Support NeoGAF

[adamsapple]

Pack it up folks, Alan Wake 2 has the most realistic character rendering. I don't think we're gonna exceed this.

-

I digress, but the game does look fantastic. I like a good golden-hour and this game has delivered.

-


The actual character rendering in the game is also great.

 

[arkhamguy123]

Alan wake is a linear game vs open world spiderman

Horizon 2 is open world, cross gen and looks better.

Try again

 

[DanielG165]

Still at the beginning of Alan Wake 2, having just reached the first town, but this is definitely the best looking game this year, outside of Phantom Liberty. The visuals on display here are truly something else, despite the game having my PC in a stranglehold haha. It's super demanding, but the results speak for themselves; linearity or no, AW2 is a genuine current gen showcase.

 

[Gaiff]

This is great, fantastic to see a game with raytraced GI in all modea and objects actually casting shadows.

As far as I'm aware it only uses a software-based ray traced solution for reflections akin to Lumen, not for global illumination.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

OK...I've tried to ignore and not let it bother me too much.

The shimmerinh/artifacting in Alan Wake 2 is driving me fucking nuts!!

This really bums me out because the game looks phenomenal otherwise but holy shit is it bad and distracting!

This is classic FSR2 shit. Sam's thing that messed up the visuals for me in MW2. Jedi Survivor has it, Dead Space had it but none of them had it this bad ..and I'm playing in Quality mode.

When you're using the flashlight it's at its worst. Esp in the rain ..like New York aka the best looking part of the game.

This SUCKS!

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Ohhhh got it wonder why they didn't include it? Also there's a ton of shimmering in Alan wake 2 - to a level I haven't seen in a while. On my ps5, quality mode - don't know why that is. It legit looks pre-rendered at points but damn are the consoles really that far behind pcs?

Bro I just posted about that. It's driving me crazy. I hope Series X has the shimmering too because if it doesn't I'll never forgive myself for not being more patient with my purchase.

 

[Balducci30]

OK...I've tried to ignore and not let it bother me too much.

The shimmerinh/artifacting in Alan Wake 2 is driving me fucking nuts!!

This really bums me out because the game looks phenomenal otherwise but holy shit is it bad and distracting!

This is classic FSR2 shit. Sam's thing that messed up the visuals for me in MW2. Jedi Survivor has it, Dead Space had it but none of them had it this bad ..and I'm playing in Quality mode.

When you're using the flashlight it's at its worst. Esp in the rain ..like New York aka the best looking part of the game.

This SUCKS!

Yep. Right there with you. Seriously detracts when the game looks this insane. Like is there no way to fix this? I'd rather it be lower resolution or something… envy pc players. Imagine how it'd look with none of that and hardware path tracing.

 

[Balducci30]

Bro I just posted about that. It's driving me crazy. I hope Series X has the shimmering too because if it doesn't I'll never forgive myself for not being more patient with my purchase.

From what I've read it does. The only thing that doesn't is like high end pc settings

 

[sinnergy]

Bro I just posted about that. It's driving me crazy. I hope Series X has the shimmering too because if it doesn't I'll never forgive myself for not being more patient with my purchase.

I don't know . On series X here , I have weird light sparkling on objects. And occasionally you see lighting fade in. In quality mode.

 

[Kaiserstark]

Ohhhh got it wonder why they didn't include it? Also there's a ton of shimmering in Alan wake 2 - to a level I haven't seen in a while. On my ps5, quality mode - don't know why that is. It legit looks pre-rendered at points but damn are the consoles really that far behind pcs?

It's because they are using FSR2 on console. Honestly Sony and Microsoft need to have their own upscale tech because AMD is too far behind.

The best thing that could happen is Cerny coming with something on that subject with the PS5 Pro.

 

[Balducci30]

I don't know . On series X here , I have weird light sparkling on objects. And occasionally you see lighting fade in. In quality mode.

Do you not see the shimmering on like every metal bar and shadows and glass? I feel like the character can be a few feet away from something and it starts looking super broken up and jaggy

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Can change clothes in this game if not it's pre rendered

Yes, there's an outfit system.

Talking about the start when you get out of the car in the intro right?

That too. When you first transition to Alan Wake is also another good one.

 

[sinnergy]

It's because they are using FSR2 on console. Honestly Sony and Microsoft need to have their own upscale tech because AMD is too far behind.

The best thing that could happen is Cerny coming with something on that subject with the PS5 Pro.

Maybe they can at least in quality mode do the post processing after FSR, would help seeing the difference it made in Alex video. But indont knowing the can take the perf hit in 30 frames mode.

 

[sinnergy]

Do you not see the shimmering on like every metal bar and shadows and glass? I feel like the character can be a few feet away from something and it starts looking super broken up and jaggy

I need to check later today.

 

[rofif]

MidGenRefresh

I took a picture as close to your AW2 picture as possible on Series X, Quality mode.

Very comparable, but when you start zooming in, obviously things like softer IQ, textures, reflection quality etc is apparent. But not bad at a glance.


PC up, console down.

Yeah playing in quality on ps5, the only problem is grainy and unstable image at times. That's true.

But as for rt? The only time I noticed lack of rt was with few mirrors in the game that are on your main path. Like wtf remedy. You did mirrors in max Payne 2.
I hate that mirrors are grainy blobs without rt. Just figure out something wtf this is lazy. Generally ssr is kinda bad here. I hate ssr at times.
30 fps feels ok tho

 

[GymWolf]

People playing boring wake 2 are missing on the real nextgen graphical king

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Xtib81]

OK...I've tried to ignore and not let it bother me too much.

The shimmerinh/artifacting in Alan Wake 2 is driving me fucking nuts!!

This really bums me out because the game looks phenomenal otherwise but holy shit is it bad and distracting!

This is classic FSR2 shit. Sam's thing that messed up the visuals for me in MW2. Jedi Survivor has it, Dead Space had it but none of them had it this bad ..and I'm playing in Quality mode.

When you're using the flashlight it's at its worst. Esp in the rain ..like New York aka the best looking part of the game.

This SUCKS!

Right, that's what I thought. I think I'm gonna wait for a patch (maybe they can add FSR3?) or a potential ps5 pro version next year because this game looks so incredible that I don't want shimmering and aliasing to ruin the experience for me.

 

[rofif]

Found SSS (ps5 quality mode)

On aside note - those shots pass as real at first glance.. holy crap. And ps5 compresses 4k shots to 300kb... wtf

 

[Low Moral Fibre]

Playing Spider-Man 2 after pathtraced Phantom Liberty and a few hours of Alan Wake 2 was a big mistake - the lighting is like going back in time a generation as it is so flat and basic looking and the material quality that was once up there with the best doesn't seem to have improved much and can even look worse.

Not impressed at all with the graphics and while I appreciate that it is mostly smooth on a 3 year old console that teaser trailer set unrealistic expectations. There's a lot of pop in and stuff like the sand particle effects are laughably bad. The "industry leading" raytracing is still a blurry, blocking mess in the open world though some of the linear missions can look good.

The IQ is shit too at least in performance mode (the locked 60fps one so I think 1080p lowest res). The Insomniac upscaler has been lapped many times over by DLSS.

Seems a very fun game though and the combat and new traversal is great but anyone flexing about the graphics has a screw loose imo. To be fair if you asked me whether I'd take only minimal improvements to the graphics to have the much faster traversal then the answer would be yes but I wish I'd waited until the PC version so I could at least have good IQ and 120fps especially with so much to play atm.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Pack it up folks, Alan Wake 2 has the most realistic character rendering. I don't think we're gonna exceed this.

This character would look better with some subsurface scattering applied. Make the ears glow lobster red for that next-next gen effect.

 

[sinnergy]

Found SSS (ps5 quality mode)

On aside note - those shots pass as real at first glance.. holy crap. And ps5 compresses 4k shots to 300kb... wtf

Don't know, can be translucency instead of SSS.

 

[SlimySnake]

OK...I've tried to ignore and not let it bother me too much.

The shimmerinh/artifacting in Alan Wake 2 is driving me fucking nuts!!

This really bums me out because the game looks phenomenal otherwise but holy shit is it bad and distracting!

This is classic FSR2 shit. Sam's thing that messed up the visuals for me in MW2. Jedi Survivor has it, Dead Space had it but none of them had it this bad ..and I'm playing in Quality mode.

When you're using the flashlight it's at its worst. Esp in the rain ..like New York aka the best looking part of the game.

This SUCKS!

It's in the pc version too even with dlss on. It's a setting called post processing effects that defaults to low even at high presets. It is very graphically demanding. Like 20-30%. Basically it is rendering the post processing effects at the internal resolution instead of the actual output resolution. That is what is introducing all the shimmering. Turning that to high forced me to go from dlss quality to dlss performance but the shimmering was driving me insane.

I know you can't do anything about it on PC but sadly it's a performance sacrifice they had to make on consoles.

 

[SlimySnake]

Playing Spider-Man 2 after pathtraced Phantom Liberty and a few hours of Alan Wake 2 was a big mistake - the lighting is like going back in time a generation as it is so flat and basic looking and the material quality that was once up there with the best doesn't seem to have improved much and can even look worse.

Not impressed at all with the graphics and while I appreciate that it is mostly smooth on a 3 year old console that teaser trailer set unrealistic expectations. There's a lot of pop in and stuff like the sand particle effects are laughably bad. The "industry leading" raytracing is still a blurry, blocking mess in the open world though some of the linear missions can look good.

The IQ is shit too at least in performance mode (the locked 60fps one so I think 1080p lowest res). The Insomniac upscaler has been lapped many times over by DLSS.

Seems a very fun game though and the combat and new traversal is great but anyone flexing about the graphics has a screw loose imo. To be fair if you asked me whether I'd take only minimal improvements to the graphics to have the much faster traversal then the answer would be yes but I wish I'd waited until the PC version so I could at least have good IQ and 120fps especially with so much to play atm.

Keep playing. It has its moments.

But cyberpunk is the perfect example. Night time cyberpunk completely outclasses Spider-Man 2. Lighting, asset quality are literally a generation behind cyberpunks night time even in non rt mode. I do like other times of day better and traffic density and npc variation is better in spiderman 2, but the actual car models and npc models look last Gen.

It sucks that no one has tried to do comparisons of the leading Sony open world exclusive with the leading open world next Gen standard like cyberpunk. Use the PS5 version if you must. I appreciate the df interviews with the devs but can we get some decent comparisons with other games?

 

[SlimySnake]

Found SSS (ps5 quality mode)

On aside note - those shots pass as real at first glance.. holy crap. And ps5 compresses 4k shots to 300kb... wtf

Change your capture settings to png. It will take 25 mb shots you can either upload to Twitter which will upload them at 4k but reduce to around 2mb or move it manually to your phone using the app and upload on imgur. But no one wants to wait for 25 mb pngs to load so twitter is a nice compromise.

 

[analog_future]

Yeah, Alan Wake II looks astonishingly good. Definitely one of the top 3-4 best looking games ever made. Super impressive considering how small Remedy is compared to Naughty Dog/Insomniac/Rockstar/etc..

The path traced lighting honestly gives the game this pre-rendered feel at times:

 

[Represent.]

Untouchable draw distance. \

Skybox in this game is fucking fantastic

 

[ChiefDada]

Untouchable draw distance. \

Skybox in this game is fucking fantastic

It's funny how so many people are trying to compare fidelity of other open worlds to SM2 open world. It is apples and oranges because no other game has the density, draw distance, and/or traversal sophistication of SM2. Even the nonplayable section continues to fool me because the billboards are so detailed. The impossible comparison results in SM2 not getting it's proper respect.

Also, remember to manually save for ToD.

 

[rhodesianshepard]

It's funny how so many people are trying to compare fidelity of other open worlds to SM2 open world. It is apples and oranges because no other game has the density, draw distance, and/or traversal sophistication of SM2. Even the nonplayable section continues to fool me because the billboards are so detailed. The impossible comparison results in SM2 not getting it's proper respect.

Also, remember to manually save for ToD.

Agree! As amazing as AW2 looks, it is not the technical marvel of SM2. SM2 is doing so much more on screen, it surprising it looks as good as it does

 

[ChiefDada]

I really like what I'm seeing with AW2 but curious how much of the praise is due to the lack of other current gen only 3rd person cinematics? Don't get me wrong it is getting the praise it deserves but how do you think a TLOU 3 would compare if it were to release in a year from now?

 

[Kaiserstark]

At this point using FSR2 on consoles it's just butchering your work.

Alan Wake 2 on PC look really good but on consoles even in quality mode, the IQ is not good and there is lot of shimmering.

I really like what I'm seeing with AW2 but curious how much of the praise is due to the lack of other current gen only 3rd person cinematics? Don't get me wrong it is getting the praise it deserves but how do you think a TLOU 3 would compare if it were to release in a year from now?

If we only talk about Alan Wake 2 on PS5, it's not really hard to believe that a studio like Naughty Dog can do something better.

If they dont use FSR2 it's already a win

 

[Senua]

I really like what I'm seeing with AW2 but curious how much of the praise is due to the lack of other current gen only 3rd person cinematics? Don't get me wrong it is getting the praise it deserves but how do you think a TLOU 3 would compare if it were to release in a year from now?

Well yea no shit, they would have a WAY bigger budget, and we know how talented ND are in that department, but it's just completely irrelevant at this point in time.

 

[rofif]

Change your capture settings to png. It will take 25 mb shots you can either upload to Twitter which will upload them at 4k but reduce to around 2mb or move it manually to your phone using the app and upload on imgur. But no one wants to wait for 25 mb pngs to load so twitter is a nice compromise.

I am playing in hdr. You don't choose hdr pics quality.

 

[Musilla]

Untouchable draw distance. \

Skybox in this game is fucking fantastic

I love those sunset lightings, they give the game a completely different dimension

 

[ChiefDada]

Well yea no shit, they would have a WAY bigger budget, and we know how talented ND are in that department, but it's just completely irrelevant at this point in time.

I'm talking about the tech. For example I don't expect SM2 traversal to be 1-upped anytime soon (although I'm curious about TH rumblings on SW Outlaws traversal system). Alex also mentioned that he doesn't think another game will implement mesh shaders until ~5yrs from now which I think is ridiculous.

So no, it's not completely irrelevant for this thread. Far from it.

 

[Represent.]

Graphically speaking, AW2 is like the (really damn tasty) appetizer before TLOU 3, god I cant wait for that future masterpiece

 

[Senua]

I'm talking about the tech. For example I don't expect SM2 traversal to be 1-upped anytime soon (although I'm curious about TH rumblings on SW Outlaws traversal system). Alex also mentioned that he doesn't think another game will implement mesh shaders until ~5yrs from now which I think is ridiculous.

So no, it's not completely irrelevant for this thread. Far from it.

I meant irrelevant in praising AW2. It deserves praise regardless of the fact it'll be surpassed in the future like of course all games will

 

[analog_future]

Agree! As amazing as AW2 looks, it is not the technical marvel of SM2. SM2 is doing so much more on screen, it surprising it looks as good as it does

SM2 excels with it's scale and density. Alan Wake blows it away from a pure visual fidelity standpoint IMO though.

A few more shots as I continue to play:

 

[SlimySnake]

Untouchable draw distance. \

Skybox in this game is fucking fantastic

I haven't gotten there yet and I'm sure it will look great on my TV, but the lighting here looks very last Gen. I don't see those screenshots and immediately think next Gen the way i do when i see Alan wake screenshots.

 

[rhodesianshepard]

SM2 excels with it's scale and density. Alan Wake blows it away from a pure visual fidelity standpoint IMO though.

A few more shots as I continue to play:

Yes, but I didn't say graphically. I said SM2 was technically more impressive than AW2. It's not even close. A game where you walk around fighting at most 3 or 4 enemies at a time in mostly static environment should have excellent graphics. SM2 can have up to 25 enemies on screen as you zip across NY with crazy animations of the venom suit, with no performance issues. From a technical perspective, SM2 felt like the first true "next gen" game I have played. AW2 only feels that way in the graphics department

 

[DanielG165]

I think AW2 may be the best looking game I've personally played this year, and I've laid eyes on the likes of Returnal on PC, Rift Apart on PC, RDR2 on PC etc. Outside of Cyberpunk and RDR2, Alan Wake 2 is undoubtedly the prettiest title I have installed right now. Even at a mix of medium and high settings and 1440p, it genuinely feels as though I'm playing through a pre-rendered cutscene a lot of times. It's current gen through and through; I can see and feel it, and my PC most certainly can feel it.

 

[setoman]

Yes, but I didn't say graphically. I said SM2 was technically more impressive than AW2. It's not even close. A game where you walk around fighting at most 3 or 4 enemies at a time in mostly static environment should have excellent graphics. SM2 can have up to 25 enemies on screen as you zip across NY with crazy animations of the venom suit, with no performance issues. From a technical perspective, SM2 felt like the first true "next gen" game I have played. AW2 only feels that way in the graphics department

Lol no, having 25 enemies at the same visual fidelity of last gen IS NOT NEXT GEN.
crazy animation which is exactly the same fidelity as the previous game IS NOT NEXT GEN.
"no performance issues" IS NOT NEXT GEN

Basically what you are saying is you're a spiderman fan and because of that you pick it over anything else.

Alan wake is a linear game vs open world spiderman

Actually no, a huge chunk of spiderman's mission take place in a corridor/room. For example peter's apartment, another example the peter/harry high school the flash back. There's no open world rendering happening. So no pound for pound AW2 beats SM2 by an entire universe.

 

[setoman]

Regarding spiderman. Game is a looker but some of the story levels in the last few missions have been very last gen in terms of detail. they have clearly improved the lighting and level of detail in the city, but a lot of the outdoor areas still feel dated even by last gen standards. lighting isnt as good as it is in the open world, and it just feels cheap in comparison to other story missions that clearly got a lot more love.

it just makes the game feel very uneven. Some levels look stunning. RT reflections are godly. The asset quality on some of these models are top notch and areas are full of NPCs. I didnt take a picture of the kitchen but holy shit. must have spent weeks on adding detail to that kitchen. so many different dishes. despite the cartoony look, and lack of volumetric effects, this looked better than anything ive seen in Alan Wake 2 so far.

Sadly, the mission immediately following this one looks like an early gen PS4 game. Very poor night time lighting. very low level of detail.

This was the level i saw in the leaks that i said I liked 2 weeks ago.

Nevertheless, I actually like one of the scene in SM2 and its the party wood interior building. Not that its next-gen or anything. But it matches the quality of ND4 and TLOUS2 interior. Unfortunately other interiors in the game are not up to this quality.

Turns out you like the same level. So atleast you know i'm not hating when i say that even with this.
The gap between AW2 and SM2 is a universe apart.

The thing about AW2 is that playing it on Ultra with Path tracing. As you play your brain glitches constantly as you think what you are seeing is actually real life or cgi.

So you're walking and you have this split second glitch like..
"wait is this real life.... oh no its still the game".
"what is this pre-rendered cgi...oh no its still the game"

And this is happening subconsciously so its not like I'm controlling or trying to convince myself.

For SM2 the whole thing looks gamey. Everything about it looks gamey. The lighting look gamey. The shadows and lack-of look gamey. The assets look gamey. The characters look gamey. So even when things look good like this level, they still look "gamey good".
Brain glitches where you actually think something looks real is not not even close to happening.

This is happening all the time while i'm playing AW2 on Ultra.

 

[setoman]

Graphically speaking, AW2 is like the (really damn tasty) appetizer before TLOU 3, god I cant wait for that future masterpiece

Can TLOU3 top this? Idk... They will most likely top this in terms of vista/art because they have a bigger team.
But I don't think they will top this in terms of tech and visual fidelity. I think at most they match it.

This is the Matrix Awaken moment we have all been crying and praying for.

Walking around Bright Falls gives you the matrix demo feel. Its basically the matrix demo in a small scale (environment wise).
But its not as small as some people think. You can literally walk all around Bright Falls, there are like 4 streets connected together. Its as big as TLOUS 2 open levels.

Unless you think TLOUS 3 will go open world (it wont).
I don't think it will top it visual fidelity wise.

 

[eNT1TY]

Iunno, AW2 only excels in lighting and character models, am not impressed in the least bit. Indoor scenes looks fantastic but outdoors materials are kinda shitty and lod transitions are aggressive and obvious. Game isn't that different in asset quality than maxed out ray-traced Resident Evil 3 or Robocop. How does a game with slower traversal than robocop have so much more pop-in. Water is also fucking terrible, like last gen terrible or beyond; Vanashing of Ethan Carter Redux has better water and shit looks almost as good outdoors as far as texture quality goes thanks to old ass photogrammetry. The entirety of the playable traversable environment in AW2 can fit in one half of Central Park in SM2. For a game with such a small world it should be dense with geometry and effects. Remedy fans like to overstate how good their games look, happened with control too (though it had its moments thanks to RT) was kinda mid visually overall. Dunno how it looks on console but it will certainly not fare any better.

 

[SlimySnake]

This was the level i saw in the leaks that i said I liked 2 weeks ago.


Turns out you like the same level. So atleast you know i'm not hating when i say that even with this.
The gap between AW2 and SM2 is a universe apart.

The thing about AW2 is that playing it on Ultra with Path tracing. As you play your brain glitches constantly as you think what you are seeing is actually real life or cgi.

So you're walking and you have this split second glitch like..
"wait is this real life.... oh no its still the game".
"what is this pre-rendered cgi...oh no its still the game"

And this is happening subconsciously so its not like I'm controlling or trying to convince myself.

For SM2 the whole thing looks gamey. Everything about it looks gamey. The lighting look gamey. The shadows and lack-of look gamey. The assets look gamey. The characters look gamey. So even when things look good like this level, they still look "gamey good".
Brain glitches where you actually think something looks real is not not even close to happening.

This is happening all the time while i'm playing AW2 on Ultra.

I have ray tracing off because I honestly didnt see a big difference with rt on in the forest. im sure it adds rt reflections in the city but the forest had zero difference. the game's lighting is simply sublime on either mode. Indeed, it has the cg pre-rendered look that fools your brain into thinking you are watching a movie instead of playing it.

Hopefully, now you realize what I was talking about in terms of lighting in Alan Wake 2 making it look better than the very first UE5 demo. Again, that demo looked gamey in ways the matrix does not, and alan wake 2 while looking more gamey than the matrix, looks simply better than the first ue5 demo.

Lol no, having 25 enemies at the same visual fidelity of last gen IS NOT NEXT GEN.
crazy animation which is exactly the same fidelity as the previous game IS NOT NEXT GEN.
"no performance issues" IS NOT NEXT GEN

Agreed on the last two. First one though, I think qualifies for next gen simply because they couldnt do that before in their engine on the base PS4. Honestly, there were a couple of times in the game where the game keeps throwing enemies at you and i was like wtf i dont remember the last one being this hectic. it deserves praise tbh. Animations is another area where they've disappointed me. I was expecting motion matching from Sony first party games going forward and nope, didnt even try. And im so done with people using performance issues as something bad. ALL ambitious games of their times had performance issues. SOTC, MGS3, Mass Effect, Bioshock, it means they pushed it above what the console was capable of. Not wasting pixels on targeting native 4k.

Actually no, a huge chunk of spiderman's mission take place in a corridor/room. For example peter's apartment, another example the peter/harry high school the flash back. There's no open world rendering happening. So no pound for pound AW2 beats SM2 by an entire universe.

I wouldnt say a huge chunk but streaming and especially ssd streaming on PS5 has solved the whole open world games cant look as good as linear corridor games conundrum. Matrix, Horizon fw, Rdr2 back in the day had no issues looking good while being open world. spiderman just doesnt aim for highs achieved by even ratchet. Modeling work is extremely inconsistent in new indoor areas and consistently last gen outdoors.

Again, ratchet destroys this game in terms of lighting, asset quality and modeling.

Cerny said that PS4 games needed somewhere around 20 seconds of game data in vram at all times in case the player changed their minds and decided to go in a different direction in open world games. The PS5 ssd and IO fixes that. He then showed off the spiderman ssd demo that completely fixed the need to have that much data in vram at all times. They used it for faster speeds but didnt bother upgrading their asset quality. Nanite has also fixed the issue with LOD transitions by letting the engine gracefully handle it and removing the need for artists to create dozens of multiple LOD assets. Simply inexcusable.

 

[analog_future]

Graphically speaking, AW2 is like the (really damn tasty) appetizer before TLOU 3, god I cant wait for that future masterpiece

Can TLOU3 top this? Idk... They will most likely top this in terms of vista/art because they have a bigger team.
But I don't think they will top this in terms of tech and visual fidelity. I think at most they match it.

This is the Matrix Awaken moment we have all been crying and praying for.

Walking around Bright Falls gives you the matrix demo feel. Its basically the matrix demo in a small scale (environment wise).
But its not as small as some people think. You can literally walk all around Bright Falls, there are like 4 streets connected together. Its as big as TLOUS 2 open levels.

Unless you think TLOUS 3 will go open world (it wont).
I don't think it will top it visual fidelity wise.

I think TLOU 3 will significantly surpass Alan Wake II when it comes to attention to detail, physics, facial detail/animations. Particularly when it inevitably comes to PC.

Naughty Dog is simply a much larger studio and TLOU 3 will have a much larger budget than Alan Wake II. Not to mention that Naughty Dog has provided industry leading visuals for decades at this point.


I think Alan Wake is going to be difficult to top for a few years though. I don't think Hellblade II is going to top this. Maybe Wolverine? Gears 6? I dunno.


Fable did look amazing from that reveal trailer. Maybe that'll be the next milestone.

 

[Mortisfacio]

But it doesn't look good. It looks like she is made of plastic.
it's not terrible, but it's not good.

Character models still look a gen ahead (at least) of other recent releases such as Spiderman and Starfield, though.

 

[arkhamguy123]

Seeing a lot of stuff about budget budget budget

Last time I researched it budget is primarily comprised of marketing and game dev salary. So bigger/more talented team = bigger salary = bigger budget

I think of us here are conflating to think bigger budget = better graphics. When it's really a matter of time and talent which is variable. A big budget game is 99% of the time a game in development for a relatively long time (3+ years) with a big team. So you're paying more salaries over a long time. Do the math yourself it all checks out. And usually these are blockbusters so they have big marketing campaigns. This stuff is where budget goes.

 

[analog_future]

Seeing a lot of stuff about budget budget budget

Last time I researched it budget is primarily comprised of marketing and game dev salary. So bigger/more talented team = bigger salary = bigger budget

I think of us here are conflating to think bigger budget = better graphics. When it's really a matter of time and talent which is variable. A big budget game is 99% of the time a game in development for a relatively long time (3+ years) with a big team. So you're paying more salaries over a long time. Do the math yourself it all checks out. And usually these are blockbusters so they have big marketing campaigns. This stuff is where budget goes.

But a larger budget allows you to hire the best talent and makes long development times possible. Which expands the scope of the game, allows time to integrate new technologies, allows for more attention to detail, more polishing/Q&A, etc.. etc..


You're kind of contradicting your own point in your post.

 

[arkhamguy123]

But a larger budget allows you to hire the best talent and makes long development times possible. Which expands the scope of the game, allows time to integrate new technologies, allows for more attention to detail, more polishing/Q&A, etc.. etc..


You're kind of contradicting your own point in your post.

That's… exactly what I said

The scope of the game is down to design choice. And you'll have to explain what you mean by "integrate new technologies" because it sounds like something empty you just came up with for fodder. Also attention to detail and polishing is irrelevant and down to the scope of the game and again, the teams talent.