when is that gonna be a part of games as just a normal evolution of technology? Never? Because they’re always gonna push fidelity, image quality and framerate over the world being actually interactive? What are we aiming for then?

I understand 10-15 years ago you’d have to develop a game solely around water to get fluid dynamics - but now we are at the point that it should just be a feature of water. As we move away from tricks and more towards accurate reflections of the real world - ie: baked lighting vs path tracing - physics/fluid sims should be a part of that. I look back at half life 2 and think what would have been so impressive about that game if it weren’t for the physics - how have we barely progressed in this area in games in general since that time, same goes for destruction.

Whenever I see something burning and it's just a three-second loop I shudder. Don't get me started on fires that produce smoke that doesn't even look slightly realistic or natural.

The RDR2 maps are amazing. Full of wonder and full of little details and animals and everything is just "alive".

But all that dissapears when you actual play the missions, completely. We are talking about some of the most linear, repetitive, restricted, downright boring mission design ever created in an open world game.

The game shines when you just ride your horse all over the map, that's it. Otherwise that beautiful "open world" is useless.

(edit: spelling big fingerrs)

Yeah, it's two different games tied together with duct tape. Traversing the world and fishing etc. feels realistic. Then you start a mission and it often throws away your suspense of disbelief as it feels like you're playing an arcade game. Still absolutely love RDR2, but yeah..

 

[alloush]

It was posted here. Check your ignore list lol

Funnily enough I don’t have anyone on ignore lol, never done that and never will. I don’t have a lotta enemies anyways

 

[GymWolf]

Let's hope R* takes GTA VI a step further and evolves their mission design at last even though I'm pretty pessimistic on that.
And if they don't, they better deliver a killer story like RDR2 did to make up for it.

Yeah, I can survive with shit missions design if they manage to write a story and characters as good as rdr2.

The best would be to have both good missions and good writing but who is gonna tell rocketar tocnot continue with their trend when their games sell gangbuster and get super high scores? They have really no reason to do that.

 

[Gubaldo]

Wish more games would come off source 2.0 .
Man the love the good baked lighting
.

 

[SlimySnake]

PS5 Pro can’t come soon enough. This planet looks like absolute trash on Xbox Series X.

That's a shame. I am blown away by this planet. So much foliage. Amazing weather effects. It's avatar all over again. And unlike Avatar, the water reflections are way better (though im running this with ray reconstruction so maybe they are cleaning up the reflections) and they've added a very high quality fog while maintaining fantastic draw distances.

As always the gif is destroying all the foliage and rock detail on those distant mountains but the reflections show off well here compared to the xsx screenshot posted a few pages ago.

 

[SlimySnake]

Rockstar took a step back with gtav and then two steps back with rdr2. so comparing sony to rockstar isnt going to make them look bad neccessarily.

you have to go back to games like Ac unity, far cry 2, and half life 2 to see devs actually pushing the interactivity.

Now I’ve seen it all

RDR2 being called comparable to Sony’s pathetic barebones open worlds, and being called less interactive than gta v

Yeah confused by this. How was rdr2 a step back? Like mission design wise? I know from a simulated open world standpoint it was pretty interactive wasn’t it? Perhaps I’m not remembering correctly

I have quoted my original post above for clarity. They took a step back with GTAV coming off of GTA4. They stripped out all the physics driven animations, car physics and other NPC stuff from GTA4 to go for fancier graphics with GTA5. They succeeded. Its probably the best looking game on the PS360 but it came at a cost. There are several youtube videos showing just how much was taken out of gta5 to get graphics to look better than gta4.

With RDR2, the number of NPCs in big towns is stripped back even further. The game world is mostly empty spaces with large fields with maybe a few animals here and there but no different from what Sony and other third party developers did last gen. Far Cry games, AC Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla, Horizon games, Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Days Gone, all big vast open worlds completely empty and completely non-interactive compared to Far Cry 2's wind/fire physics. Not a single tree can be cut down. Something Nintendo was doing with Zelda BOTW on a 0.19 tflops Switch. RDR2 like most of these games features huts and wooden cabins that dont recreate to dynamite or feature any kind of real destruction. BFBC2 was a 2008 or 2009 game and had insane destruction on the ps360 that rockstar couldve implemented in rdr2 but did not.

Yes, they have scripted a lot of really cool NPC reactions, world events like that log falling on that guy, but none of that is impressive to me. it's scripted in ways a naughty dog setpiece is scripted. I want more dynamic elements from my open world games. Only days gone come close with their hordes having day and night cycles, but even then thats all they have.

it's clear that the lack of a CPU upgrade almost forced these developers to make these vast open worlds with lots of foliage thanks to the big boost in vram, but when a zelda game has more physics and destruction than a rockstar game with 9x more power then yes, rockstar and sony and ubisoft and rocksteady all made the same sacrifices to get prettier visuals. We all criticized and mocked rocksteady for conveniently evacuating all the civilians from Gotham but how is RDR2 any different when 99% of the open world is empty?

 

[arkhamguy123]

The RDR2 maps are amazing. Full of wonder and full of little details and animals and everything is just "alive".

But all that dissapears when you actual play the missions, completely. We are talking about some of the most linear, repetitive, restricted, downright boring mission design ever created in an open world game.

The game shines when you just ride your horse all over the map, that's it. Otherwise that beautiful "open world" is useless.

(edit: spelling big fingerrs)

“The open world was only amazing when you’re exploring the open world”

…. Uhhh… yeeeaaah…?

 

[Balducci30]

I have quoted my original post above for clarity. They took a step back with GTAV coming off of GTA4. They stripped out all the physics driven animations, car physics and other NPC stuff from GTA4 to go for fancier graphics with GTA5. They succeeded. Its probably the best looking game on the PS360 but it came at a cost. There are several youtube videos showing just how much was taken out of gta5 to get graphics to look better than gta4.

With RDR2, the number of NPCs in big towns is stripped back even further. The game world is mostly empty spaces with large fields with maybe a few animals here and there but no different from what Sony and other third party developers did last gen. Far Cry games, AC Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla, Horizon games, Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Days Gone, all big vast open worlds completely empty and completely non-interactive compared to Far Cry 2's wind/fire physics. Not a single tree can be cut down. Something Nintendo was doing with Zelda BOTW on a 0.19 tflops Switch. RDR2 like most of these games features huts and wooden cabins that dont recreate to dynamite or feature any kind of real destruction. BFBC2 was a 2008 or 2009 game and had insane destruction on the ps360 that rockstar couldve implemented in rdr2 but did not.

Yes, they have scripted a lot of really cool NPC reactions, world events like that log falling on that guy, but none of that is impressive to me. it's scripted in ways a naughty dog setpiece is scripted. I want more dynamic elements from my open world games. Only days gone come close with their hordes having day and night cycles, but even then thats all they have.

it's clear that the lack of a CPU upgrade almost forced these developers to make these vast open worlds with lots of foliage thanks to the big boost in vram, but when a zelda game has more physics and destruction than a rockstar game with 9x more power then yes, rockstar and sony and ubisoft and rocksteady all made the same sacrifices to get prettier visuals. We all criticized and mocked rocksteady for conveniently evacuating all the civilians from Gotham but how is RDR2 any different when 99% of the open world is empty?

Idk I was watching some stuff on rdr2 I think they definitely upped the physics simulation from gta5 at least. I’d love if it had more destructibility for sure - that’s the next step for them but otherwise it seemed to have quite a few great simulations going on: the water is still the best water ever in a game, the clouds, dynamic weather, the fire does seem to propagate at least a bit (they could increase this somehow) - when you bump into people they physically react like they should as do objects, hats etc - all the NPC’s have behaviors and live lives in the world, your interactions with them - they respond how they should in believable ways. The only thing I think they would need to add to red dead to make it more interactive is maybe some version of an chat gpt AI thing where you could have full convos with the NPC’s and full destructibility of terrain and buildings. I guess the emptiness of it didn’t effect me much at all cus it’s the Wild West and fit the setting - seemed like there were lots of people in certain places like the city you go to.

This is a pretty interesting thing about the water:

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah i have no idea how someone can't notice the day and night difference between sony npcs and other games npcs.

Even small things add to the immersion factor, cities and camps inside sony games feel like amusement parks with bots, good to look at, no interaction at all.

And yeah rdr2 may not have zelda physics, but it feel immersive as fuck with the huge amount of microdetails you have.

You can literally shot in mid air the coin that people throw at you when you rob them, like cmon...

 

[SlimySnake]

Idk I was watching some stuff on rdr2 I think they definitely upped the physics simulation from gta5 at least. I’d love if it had more destructibility for sure - that’s the next step for them but otherwise it seemed to have quite a few great simulations going on: the water is still the best water ever in a game, the clouds, dynamic weather, the fire does seem to propagate at least a bit (they could increase this somehow) - when you bump into people they physically react like they should as do objects, hats etc - all the NPC’s have behaviors and live lives in the world, your interactions with them - they respond how they should in believable ways. The only thing I think they would need to add to red dead to make it more interactive is maybe some version of an chat gpt AI thing where you could have full convos with the NPC’s and full destructibility of terrain and buildings. I guess the emptiness of it didn’t effect me much at all cus it’s the Wild West and fit the setting - seemed like there were lots of people in certain places like the city you go to.

I would highly recommending watching some GTA4 to GTA5 comparisons to see just how much was lost. And how even RDR2 doesnt have some of those physics and NPC interactions.

Yes, RDR2 does add a lot of other things like having each NPC respond to you but all thats scripted to me and doesnt impress me one bit. In terms of actual interaction with NPCs and the overall world physics its a huge downgrade. Also, im pretty sure having every NPC speak and have dialogue responses to Arthur is probably the reason St. Denis was so sparse in comparison to even AC Origins.

Water is the only they have substantially improved in terms of physics and interactivity but only on PC. Console versions had fairly simple water on par with other ubisoft and sony efforts. Maybe slightly better? But Watch Dogs, AC Odyssey HFW all have their own strengths in comparison to the console version water of RDR2.

Red Dead 2 is my GOTG both in terms of graphics and gameplay/story/everything. But if we are trying to shit on GoT for having empty open worlds with no real physics like we had back in the Far Cry 2 days or what we see in Zelda ToTK and even BOTW then surely we cant be ok fire effects that last for a few seconds and dont really do much and having completely static cabins in a game about cowboys shooting up entire towns and villages.

 

[arkhamguy123]

Yeah i have no idea how can someone can't notice the day and night difference between sony npcs and other games npcs.

Even small things add to the immersion factor, cities and camps inside sony games feel like amusement parks with bots, good to look at, no interaction at all.

And yeah rdr2 may not have zelda physics, but it feel immersive as fuck with the huge amount of microdetails you have.

You can literally shot in mid air the coin that people throw at you when you rob them, like cmon...

GymWolf back to his W game

 

[GymWolf]

GymWolf back to his W game

Lol we are just discussing here.

 

[arkhamguy123]

I would highly recommending watching some GTA4 to GTA5 comparisons to see just how much was lost. And how even RDR2 doesnt have some of those physics and NPC interactions.

Yes, RDR2 does add a lot of other things like having each NPC respond to you but all thats scripted to me and doesnt impress me one bit. In terms of actual interaction with NPCs and the overall world physics its a huge downgrade. Also, im pretty sure having every NPC speak and have dialogue responses to Arthur is probably the reason St. Denis was so sparse in comparison to even AC Origins.

Water is the only they have substantially improved in terms of physics and interactivity but only on PC. Console versions had fairly simple water on par with other ubisoft and sony efforts. Maybe slightly better? But Watch Dogs, AC Odyssey HFW all have their own strengths in comparison to the console version water of RDR2.

Red Dead 2 is my GOTG both in terms of graphics and gameplay/story/everything. But if we are trying to shit on GoT for having empty open worlds with no real physics like we had back in the Far Cry 2 days or what we see in Zelda ToTK and even BOTW then surely we cant be ok fire effects that last for a few seconds and dont really do much and having completely static cabins in a game about cowboys shooting up entire towns and villages.

A lot gained

 

[arkhamguy123]

Lol we are just discussing here.

I stand by what I said

 

[SlimySnake]

A lot gained

are you serious? just youtube it and you will get hundreds of videos showing otherwise. In fact, the very first example shows how there are no physics when you get on top of a truck.

 

[Balducci30]

A lot gained

Nah he’s right in terms of the rage physics between gta4/5 - they added some stuff but there was a lot of downgrading between the two. a lot of people complained about 4’s stuff tho so I’m not sure if it was a reaction to that or just about maximizing graphics

 

[arkhamguy123]

are you serious? just youtube it and you will get hundreds of videos showing otherwise. In fact, the very first example shows how there are no physics when you get on top of a truck.

Yes I am. I’ve seen the original crowbcat video. Everyone has. It’s clear they took away some stuff. And added a lot of other stuff. It’s not just binary. Not just a net downgrade

 

[arkhamguy123]

Nah he’s right in terms of the rage physics between gta4/5 - they added some stuff but there was a lot of downgrading between the two. a lot of people complained about 4’s stuff tho so I’m not sure if it was a reaction to that or just about maximizing graphics

Et tu Balducci30?

 

[Balducci30]

Et tu Balducci30?

Lol, I don’t think I agree with slimy that they downgraded physics in order to prioritize the fidelity of the game. I think they got rid of certain aspects because people complained. But I still think overall the GTA4 physical stuff was better/more reactive than GTA5, not that GTA 5 was any sort of slouch in that area. RDR2 found the perfect balance imo. All of em are still leagues beyond other open worlds tho I dont think something like Horizon or GOT or Ubisoft even comes close to comparable

 

[GymWolf]

A lot gained

I don't wanna enter in this discussion about who is best (i prefer gta4) but holy shit the part where he use the bike to interact with the blood pool is crazy, never saw it before.

 

[Trilobit]

A lot gained

And a lot lost:



Edit: Did they really just clip down the car in 2:03 in GTAV? That's some lazy programming right there.

 

[GymWolf]

I'm the only one who doesn't think that gta5 was the best looking ps3 game?

I think that at the very least kz2 look better, not sure about stuff like tlou or max payne 3 or unchy 3 or zoe2.


does gta5 ever look this "good" i'm having a momentary memory loss

Both pics look too clean for being ps3 versions...

 

[Bojji]

I'm the only one who doesn't think that gta5 was the best looking ps3 game?

I think that at the very least kz2 look better, not sure about stuff like tlou or max payne 3 or unchy 3.


does gta5 ever look this "good" i'm having a momentary memory loss

It isn't as good looking as Uncharted 3 or GOW3 but it's not that far from them and it's an open world game. For PS3/X360 gen it looked incredible, lighting was on another level compared to dull GTA4 - most people couldn't believe when trailer dropped how good this game looked (including me). They delivered on gfx but that 25FPS framerate wasn't super hot, hahaha (but to be fair similar to GTA4).

 

[GymWolf]

It isn't as good looking as Uncharted 3 or GOW3 but it's not that far from them and it's an open world game. For PS3/X360 gen it looked incredible, lighting was on another level compared to dull GTA4 - most people couldn't believe when trailer dropped how good this game looked (including me). They delivered on gfx but that 25FPS framerate wasn't super how (but to be fair similar to GTA4).

Sure it has the disadvantage of being open world, but if we just judge the graphic, i think it's behind at least 4-5 games.

I remember being more impressed by gta4 release tbh.

 

[Bojji]

Sure it has the disadvantage of being open world, but if we just judge the graphic, i think it's behind at least 4-5 games.

I remember being more impressed by gta4 release tbh.

Yeah for me it's for sure not top3:

1. GOW3
2. UC3
3. KZ2/3
4. GeOW3
5. GTA5?

 

[SlimySnake]

Yes I am. I’ve seen the original crowbcat video. Everyone has. It’s clear they took away some stuff. And added a lot of other stuff. It’s not just binary. Not just a net downgrade

I never said it was a net downgrade. In fact, i literally said it was the best looking PS360 game and RDR2 was the best looking game of the PS4 generation. I am strictly talking about physics and the interactions their euphoria engine used to allow, and how with RDR2 they didnt even bother doing stuff a B tier Ubisoft studio was doing back in 2008.

I wasnt even blaming RDR2. I pointed out this was the case for pretty much every ubisoft open world game and sony too. Everyone from cities to vast empty open worlds last gen, and then forgot to bring any kind of physics or destruction or interactivity with the world. only zelda did something and it was as basic as it gets.

Rockstar developers have clearly poured in a lot of work into adding details none of us would ever notice. I am not talking about those details. They are great. But I am talking specifically about physics and simulations we've been craving for since the early ps360 era. hence, why this whole GoT is static discussion started in the first place. I simply pointed out that its not the only one with a static world.

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah for me it's for sure not top3:

1. GOW3
2. UC3
3. KZ2/3
4. GeOW3
5. GTA5?

kz2 not in first place?

leave out for a second the intro of gow3, you think the game is as constantly good looking as kz2? (that also has a lot more interaction and destruction going on)?

Personally i think the highs of kz2 are higher than anything else, but i like a realistic style over the stylized style of gow so i'm biased.

kz2 look like a movie, gow 3 still look like a vg.

 

[SlimySnake]

Sure it has the disadvantage of being open world, but if we just judge the graphic, i think it's behind at least 4-5 games.

I remember being more impressed by gta4 release tbh.

what are those 4-5 games?

I think Beyond, Uncharted 3, Killzone 2, Killzone 3 and Halo 4 all look better, but GTA5 was open world and looked very close. It wins on scale just like RDR2 did last gen despite the fact that TLOU2 and Detroit looked better.

 

[GymWolf]

what are those 4-5 games?

I think Beyond, Uncharted 3, Killzone 2, Killzone 3 and Halo 4 all look better, but GTA5 was open world and looked very close. It wins on scale just like RDR2 did last gen despite the fact that TLOU2 and Detroit looked better.

You probably named all of them but i have shit memory so i'm probably forgetting something, bojii said gow3 and i can see that one also beating gta5, i said zoe2 because the cell shading was glorious in that game but too much of a different style to compare, was max payne 3 that much worse looking? i remember of being impressed by some locations like the streets of brazil.
I have very nebolous memory of gta5 on ps3, i played the game for much more time on pc and way more recently so i don't have much memory of how it look on ps3.

I think it's unfair to say that rdr2 won just for the scale, i think the game genuinely looks great even if you forget the scale, and we can argue that it didn't really won best graphic of last gen, because as you say, detroit and tlou2 looks mostly better and many people don't give a damn about scale when they just judge graphic.

P.s. i don't think gta5 look "very close" to kz2 tbh, to me kz2 is the best ps3 looking game by a noticeable margin, i was never impressed with other games like i was with kz2, that game was black magic.
p.p.s. forget about zoe 2, that one was on ps2

 

[GymWolf]

edit double

 

[alloush]

I think it's unfair to say that rdr2 won just for the scale, i think the game genuinely looks great even if you forget the scale

Yeah to me RDR2 was the best looking game of last gen even better looking than TLOU2, and scale has nothing to do with my opinion!

 

[SlimySnake]

Here is what I consider great physics and interaction. I am not saying devs are lazy for not implementing these things because they are clearly aiming for higher fidelity and I am honestly fine with that as well. However, some of these things do need to change. yes, that twitter account guy is a moron but I do want to see us go back to the days of Mercenaries, Half Life 2, Far Fry 2 where the game worlds felt more alive not because they had more wildlife but because they were a playable sandbox and not just fake jpegs.

- Fire propagation.
This has to be a must. Jungles have to catch fire. Wooden cabins have to burn down. corn fields have to burn down over time.

- Let me cut down a tree.
Watching that giant tree fall down in RDR2 was an amazing moment, but let me do it. Dont tie it to scripted sequence.

- Exploding furniture.
Black had this in 2005 on PS2. Come on. You shouldnt even have to downgrade graphics for this. Just have a table and chair move around a bit if you chuck a grenade in a living room. I dont even want fancy destruction with proper wood breaking physics. Just explode them into pieces.

- Traffic accidents.
Yes, Watch Dogs faked it, but that shit was more next gen than anything i've seen since. Why cant we ever see a car crash in these open worlds? Especially when im having firefights in the middle of the street. Creating traffic jams in matrix awakens was more fun than exploring HFW's entire vapid empty world.

- Enemy stampedes.
Avatar promised this and completely did not deliver. If you have animals in the world, dont have 3-4 at time. Animal herds are in the dozens if not hundreds. And if they fucking move, they create havoc on the fields and forests. halo infinite teased this but left it out. let me play around with this.

- Destruction BFBC2 style.
Again, not asking for much here. Just PS360 era destruction in a PS5 game 15 years later. I dont want everything to be destructible but if you are giving me an RPG or dynamite or a C4 charge then let me break a fucking wall or something in your open world. its not like it will destroy the gameplay loop because the world is empty as fuck with a few wooden cabins spread out anyway.

It's not like devs dont want to do the same things. Almost every game pre-downgrade adds these little things and then they remove them come launch.

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah to me RDR2 was the best looking game of last gen even better looking than TLOU2, and scale has nothing to do with my opinion!

If i don't consider scale, i think tlou2 get a slight edge for me, i put a lot of weight on characters models (that's why i fanboy so much for hfw) and tlou2 has the better ones, rdr2 has a very large gap between arthur and most of the other characters, tlou2 is far more even and the character highs are higher than rdr2.
But saint denis under the rain or some outdoors locations at night are on par with the best locations from tlou2.
Animations are both excellent but rdr2 get the edge for the unpredictability of the euphoria engine and for the gargantuan number of unique animations, the animals animations...

if i also don't consider being a glorified tech demo, then detroit probably win.

you know what, i really can't decide between rdr2 and tlou2, it's impossible to not consider the scale.

 

[RavionUHD]

God of War Ragnarök (5160*2160 DLDSR, HDR, Reshade)

 

[GymWolf]

btw hopefully crismon desert doesn't follow sony template for cities, the city feels very alive with all the unique animations of the npcs (actually impressive for an AA), but you can shoulder check any mofo and probably cause chaos and kill npcs, it strike to me as the type of game that let you do that shit.



They only have to fix the textures or at the very least the characters, because they are fucking ROUGH.

I have the highest hope for this thing.

 

[alloush]

If i don't consider scale, i think tlou2 get a slight edge for me, i put a lot of weight on characters models (that's why i fanboy so much for hfw) and tlou2 has the better ones, rdr2 has a very large gap between arthur and most of the other characters, tlou2 is far more even and the character highs are higher than rdr2.
But saint denis under the rain or some outdoors locations at night are on par with the best locations from tlou2.
Animations are both excellent but rdr2 get the edge for the unpredictability of the euphoria engine and for the gargantuan number of unique animations, the animals animations...

if i also don't consider being a glorified tech demo, then detroit probably win.

you know what, i really can't decide between rdr2 and tlou2, it's impossible to not consider the scale.

Great post. I agree with you, I am a bigger animations whore than I am even a graphics whore and whilst a lotta people think ND have the best animations in the game to me RDR2 had the best animations I have ever seen in a videogame, though it is not everyone's cup of tea as some people think they feel like a chore. But when playing RDR2 I always stopped to admire the game's visuals, the stunning landscapes, the amazing sceneries, the behavior of the NPCs, the animals, the super alive world - something I have never done in any other game.

So yeah their animations are probably one of the main reasons why I rank it higher than TLOU2 (which had superb animations itself as well). But yeah you are right we cannot totally ignore the scale, achieving that level of visual fidelity whilst having a large ass map like that is nothing short of extraordinary.

 

[GymWolf]

Great post. I agree with you, I am a bigger animations whore than I am even a graphics whore and whilst a lotta people think ND have the best animations in the game to me RDR2 had the best animations I have ever seen in a videogame, though it is not everyone's cup of tea as some people think they feel like a chore. But when playing RDR2 I always stopped to admire the game's visuals, the stunning landscapes, the amazing sceneries, the behavior of the NPCs, the animals, the super alive world - something I have never done in any other game.

So yeah their animations are probably one of the main reasons why I rank it higher than TLOU2 (which had superb animations itself as well). But yeah you are right we cannot totally ignore the scale, achieving that level of visual fidelity whilst having a large ass map like that is nothing short of extraordinary.

Tlou2 is a videogame, rdr2 is an experience.

fun fact, i generally can't give less fucks about the western genre, never saw a "serious" western movie in my life except bone tomahawk (arguably not even a classic western), i only enjoyed the trinity comedies, this is how good rdr2 was.
(i don't think i can count back to the future 3 as western i guess )

 

[CGNoire]

Here is what I consider great physics and interaction. I am not saying devs are lazy for not implementing these things because they are clearly aiming for higher fidelity and I am honestly fine with that as well. However, some of these things do need to change. yes, that twitter account guy is a moron but I do want to see us go back to the days of Mercenaries, Half Life 2, Far Fry 2 where the game worlds felt more alive not because they had more wildlife but because they were a playable sandbox and not just fake jpegs.

- Fire propagation.
This has to be a must. Jungles have to catch fire. Wooden cabins have to burn down. corn fields have to burn down over time.

- Let me cut down a tree.
Watching that giant tree fall down in RDR2 was an amazing moment, but let me do it. Dont tie it to scripted sequence.

- Exploding furniture.
Black had this in 2005 on PS2. Come on. You shouldnt even have to downgrade graphics for this. Just have a table and chair move around a bit if you chuck a grenade in a living room. I dont even want fancy destruction with proper wood breaking physics. Just explode them into pieces.

- Traffic accidents.
Yes, Watch Dogs faked it, but that shit was more next gen than anything i've seen since. Why cant we ever see a car crash in these open worlds? Especially when im having firefights in the middle of the street. Creating traffic jams in matrix awakens was more fun than exploring HFW's entire vapid empty world.

- Enemy stampedes.
Avatar promised this and completely did not deliver. If you have animals in the world, dont have 3-4 at time. Animal herds are in the dozens if not hundreds. And if they fucking move, they create havoc on the fields and forests. halo infinite teased this but left it out. let me play around with this.

- Destruction BFBC2 style.
Again, not asking for much here. Just PS360 era destruction in a PS5 game 15 years later. I dont want everything to be destructible but if you are giving me an RPG or dynamite or a C4 charge then let me break a fucking wall or something in your open world. its not like it will destroy the gameplay loop because the world is empty as fuck with a few wooden cabins spread out anyway.

It's not like devs dont want to do the same things. Almost every game pre-downgrade adds these little things and then they remove them come launch.

I never uninstall Far Cry 2 cause of this shit.

 

[GymWolf]

Did someone said fire propagation?

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

If i don't consider scale, i think tlou2 get a slight edge for me, i put a lot of weight on characters models (that's why i fanboy so much for hfw) and tlou2 has the better ones, rdr2 has a very large gap between arthur and most of the other characters, tlou2 is far more even and the character highs are higher than rdr2.
But saint denis under the rain or some outdoors locations at night are on par with the best locations from tlou2.
Animations are both excellent but rdr2 get the edge for the unpredictability of the euphoria engine and for the gargantuan number of unique animations, the animals animations...

if i also don't consider being a glorified tech demo, then detroit probably win.

you know what, i really can't decide between rdr2 and tlou2, it's impossible to not consider the scale.

Best graphics are best graphics no matter the scale, its good to take that into account, but best graphics are simply best graphics. Some of the best looking games out today in no particular order are…

Horizon Burning Shores
The Order 1886
Wukong
TLOU 2 Remastered
Hellblade 2
Spiderman 2
Alan Wake 2
RDR2
Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Survivor
Avatar
Cyberpunk 2077 (PC)
Space Marine 2
Callisto Protocol
Ratchet Rift Apart
Demon Souls
Flight Simulator
Starfield
FF16



Feel free to add more…

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

Maybe I’m crazy but this doesn’t seem like that far away from that Amy Hennig UE5 marvel game

It doesn’t at all and in some ways the Marvel game looks better or is it me?

 

[Bitstream]

It doesn’t at all and in some ways the Marvel game looks better or is it me?

Completely agree, new Marvel game looks incredible based on what they've shown so far. Plus, it actually exists as a game we'll be able to play.

 

[Represent.]

Nearing the end of Space Marine 2 now - This may be the best looking thing I've ever seen from a pure visual standpoint, considering the amount of stuff going on on screen.

What it loses out on by being linear, it makes up for by having an insane amount of shit going on on screen.

During combat, we're nearing Hellblade 2 visuals, with WAY more shit happening. Absolutely stunning game.

The fact that they are using their own in-house engine makes it even more impressive.

The only negative is the cutscenes, they look horrendous. The actual gameplay looks way better.

 

[Darsxx82]

Nearing the end of Space Marine 2 now - This may be the best looking thing I've ever seen from a pure visual standpoint, considering the amount of stuff going on on screen.

What it loses out on by being linear, it makes up for by having an insane amount of shit going on on screen.

During combat, we're nearing Hellblade 2 visuals, with WAY more shit happening. Absolutely stunning game.

The fact that they are using their own in-house engine makes it even more impressive.

The only negative is the cutscenes, they look horrendous. The actual gameplay looks way better.

Yes, I am also pleasantly surprised. Everything that happens on screen is incredible and the fact that it does so with such a magnificent visual level is worthy of being recognized as a Nextgen game.

I am very glad that sales are also going very well.

 

[Represent.]

Best graphics are best graphics no matter the scale, its good to take that into account, but best graphics are simply best graphics. Some of the best looking games out today in no particular order are…

Horizon Burning Shores
The Order 1886
Wukong
TLOU 2 Remastered
Hellblade 2
Spiderman 2
Alan Wake 2
RDR2
Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Survivor
Avatar
Cyberpunk 2077 (PC)



Feel free to add more…

Space Marine 2 deserves a spot high up on this list.

 

[UchihaMadara]

Is Concord the best looking multiplayer game?

 

[Represent.]

Is Concord the best looking multiplayer game?

Honestly, probably yes.