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[Kerotan]

Playing TLOUP2 Pro mode this is the fidelity I expected this gen and with smooth motion. I feel like I just played a PS6 game. The crazy thing all these Sony games are easily forwards compatible and will be shining even more on the PS6. But this fidelity with this motion I'm good.

I'm doing a rift apart play through and likewise mind blowing.

 

[ProtoByte]

Nope, my point was that the lack of innovation in the industry is whats causing it to stagnate.

I think it's the lack of quality. Many angles to it, but while I was lamenting this year and the direction gaming's going in, I listed the games of 2014:


Dark Souls 2
Watch Dogs
Bayonetta 2
Driveclub
Shovel Knight
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Shadow of Mordor
The Evil Within
Alien Isolation
Wolfenstein New Order
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
The Wolf Among Us
Forza Horizon 2
Far Cry 4
Transistor
Sunset Overdrive
Titanfall
Wasteland 2
Mario Kart 8
Child of Light
Destiny
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Super Smash Bros Wii U
Divinity: Original Sin

We thought that was a lame year. Holy hell, did we have it good.

Baldur's Gate 3's massive critical and commercial success had nothing to do with being "innovative". It had everything to do with finally bringing a level of production values to a genre that just can't reach its full potential without them being very high.

There is no good reason the biggest and most prolific studios on the planet shouldn't be putting out all-around bangers at this point.

Review scores are massively inflated, expectations are self-fulfilling in being lower than they used to be. New devs are learning via remasters and making the same or new mistakes after the fact when they finally contribute to something brand new.

I fear that if GTA6 disappoints in practically any way, the ambition slump will continue.

 

[SlimySnake]

I think it's the lack of quality. Many angles to it, but while I was lamenting this year and the direction gaming's going in, I listed the games of 2014:


Dark Souls 2
Watch Dogs
Bayonetta 2
Driveclub
Shovel Knight
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Shadow of Mordor
The Evil Within
Alien Isolation
Wolfenstein New Order
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
The Wolf Among Us
Forza Horizon 2
Far Cry 4
Transistor
Sunset Overdrive
Titanfall
Wasteland 2
Mario Kart 8
Child of Light
Destiny
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Super Smash Bros Wii U
Divinity: Original Sin

We thought that was a lame year. Holy hell, did we have it good.

Baldur's Gate 3's massive critical and commercial success had nothing to do with being "innovative". It had everything to do with finally bringing a level of production values to a genre that just can't reach its full potential without them being very high.

There is no good reason the biggest and most prolific studios on the planet shouldn't be putting out all-around bangers at this point.

Review scores are massively inflated, expectations are self-fulfilling in being lower than they used to be. New devs are learning via remasters and making the same or new mistakes after the fact when they finally contribute to something brand new.

I fear that if GTA6 disappoints in practically any way, the ambition slump will continue.

lol yeah i remember bitching about 2014 being a bad year but it took me till 2021 to realize that it was full of ambitious games that were flawed, but definitely not safe. You forgot to list AC Unity and to me, unity and far cry 4 are the difference between last gen and this gen. Unity was buggy but buggy for a reason, it was ambitious and a next gen showpiece. Far cry 4 was polished but a last gen safe copy pasta sequel that is akin to most games we've gotten this gen. from horizon fw to ragnorak and spiderman 2. just the same shit over and over again.

I was too harsh on titanfall because it didnt have a SP campaign. too harsh on destiny because it was grindy and didnt have a real campaign. too harsh on watch dogs because of the downgrade. Even though it felt like a next gen game despite being a cross gen game. Driveclub for shipping in that awful state. But looking back, all of those games were more next gen, more ambitious and more innovative than anything ive played this gen.

 

[ProtoByte]

I was too harsh on titanfall because it didnt have a SP campaign. too harsh on destiny because it was grindy and didnt have a real campaign. too harsh on watch dogs because of the downgrade. Even though it felt like a next gen game despite being a cross gen game. Driveclub for shipping in that awful state. But looking back, all of those games were more next gen, more ambitious and more innovative than anything ive played this gen.

I don't think you or anyone else was too harsh on the games, we just had expectations. Most of that stuff still sold well enough, and deserved the criticism.

I said it in this thread before: The anti-crunch campaigns against ND, BioWare and others did terrible damage. I think the performative sympathy gave too much permission to devs to get lazy and not be criticized. Throw in WFH and live service games (validated by gamers), and any ideas of having to step up when you're at a premier studio making 150+ million dollar development games went poof.

 

[SlimySnake]

I don't think you or anyone else was too harsh on the games, we just had expectations. Most of that stuff still sold well enough, and deserved the criticism.

yeah, but what that ended up doing was telling developers to stop taking risks and release safe formulaic sequels that will get an easy 85-95 on metacritic. Whereas games like ac unity, driveclub and destiny would sit in the low to mid 70s on metacritic and create all kinds of outrage on twitter.

i think they all deserved criticism, but like i said, we were too harsh. Lets not forget mass effect 1 ran at 15 fps in 2007, uncharted Drake's fortune was a 6 hour long basic ass shooter with some really shoddy enemy encounter design, and even motorstorm was as barebones as you can get for a racer. But they all didnt have those hate campaigns because back in 2007 we knew you cant get it right on the very first try.

Nowadays the hate campaigns are reserved for woke games. Maybe for buggy games or a downgrade here or there. But review scores are massively inflated for those samey formulaic era games like ff7 rebirth, ragnorak, astro bot, starfield, dragons dogma, alan wake 2. i can go on and on. i would love to see gamers talk shit about how basic and safe some of these games have become. But as long as they are not woke or buggy, they are given a pass by both gamers and the critics. its no surprise devs and publishers dont take risks, we jumped down their throats the last time they took risks in 2014.

 

[ProtoByte]

yeah, but what that ended up doing was telling developers to stop taking risks and release safe formulaic sequels that will get an easy 85-95 on metacritic. Whereas games like ac unity, driveclub and destiny would sit in the low to mid 70s on metacritic and create all kinds of outrage on twitter.

i think they all deserved criticism, but like i said, we were too harsh. Lets not forget mass effect 1 ran at 15 fps in 2007, uncharted Drake's fortune was a 6 hour long basic ass shooter with some really shoddy enemy encounter design, and even motorstorm was as barebones as you can get for a racer. But they all didnt have those hate campaigns because back in 2007 we knew you cant get it right on the very first try.

Nowadays the hate campaigns are reserved for woke games. Maybe for buggy games or a downgrade here or there. But review scores are massively inflated for those samey formulaic era games like ff7 rebirth, ragnorak, astro bot, starfield, dragons dogma, alan wake 2. i can go on and on. i would love to see gamers talk shit about how basic and safe some of these games have become. But as long as they are not woke or buggy, they are given a pass by both gamers and the critics. its no surprise devs and publishers dont take risks, we jumped down their throats the last time they took risks in 2014.

I take your point, though I think it's giving too much of a pass to the other side.

Unity got bad reviews because it was buggy as hell, but the actual mechanics post-fix were still unpolished in a lot of ways, with the same design flaws of the Ubisoft checklist. Don't forget, we were many games deep into the "safety" and mediocrity of AC by this point. Destiny got bad reviews because they didn't deliver on what was promised, and because the game was genuinely mediocre. It still sold very well, and Bungie has a captive community that will swallow down whatever they churn out.

The "safe" sequels that got great scores and sales like Uncharted 4 might not have redefined the game, but it was polished on day one, actually enhanced the gameplay and design in next gen ways, AND didn't collapse with bad writing despite taking quite a risk by stripping the supernatural stuff out and doing the notorious "secret brother" retcon (a holdover from when Hennig was writing it). Druckmann took a reasonable risk, and didn't try and over-grimdark Uncharted. He also didn't take Hennig's idea of no gun combat (in a TPS) until halfway into the game, because that was unreasonable.

If the takeaway from that is "churn out safe games that aren't even as good as they were last gen, and don't even think about advancing beyond that", then that's on the devs.

They need to get real. They're competing with a record number of other games, and a crowded entertainment space. Time and money will only amass in the kinds of piles they want for the best of the best. For AAA games that charge 70 up front on less than cheap consoles, it's just not good enough to put out an 7.5-8 out of 10 game that's just competent in all areas. Again: There's no excuse for studios like Naughty Dog, Rocksteady, SSM, Netherrealm, R*, Bioware and others not to be firing on all cylinders. I mean it.

 

[Balducci30]

MFS2024. Now that it's starting to work as it should, the visual result is insane.

The leap in visual fidelity compared to FS2020 is incredible at times, beyond some inconsistencies when "inventing" buildings and constructions.

My surprise was seeing that it also updates urban areas when you go down to the ground and not just natural areas...

This is the first game I’ve seen where the VR version actually makes it look better

 

[March Climber]

Played some PS5 games on my old 1080p tv i bought back in 2012-2013 for my PS4. I was surprised to see the image quality even at 1080p was really good. Especially compared to my 4k oled. Games were downsampled from 4k or 1440p so I expected it to look cleaner but i honestly couldnt tell the difference.

That got me thinking. Did we all just get duped into buying these expensive tvs?

Yes. Gaming as a whole was not ready for the hard hit of 4k resolution, and right after that was the second punch of ray tracing/path tracing.

1440p should have been the incremental resolution to climb to.

It is actually insane how fast some devs managed to adapt and handle both.

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

Nope, my point was that the lack of innovation in the industry is whats causing it to stagnate. I specifically said that we are not growing, and may even be shrinking.

And they are all making profits. All three of them. Especially sony who has literally never been more profitable. And yet we are in a state of panic with layoffs, studio shutdowns, unproductive studios, and constant cutting with THE most risk averse publishers ive ever seen in my 30 years following this medium. If you think the industry is healthy then there is nothing to talk about because you and I completely disagree with the basic premise of my post. If you are ok with where the industry is, especially Nintendo which has literally forced its devs to release games on 2005 era hardware then thats ok. We disagree on the most fundamental level.

I hold nintendo devs to a very high regard, and that's precisely why it breaks my heart to see them slave away on 20 year old hardware. Their hands tied behind the backs. Their vision tied behind 15 watts handhelds and 190 gflops gpu. Their growth stunted by a publisher that despite being profitable is still unwilling to increase the budget of its games, size of its studios and their ambitions because they simply dont get the revenues from third party games that simply cannot run on the switch. you can call switch a console all you want but they just went 8 years without 99% of the big AAA games that made sony and ms billions. Some of which they were willing to fund back into ambitious projects of their own. they are profitable enough to keep churning out games like zelda echos of wisdom and mario brotherhood but in this thread, we hold devs to a higher standard.

Meanwhile people in the thread glazing Stalker 2. A game which launched broken, buggy and glitchy just like Cyberpunk and many other recent “AAA” games.

Nintendo have never spent more on development the two Zelda games alone cost over $200 million in dev costs alone. The costs will rise further on Switch 2.

You seem to be confusing smaller scale games with quality. Which is funny because you know recently all you’ve done is cry about the quality of the actual games. Something about woman and minorities in development wasn’t it?…

 

[SlimySnake]

I thought this was interesting given we were just talking about safe sequels being rewarded by critics on metacritic.



I dont think we need to reward these games with a higher score. Instead we need to start rating the formulaic and safe ones a lot lower. I am baffled by Dragon Age, Dragons Dogma, Starfield, ff16, ratchet, spiderman 2, horizon, ff7 rebirth and ragnorak scoring so high. they are like at least 10 points too high. 20 in the case of starfield and ff7 rebirth.

Id rate Days Gone, Mass Effect Andromeda, AC Unity a 7/10. But id also rate HFW, ratchet and ff16 a 7/10. For some reason, only buggy AAA games are rated in the low 70s. We need to stop handing out 80s and 90s just for being polished.

 

[Balducci30]

I thought this was interesting given we were just talking about safe sequels being rewarded by critics on metacritic.



I dont think we need to reward these games with a higher score. Instead we need to start rating the formulaic and safe ones a lot lower. I am baffled by Dragon Age, Dragons Dogma, Starfield, ff16, ratchet, spiderman 2, horizon, ff7 rebirth and ragnorak scoring so high. they are like at least 10 points too high. 20 in the case of starfield and ff7 rebirth.

Id rate Days Gone, Mass Effect Andromeda, AC Unity a 7/10. But id also rate HFW, ratchet and ff16 a 7/10. For some reason, only buggy AAA games are rated in the low 70s. We need to stop handing out 80s and 90s just for being polished.

Agree wholeheartedly- if you can get a 80-90 meta critic for being run of the mill what are we doing

 

[mrqs]

Silent Hill 2 remake on the Pro looks so bad. It is impossible to play on quality mode after the latest patch.

But still on performance mode, I really don't get it. I'd much prefer stable screen space reflections than the messy visuals of the lumen ray traced ones. It looks horrible and flicker-y.

Games designed around ray traced reflections could really make a case for the tech, but 95% of games could look much better with pre-baked ssr (or cubemaps) water than this.

 

[powder]

Silent Hill 2 remake on the Pro looks so bad. It is impossible to play on quality mode after the latest patch.

But still on performance mode, I really don't get it. I'd much prefer stable screen space reflections than the messy visuals of the lumen ray traced ones. It looks horrible and flicker-y.

Games designed around ray traced reflections could really make a case for the tech, but 95% of games could look much better with pre-baked ssr (or cubemaps) water than this.

Yeah it’s not good. I think they need to get Sony’s engineers on it cuz Bloober is clearly struggling with optimizing their shit. I bet it’s a confluence of issues starting with the game being on an early build of UE5 and all kinds of fuckery with the Pro’s PSSR upscaling. It really doesn’t matter as it’s just plain fucking embarrassing to see a *timed console exclusive* on a *brand new piece of hardware* tripping over its own dick this bad.

 

[SlimySnake]

Silent Hill 2 remake on the Pro looks so bad. It is impossible to play on quality mode after the latest patch.

But still on performance mode, I really don't get it. I'd much prefer stable screen space reflections than the messy visuals of the lumen ray traced ones. It looks horrible and flicker-y.

Games designed around ray traced reflections could really make a case for the tech, but 95% of games could look much better with pre-baked ssr (or cubemaps) water than this.

its the pssr implementation. it is awful right now. cant handle rt or anything other dynamic elements. it will get better.

on dlss i had no issues with reflections or flickering. Hell, when they were using fsr (or was it TSR?? ) in the OG PS5, the shimmering wasnt this bad. its all on PSSR.

 

[ProtoByte]

I thought this was interesting given we were just talking about safe sequels being rewarded by critics on metacritic.



I dont think we need to reward these games with a higher score. Instead we need to start rating the formulaic and safe ones a lot lower. I am baffled by Dragon Age, Dragons Dogma, Starfield, ff16, ratchet, spiderman 2, horizon, ff7 rebirth and ragnorak scoring so high. they are like at least 10 points too high. 20 in the case of starfield and ff7 rebirth.

Id rate Days Gone, Mass Effect Andromeda, AC Unity a 7/10. But id also rate HFW, ratchet and ff16 a 7/10. For some reason, only buggy AAA games are rated in the low 70s. We need to stop handing out 80s and 90s just for being polished.

How about this: Everybody gets lower scores.

Releasing a busted game shouldnput you no higher than 70 on metacritic. No less than 60 if it's to a certain point.
That said, there's nothing risky or new about Stalker.

 

[SlimySnake]

Yeah it’s not good. I think they need to get Sony’s engineers on it cuz Bloober is clearly struggling with optimizing their shit. I bet it’s a confluence of issues starting with the game being on an early build of UE5 and all kinds of fuckery with the Pro’s PSSR upscaling. It really doesn’t matter as it’s just plain fucking embarrassing to see a *timed console exclusive* on a *brand new piece of hardware* tripping over its own dick this bad.

bloober sucks ass. I love the game but my god it ran like shit on my pc. constant stutters in the apartments and other indoor areas like the hospital.

these guys shouldve never released these games on an early build of UE5. although black myth was also on an early build and the worst issue they had was that they couldnt include VSMs. so in the end its mostly bloober being bloober.

 

[Msamy]

Rockstar really gonna all out in ray tracing and the amount of engine programmers who working on Rage engine maybe even higher than epic games programmers who work on unreal engine gta vi defenitly gonna be a masterpiece

 

[Msamy]

bloober sucks ass. I love the game but my god it ran like shit on my pc. constant stutters in the apartments and other indoor areas like the hospital.

these guys shouldve never released these games on an early build of UE5. although black myth was also on an early build and the worst issue they had was that they couldnt include VSMs. so in the end its mostly bloober being bloober.

I didn't really know why many studios which use ue5 stuck to upgrade their games to ue5 higher versions before their release those games I don't think this is hard task

 

[BlownUpRich]

This is just bad news, we thought the Series S was holding back in someway, this will be way worse, we're screwed lol.



And yeah my 1st post in this forum, been lurking in this forum for quite sometime.

 

[Bojji]

I didn't really know why many studios which use ue5 stuck to upgrade their games to ue5 higher versions before their release those games I don't think this is hard task

Looking at the amount of games released on old UE5 builds, it's safe to assume that upgrading to new engine version is not easy and would probably require a lot of resources to fix new bugs etc.

Epic fucked up by releasing unoptimized mess, THEN they started patching it. In 5.4 they optimized CPU performance, any 5.4 game yet?

 

[Msamy]

Looking at the amount of games released on old UE5 builds, it's safe to assume that upgrading to new engine version is not easy and would probably require a lot of resources to fix new bugs etc.

Epic fucked up by releasing unoptimized mess, THEN they started patching it. In 5.4 they optimized CPU performance, any 5.4 game yet?

I don't know how to it take for unreal engine 5 to switch games between versions but for unity or godot it's just done automatically, for unreal 5 it's not good to make switch between versions complicated

 

[SlimySnake]

This is just bad news, we thought the Series S was holding back in someway, this will be way worse, we're screwed lol.



And yeah my 1st post in this forum, been lurking in this forum for quite sometime.

yh but i don’t think series s held us back. If anything it was last Gen consoles and lack of ambition on the part of developers.

I doubt this Thing is more than 5/6 tflops. Devs will just port over series s versions of the game with some minor enhancements.

Next Gen will be held back by ps5 and xsx until around 2032.

 

[RodriGames40]

yh but i don’t think series s held us back. If anything it was last Gen consoles and lack of ambition on the part of developers.

I doubt this Thing is more than 5/6 tflops. Devs will just port over series s versions of the game with some minor enhancements.

Next Gen will be held back by ps5 and xsx until around 2032.

Definitely, that would mean putting in 2048 shader cores and clocking them at like 2 Ghz consistently. Even with N2P by 2027-2028 this will be at best double the Switch 2 in performance...

 

[Buggy Loop]

I thought this was interesting given we were just talking about safe sequels being rewarded by critics on metacritic.



I dont think we need to reward these games with a higher score. Instead we need to start rating the formulaic and safe ones a lot lower. I am baffled by Dragon Age, Dragons Dogma, Starfield, ff16, ratchet, spiderman 2, horizon, ff7 rebirth and ragnorak scoring so high. they are like at least 10 points too high. 20 in the case of starfield and ff7 rebirth.

Id rate Days Gone, Mass Effect Andromeda, AC Unity a 7/10. But id also rate HFW, ratchet and ff16 a 7/10. For some reason, only buggy AAA games are rated in the low 70s. We need to stop handing out 80s and 90s just for being polished.

Yup

Why would AAA take risks now? They've pretty much nailed the recipe of what sells since PS3. The risky ventures with physics galore back in early 2000's are not even to be found in modern times.

Remake, remaster, sequels. They sell. We give high scores to these safe, budgeted, run by committee and marketing studied games.

The most anticipated game is... GTA 6. I mean sure, I understand, but that's a bit sad for the industry. I pretty much know how it'll play, just with a new coat of paint. Maybe even downgrades if we think back to GTA 4 vs 5.

So who even takes risks? Who will be the next trail blazer that will define its game genre? There's still some, but certainly not AAA.

Also internet culture is cancer

I found this guy's take quite interesting



So repeating things you had success in is the safe way to make games. Diverge too much from that path and you have a bunch of peoples saying its dogshit. This polarizing attitude, and its present also on this forum, is tiring honestly. I see it as a quick dopamine hit for as little typing as possible for brainlets. Detailing why this is not so bad or this is fine, this was a risk they took and it didn't pay off but at least they tried, etc, is more typing, less dopamine, brain sad. Everyone reaches for the comfy blanket of what they already know. While the industry needs to run on fucking knives to shake things up. Games have not only plateaued on graphics, it plateaued hard on gameplay.

 

[DanielG165]

Rockstar really gonna all out in ray tracing and the amount of engine programmers who working on Rage engine maybe even higher than epic games programmers who work on unreal engine gta vi defenitly gonna be a masterpiece

The more I hear about GTA 6, the more excited I am for it. Though, there’s no chance on Earth that any of the consoles will output more than 30 fps here. This game is going to royally kick their asses lol, and I am excited to see the hardware stretched to the very limit across the board.

 

[DanielG165]

MFS2024. Now that it's starting to work as it should, the visual result is insane.

The leap in visual fidelity compared to FS2020 is incredible at times, beyond some inconsistencies when "inventing" buildings and constructions.

My surprise was seeing that it also updates urban areas when you go down to the ground and not just natural areas...

It always feels unfair for me personally to call Flight Sim the best looking “game” ever made, but… It’s genuinely the best looking entity that one can experience, ever made lol.

 

[RavionUHD]

Stalker 2 (4K Ultrawide, 5160*2160 DLDSR, Max Settings, ReShade)

The game has very impressive asset quality, everythings seems to be high polygon, and the texture quality is fantastic. Lumen does a good job with the lightning and the Global Illumniation, it looks realistic in night and day.

 

[Kaiserstark]

I didn't really know why many studios which use ue5 stuck to upgrade their games to ue5 higher versions before their release those games I don't think this is hard task

Looking at the amount of games released on old UE5 builds, it's safe to assume that upgrading to new engine version is not easy and would probably require a lot of resources to fix new bugs etc.

Epic fucked up by releasing unoptimized mess, THEN they started patching it. In 5.4 they optimized CPU performance, any 5.4 game yet?

At some point a studio must develop and release a game, especially since the development times are long enough.

For example, moving from Unreal Engine 5.1 to 5.5 will require several weeks of work from engineers, artists and QA testers.

You just have to go to the Epic forum to see that with each new UE 5 version, lots of people report things that worked perfectly in the previous version and which now no longer work in the new version and you find yourself at wait and hope Epic fixes the problem, you can't really afford that on AAA development.

This is why the games currently being released and who are using UE 5 are in 5.0 or 5.1.

The reality is that UE 5 was released in a state that was not well enough optimized, especially for consoles, and now Epic is trying to make up for it.

 

[DanielG165]

Stalker 2 genuinely continues to impress me; there’s far more visually stunning than there is lackluster here. A vast majority of the detail, even the minute stuff, is heavily picked out and dense, with things looking like they actually exist in that space. The only negative I can give is the lighting at times, it can be flat, but most of the time, lumen is doing nice work. One detail that I like is how different each and every lightning bolt appears, and how they genuinely act like real bolts. RT is a little soft in puddles on console, but the effect is still there and acceptable.

This game in Quality mode definitely uses every ounce of Series X hardware. I can’t see what else they could really do to push visuals and fidelity further here; performance mode could use some additional work, though.

 

[SlimySnake]

Definitely, that would mean putting in 2048 shader cores and clocking them at like 2 Ghz consistently. Even with N2P by 2027-2028 this will be at best double the Switch 2 in performance...

It will be interesting to see what it will cost Sony to outperform the switch 2. It will obviously cost more to produce but i remember Sony producing the vita and selling it for the same price as the 3ds.

Yup

Why would AAA take risks now? They've pretty much nailed the recipe of what sells since PS3. The risky ventures with physics galore back in early 2000's are not even to be found in modern times.

Remake, remaster, sequels. They sell. We give high scores to these safe, budgeted, run by committee and marketing studied games.

The most anticipated game is... GTA 6. I mean sure, I understand, but that's a bit sad for the industry. I pretty much know how it'll play, just with a new coat of paint. Maybe even downgrades if we think back to GTA 4 vs 5.

So who even takes risks? Who will be the next trail blazer that will define its game genre? There's still some, but certainly not AAA.

Also internet culture is cancer

I found this guy's take quite interesting



So repeating things you had success in is the safe way to make games. Diverge too much from that path and you have a bunch of peoples saying its dogshit. This polarizing attitude, and its present also on this forum, is tiring honestly. I see it as a quick dopamine hit for as little typing as possible for brainlets. Detailing why this is not so bad or this is fine, this was a risk they took and it didn't pay off but at least they tried, etc, is more typing, less dopamine, brain sad. Everyone reaches for the comfy blanket of what they already know. While the industry needs to run on fucking knives to shake things up. Games have not only plateaued on graphics, it plateaued hard on gameplay.

regarding the internet culture and the inability to discuss things without resorting to gifs, insults and meme, I legit think that twitter and youtube comments are a large part of the reason why outrage culture became so huge in the 2010s. I brought up Mass effect 1. Imagine if ME1 released in the twitter era. Not to mention how the youtube clickbait outrage machine would exploit its failures. we wouldve never gotten a sequel.

but this is why i like forums. I can still make long form posts and actually critique games beyond just saying it sucks. cant do that on twitter even if you tried. youtube and reddit will downvote your posts so no one sees them. its a shame, but i think the popularity of forums going down has coincided with publishers taking fewer risks. everyone is trying to avoid pissing off gamers.

I do wish that the hate mob would care a little bit about next gen graphics but they only care about railing against lgbt and DEI stuff.

 

[BlownUpRich]

It will be interesting to see what it will cost Sony to outperform the switch 2. It will obviously cost more to produce but i remember Sony producing the vita and selling it for the same price as the 3ds.

regarding the internet culture and the inability to discuss things without resorting to gifs, insults and meme, I legit think that twitter and youtube comments are a large part of the reason why outrage culture became so huge in the 2010s. I brought up Mass effect 1. Imagine if ME1 released in the twitter era. Not to mention how the youtube clickbait outrage machine would exploit its failures. we wouldve never gotten a sequel.

but this is why i like forums. I can still make long form posts and actually critique games beyond just saying it sucks. cant do that on twitter even if you tried. youtube and reddit will downvote your posts so no one sees them. its a shame, but i think the popularity of forums going down has coincided with publishers taking fewer risks. everyone is trying to avoid pissing off gamers.

I do wish that the hate mob would care a little bit about next gen graphics but they only care about railing against lgbt and DEI stuff.

Sadly some of the hate mob just wants everything to be 60 FPS, it's this newborn obsession with higher framerates, VRR, unlocked frames, 120 Hz garbage that is literally holding gaming back in more ways than people think, while at the same time, game studios & companies saw this opportunity by marketing that their games can run at 60 FPS or higher because it's so much easier to run games at those frames than having to use every ounce of power of something like a PS5 in meaningful innovative ways like advanced AI, advanced simulations like animations, physics & really high-quality assets/lighting.

People claim that they care about higher framerates, but pee their pants the moment they saw things like the GTA VI trailer or Marvel 1943 or maybe the next Naughty Dog game when it only runs at 30 FPS, I feel like people just do not know what they want at this point, any perceived "flaw" will get "critiqued" harshly.

I watched DF's thoughts on Sony buying Kadokawa + From Software & the 1st thing they brought up is how Sony will assist From Software in making their engine run better optimized to achieve higher & stable framerates, they haven't expressed any thought on the much more important topic, which is on the negative ramifications that will ensue when From is being controlled under the hands of something like SIE San Francisco, and the inevitable layoffs & devs just leaving the company due to different culture & standards. It's this framerate obsession man that is making it hard for PS5 to produce truly next-gen stuff, or "current-gen" stuff.

OK I went on a tangent here, but man the FPS talk keeps coming back all the time to the point games are running at 60/120fps/unlocked-whatever on PS5 so that they easily get ported down to the Next-gen Switch lol.

 

[luca_29_bg]

bloober sucks ass. I love the game but my god it ran like shit on my pc. constant stutters in the apartments and other indoor areas like the hospital.

these guys shouldve never released these games on an early build of UE5. although black myth was also on an early build and the worst issue they had was that they couldnt include VSMs. so in the end its mostly bloober being bloober.

I know the feeling, but ultra mod helped me, 7900xt oc 3.3 ghz here! The game It's still in a very rough state, and there is no animation of James when he's heavy breathing after a run, this was even present in the original!

 

[March Climber]

Why would AAA take risks now? They've pretty much nailed the recipe of what sells since PS3. The risky ventures with physics galore back in early 2000's are not even to be found in modern times.

People aren’t buying them, and on top of that people aren’t buying the unique indie and AA games that would fund these studios into becoming AAA studios.

We can blame the industry as much as we want and they definitely have their faults, but the consumers are technically in the driver’s seat.

 

[SlimySnake]

Sadly some of the hate mob just wants everything to be 60 FPS, it's this newborn obsession with higher framerates, VRR, unlocked frames, 120 Hz garbage that is literally holding gaming back in more ways than people think, while at the same time, game studios & companies saw this opportunity by marketing that their games can run at 60 FPS or higher because it's so much easier to run games at those frames than having to use every ounce of power of something like a PS5 in meaningful innovative ways like advanced AI, advanced simulations like animations, physics & really high-quality assets/lighting.

People claim that they care about higher framerates, but pee their pants the moment they saw things like the GTA VI trailer or Marvel 1943 or maybe the next Naughty Dog game when it only runs at 30 FPS, I feel like people just do not know what they want at this point, any perceived "flaw" will get "critiqued" harshly.

I watched DF's thoughts on Sony buying Kadokawa + From Software & the 1st thing they brought up is how Sony will assist From Software in making their engine run better optimized to achieve higher & stable framerates, they haven't expressed any thought on the much more important topic, which is on the negative ramifications that will ensue when From is being controlled under the hands of something like SIE San Francisco, and the inevitable layoffs & devs just leaving the company due to different culture & standards. It's this framerate obsession man that is making it hard for PS5 to produce truly next-gen stuff, or "current-gen" stuff.

OK I went on a tangent here, but man the FPS talk keeps coming back all the time to the point games are running at 60/120fps/unlocked-whatever on PS5 so that they easily get ported down to the Next-gen Switch lol.

yeah, the DF Fromsoft talk sounds like typical DF missing the forest for the trees. they waste too much time on pixel and framerate counting and go anal on any drops from 60 fps as if locked 60 fps needs to be some kind of standard. And im like locked 60 fps means you are wasting a lot of the gpu that couldve been used to push higher quality effects. We saw this when Sony added vrr and unlocked the framerate of games like spiderman 2, tlou2, ratchet and horizon fw all running between 70-85 fps. thats roughly 30-40% of the gpu wasted. gt7 actually runs at 100 fps in native 4k but if you watch DF's footage they found the one isntance where it would drop to the mid 50s in the middle of the rain at the very start of the race with all cars bunched together, and that became the headline story.

meanwhile the game had over 60% of the gpu available and PD did nothing with it until vrr was added to the ps5, and even then they simply let it run at 100 fps.

I still remember their coverage of Tomb Raider's ps4 and x1 ports. It was running at around 52-55 fps and they made such a big deal about it. internet got super angry too. and im like its very hard to notice drops to 55 fps. you are still getting a greatly enhanced framerate. Regardless, we came from a generation where 90% of the games were running at sub 30 fps. around 25 fps at times, and no one cared. and all of a sudden 55 fps was too much of a drop.

Ridiculous.

 

[SlimySnake]

People aren’t buying them, and on top of that people aren’t buying the unique indie and AA games that would fund these studios into becoming AAA studios.

We can blame the industry as much as we want and they definitely have their faults, but the consumers are technically in the driver’s seat.

well, we havent had many physics and destruction heavy games on consoles since early to mid 2000s so yes, they arent being bought because no one is making them.

And a lot of the indie developers are making trash. im sorry. but this whole play indie games for innovation is overblown nonsense. always has been. there are always exceptions like FTL, Hades, and Inside, but by and large, indie developers are just as unambitious and formulaic as AAA developers. there is a reason why 99% of the indie games are still 2d or top down games from the 90s.

 

[March Climber]

well, we havent had many physics and destruction heavy games on consoles since early to mid 2000s so yes, they arent being bought because no one is making them.

And a lot of the indie developers are making trash. im sorry. but this whole play indie games for innovation is overblown nonsense. always has been. there are always exceptions like FTL, Hades, and Inside, but by and large, indie developers are just as unambitious and formulaic as AAA developers. there is a reason why 99% of the indie games are still 2d or top down games from the 90s.

Then get used to what you currently play now, for years to come.

Also, the way I wouldn’t judge the entire AAA industry’s history on a small percentage of trendsetters in the 2000s, is the same way I wouldn’t judge the innovating indies on the large percentage of indie games that are not trendsetters.

Neither is a fair point of view and neither is that black and white. Regardless I won’t go further with my point as there’s no need anymore at this point. Let’s get back to graphics and status quos.

 

[SlimySnake]

Finished up dragon age, and man that final mission is nice and long, and super epic. its still mostly running through corridors like gow rangorak, but there are a lot more epic cutscenes than the finale of ragnorak which felt like it was rushed and literally ended in a basement. this felt like an awesome callback to the ME2 and ME3 days where you got to see all different factions show up at the end and contribute even if its mostly cutscenes. Really liked the scale and epic feel of it all.

Sadly, i wanted the whole game to be like this and it wasn't. I just cant believe Bioware went from Anthem to this. Frostbite was amazing, and Dead Space and now Dragon Age have both disappointed despite some nice visuals. the beach level had some great lighting and reminded me of the uncharted 4 beach levels, and i still like the overall general look of the game, but the asset quality, character design, and most environments in general just didnt impress as much. It truly shines in some cutscenes that are mocapped and shot in a very cinematic way. Sadly there are maybe 4-5 of these scenes. not worth the price of admission.

 

[Bojji]

Sadly some of the hate mob just wants everything to be 60 FPS, it's this newborn obsession with higher framerates, VRR, unlocked frames, 120 Hz garbage that is literally holding gaming back in more ways than people think, while at the same time, game studios & companies saw this opportunity by marketing that their games can run at 60 FPS or higher because it's so much easier to run games at those frames than having to use every ounce of power of something like a PS5 in meaningful innovative ways like advanced AI, advanced simulations like animations, physics & really high-quality assets/lighting.

People claim that they care about higher framerates, but pee their pants the moment they saw things like the GTA VI trailer or Marvel 1943 or maybe the next Naughty Dog game when it only runs at 30 FPS, I feel like people just do not know what they want at this point, any perceived "flaw" will get "critiqued" harshly.

I watched DF's thoughts on Sony buying Kadokawa + From Software & the 1st thing they brought up is how Sony will assist From Software in making their engine run better optimized to achieve higher & stable framerates, they haven't expressed any thought on the much more important topic, which is on the negative ramifications that will ensue when From is being controlled under the hands of something like SIE San Francisco, and the inevitable layoffs & devs just leaving the company due to different culture & standards. It's this framerate obsession man that is making it hard for PS5 to produce truly next-gen stuff, or "current-gen" stuff.

OK I went on a tangent here, but man the FPS talk keeps coming back all the time to the point games are running at 60/120fps/unlocked-whatever on PS5 so that they easily get ported down to the Next-gen Switch lol.

yeah, the DF Fromsoft talk sounds like typical DF missing the forest for the trees. they waste too much time on pixel and framerate counting and go anal on any drops from 60 fps as if locked 60 fps needs to be some kind of standard. And im like locked 60 fps means you are wasting a lot of the gpu that couldve been used to push higher quality effects. We saw this when Sony added vrr and unlocked the framerate of games like spiderman 2, tlou2, ratchet and horizon fw all running between 70-85 fps. thats roughly 30-40% of the gpu wasted. gt7 actually runs at 100 fps in native 4k but if you watch DF's footage they found the one isntance where it would drop to the mid 50s in the middle of the rain at the very start of the race with all cars bunched together, and that became the headline story.

meanwhile the game had over 60% of the gpu available and PD did nothing with it until vrr was added to the ps5, and even then they simply let it run at 100 fps.

I still remember their coverage of Tomb Raider's ps4 and x1 ports. It was running at around 52-55 fps and they made such a big deal about it. internet got super angry too. and im like its very hard to notice drops to 55 fps. you are still getting a greatly enhanced framerate. Regardless, we came from a generation where 90% of the games were running at sub 30 fps. around 25 fps at times, and no one cared. and all of a sudden 55 fps was too much of a drop.

Ridiculous.

WTF?

From software games greatly benefit from stable 60fps. At this point their games look bad and run bad as well, acquisition might change that.

Tomb Raider was ~50fps with no VRR and in 60Hz container on PS4, it was stuttering on every screen, unlocked framerates don't have any sense when you don't have technology to show them properly.

 

[BlownUpRich]

WTF?

From software games greatly benefit from stable 60fps. At this point their games look bad and run bad as well, acquisition might change that.

Tomb Raider was ~50fps with no VRR and in 60Hz container on PS4, it was stuttering on every screen, unlocked framerates don't have any sense when you don't have technology to show them properly.

I did not say they don't benefit from stable 60 FPS, I'm pointing out the fact that this is the 1st thing that came to DF's minds, which is the technological shortcomings of From Software's games (even though Sekiro & Armored Core 6 run buttery-smooth), also, Elden Ring on PS5/XSX at performance mode is actually great, the game sticks very close to 60 FPS most of the time and with VRR, it's a pretty smooth experience, if you're not content with that, then get a PS5 Pro or get a good PC which can run it at stable 60 FPS or even higher (with mods).

My whole point is I don't get this fetishization of needing to hit stable 60 FPS on all games or else "it sucks & it's bad", there are far more important things that games have to achieve before this superficial need, which is what will happen to From Software under SIE, because it won't be nice, I was only mentioning it to point out how the framerate obsession has become THE main focal point & is currently holding gaming & innovation back in terms of pushing new next-gen tech or coming up with new technological feats like much more advanced worlds, animations, physics NPCs etc...

You know damn well that GTA VI will run at 30 FPS on current-gen consoles, if not even lower than that in some circumstances, and most won't have qualms with it, because the game will truly be a "next-gen" showcase.

Games like RDR 2, Days Gone, TLOU 2, Spider Man 2018, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War 2018 & many others 30 FPS games would've never be like what they are had they been developed with 60 FPS in mind on PS4, you'd see massive reductions in their world complexities, animations, physics, AI, number of things on screen etc. Imagine if Zelda TOTK had to run at 60 FPS on Switch 1, it would never be the same ambitious game that we have now.

 

[M1chl]

yh but i don’t think series s held us back. If anything it was last Gen consoles and lack of ambition on the part of developers.

I doubt this Thing is more than 5/6 tflops. Devs will just port over series s versions of the game with some minor enhancements.

Next Gen will be held back by ps5 and xsx until around 2032.

I think it will be until switch to a different architecture, because that cross platform money is just too good

 

[coachmcguirk91]

yh but i don’t think series s held us back. If anything it was last Gen consoles and lack of ambition on the part of developers.

I doubt this Thing is more than 5/6 tflops. Devs will just port over series s versions of the game with some minor enhancements.

Next Gen will be held back by ps5 and xsx until around 2032.

I would say 2032 is even too early to abandon this generation. I think there is going to be real hesitancy to release exclusives on next gen consoles for developers. Even this generation, so many gamers are still content on playing on their PS4's/Xbox One's. That problem is going to be amplified much more heading into next-generation, as the technological will be even smaller.

this sucks for gaming enthusiasts who like playing cutting edge tech but it's probably what is most healthy for the industry. Crazy to think you could potentially get a console being viable for 15 years

 

[SlimySnake]

WTF?

From software games greatly benefit from stable 60fps. At this point their games look bad and run bad as well, acquisition might change that.

Tomb Raider was ~50fps with no VRR and in 60Hz container on PS4, it was stuttering on every screen, unlocked framerates don't have any sense when you don't have technology to show them properly.

Demon Souls was a ps3 exclusive. ran like shit.

Bloodborne too. It was also made with the help of sony japan and shipped with framepacing issues. i dont think acquisition will chnage anything but whatever.

i played a lot of sub 60 fps games on the pro last year on non-vrr tvs and no they dont stutter like crazy. you can probably notice the drops but its still way smoother than 30 fps. DF literally saw that gow 2018 was dropping to 50 fps in some gpu intensive areas and told everyone to play at 30 fps. thats fucking nuts. played almost 200 hours and their 60 fps mode ran so much better. its insane to me that these people who are professional reviewers would recommend 30 fps over a variable 60 fps. especially coming off a gen that had sub 30 fps games literally until its last year when tlou1 and gta6 launched and regularly dipped below 30 fps. then tomb raider remaster comes out a few months later, and 52-55 fps is unplayable. come on.

they put way too much importance on locked 60 fps when most people dont give a shit. just look at how successful elden rings is despite the variable framerate. no one cared. its easily the most popular game of the generation, most critically acclaimed and has sold 20 million units despite the variable 60 fps.

 

[amigastar]

I really wanna see more of Doom: The Dark Ages. I bet it looks awesome.

 

[Senua]

Forza Motorsport with RTGI looks awesome, it's still unfinished and needs better denoising. I don't know how they've enabled it either

 

[Vick]

unlocked framerates don't have any sense when you don't have technology to show them properly.

Exactly, and yet somehow we're expected to believe retards have established for decades for the entire industry to only use 30fps and 60fps targets, instead of allowing 40-50-55 because "they're still smoother than 30fps".

52-55 is a shitshow on a non-VRR panel, absolute shitshow that despite lower input latency is unquestionably visually worse than even locked 30fps, and I say this as a 30fps hater.

"But we were playing 30 and sub 30fps before and no one complained". Yes, we were used to eat shit and now we're eating proper food, and in more quantity (better looking 60fps games than any 30fps game we've ever had) than before.
And yet some keep asking for tasting shit again, to the point of claiming devs should not only stop targeting stable 60fps, but stop offering 60fps modes altogether..
Thank fuck this Thread is confined on Gaf and ignored by the industry.

Are sporadic drops to 55fps in an otherwise locked 60fps presentation a big deal? No.
Should devs ship games running at 52-55 average in their Performance Modes? Of fucking course not.

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah, unless you have a gsync panel (and sometimes even that is not enough) unlocked framerate feel like shit unless it's very sporadic like going from 60 to 55 once in a while.

 

[Bojji]

Demon Souls was a ps3 exclusive. ran like shit.

Bloodborne too. It was also made with the help of sony japan and shipped with framepacing issues. i dont think acquisition will chnage anything but whatever.

i played a lot of sub 60 fps games on the pro last year on non-vrr tvs and no they dont stutter like crazy. you can probably notice the drops but its still way smoother than 30 fps. DF literally saw that gow 2018 was dropping to 50 fps in some gpu intensive areas and told everyone to play at 30 fps. thats fucking nuts. played almost 200 hours and their 60 fps mode ran so much better. its insane to me that these people who are professional reviewers would recommend 30 fps over a variable 60 fps. especially coming off a gen that had sub 30 fps games literally until its last year when tlou1 and gta6 launched and regularly dipped below 30 fps. then tomb raider remaster comes out a few months later, and 52-55 fps is unplayable. come on.

they put way too much importance on locked 60 fps when most people dont give a shit. just look at how successful elden rings is despite the variable framerate. no one cared. its easily the most popular game of the generation, most critically acclaimed and has sold 20 million units despite the variable 60 fps.

From was never owned by Sony before, at the same time framerate of DeS and BB was close to locked 30fps (WITH frame pacing issues) - compare that to Dark Souls released by Bamco, it was sub 20fps at times.

There is no logical reason for ER to NOT run 60fps on PS5 and XSX, this engine is just fucking shit and decisions made by FS cripple game performance as well. Game has dynamic framerate and dynamic settings yet it targets 50 or 55fps for some dumb fucking reason.

I bought digital ER on PS5, had access to both PS4 and PS5 version and PS5 version was unplayble to me on my 4K tv - both tv and console (at the time) didn't support VRR. PS4 version was locked 60fps most of the time.

People bought ER in millions but I can guarantee you EVERYONE would prefer locked 60fps in this game - even casual noobs notice frame pacing issues and stuttering when fps is in between 30 and 60fps on 60hz tvs - maybe they can't tell what is wrong but they know something is wrong. I noticed massive fps drops in MGS2 when I was 12 (vamp fight for example) and horrible drop from 60fps target to 30fps target with MGS3 when I was 14.

Exactly, and yet somehow we're expected to believe retards have established for decades for the entire industry to only use 30fps and 60fps targets, instead of allowing 40-50-55 because "they're still smoother than 30fps".

52-55 is a shitshow on a non-VRR panel, absolute shitshow that despite lower input latency is unquestionably visually worse than even locked 30fps, and I say this as a 30fps hater.

"But we were playing 30 and sub 30fps before and no one complained". Yes, we were used to eat shit and now we're eating proper food, and in more quantity (better looking 60fps games than any 30fps game we've ever had) than before.
And yet some keep asking for tasting shit again, to the point of claiming devs should not only stop targeting stable 60fps, but stop offering 60fps modes altogether..
Thank fuck this Thread is confined on Gaf and ignored by the industry.

Are sporadic drops to 55fps in an otherwise locked 60fps presentation a big deal? No.
Should devs ship games running at 52-55 average in their Performance Modes? Of fucking course not.

Yep. Only benefit of unlocked framerate on 60hz displays was reduced input lag. Everything else was worse compared to locked 30fps.

Locked 60fps should always be target, not fucking 50FPS... Even VRR has problems with this shit.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

From was never owned by Sony before, at the same time framerate of DeS and BB was close to locked 30fps (WITH frame pacing issues) - compare that to Dark Souls released by Bamco, it was sub 20fps at times.

There is no logical reason for ER to NOT run 60fps on PS5 and XSX, this engine is just fucking shit and decisions made by FS cripple game performance as well. Game has dynamic framerate and dynamic settings yet it targets 50 or 55fps for some dumb fucking reason.

I bought digital ER on PS5, had access to both PS4 and PS5 version and PS5 version was unplayble to me on my 4K tv - both tv and console (at the time) didn't support VRR. PS4 version was locked 60fps most of the time.

People bought ER in millions but I can guarantee you EVERYONE would prefer locked 60fps in this game - even casual noobs notice frame pacing issues and stuttering when fps is in between 30 and 60fps on 60hz tvs - maybe they can't tell what is wrong but they know something is wrong. I noticed massive fps drops in MGS2 when I was 12 (vamp fight for example) and horrible drop from 60fps target to 30fps target with MGS3 when I was 14.



Yep. Only benefit of unlocked framerate on 60hz displays was reduced input lag. Everything else was worse compared to locked 30fps.

Locked 60fps should always be target, not fucking 50FPS... Even VRR has problems with this shit.

Exactly .. the framerate issued in Elden Ring PS5 are actually pretty bad (whenever riding on Torrent) ...the amount of defending ive seen by gamers from Fromsoft for the console performance is insane...the lengths people will go to when it's a game they love ...

It's just retarded how on Pro it's not a locked 60 but I have no doubt it's their shifty coding ...the fact that it's dynamic res but still isn't 60 is so strange on one Pro, which now runs the game at higher res at the expense of 60 ...seriously? Shame on From Software ...they're pathetic ...you sell that many copies of a game and this is how you thank your fans? It's bullshit

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

I did not say they don't benefit from stable 60 FPS, I'm pointing out the fact that this is the 1st thing that came to DF's minds, which is the technological shortcomings of From Software's games (even though Sekiro & Armored Core 6 run buttery-smooth), also, Elden Ring on PS5/XSX at performance mode is actually great, the game sticks very close to 60 FPS most of the time and with VRR, it's a pretty smooth experience, if you're not content with that, then get a PS5 Pro or get a good PC which can run it at stable 60 FPS or even higher (with mods).

My whole point is I don't get this fetishization of needing to hit stable 60 FPS on all games or else "it sucks & it's bad", there are far more important things that games have to achieve before this superficial need, which is what will happen to From Software under SIE, because it won't be nice, I was only mentioning it to point out how the framerate obsession has become THE main focal point & is currently holding gaming & innovation back in terms of pushing new next-gen tech or coming up with new technological feats like much more advanced worlds, animations, physics NPCs etc...

You know damn well that GTA VI will run at 30 FPS on current-gen consoles, if not even lower than that in some circumstances, and most won't have qualms with it, because the game will truly be a "next-gen" showcase.

Games like RDR 2, Days Gone, TLOU 2, Spider Man 2018, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War 2018 & many others 30 FPS games would've never be like what they are had they been developed with 60 FPS in mind on PS4, you'd see massive reductions in their world complexities, animations, physics, AI, number of things on screen etc. Imagine if Zelda TOTK had to run at 60 FPS on Switch 1, it would never be the same ambitious game that we have now.

Elden Ring in performance mode is not "great" unless you have a VRR TV, which you obviously do. The stutter and drops were awful though on my non vrr oled and I would know after putting 250 hrs into it

 

[zeroluck]

Unlocked frame rate is stupid in general, just find a fps target(can be any number on a VRR display) and lock it, animations will not look smooth when fps is fluctuating from one frame to the next no matter what display you have.