The Matrix Awakens

[MartyG]

It was noticible the moment the game was in motion even on my VRR OLED - it's a tech demo, so in this instance it's not really that important, but it's definitely noticible with any pad input unless you've not played anything modern recently.

[Yakumo]

I play loads of new stuff but I just don't really feel the effects of lag. Maybe because I'm used to it from many old school 3D games on Saturn and PlayStation?

[fuse]

Tried this out and found it totally bonkers. Kind of annoyed on behalf of game devs who are now going to have to deal with ridiculous expectations around what's possible on these systems.

[Cassius_Smoke]

It's super impressive, but I wouldn't want all games to walk the uncanny valley.
Spiderman, Horizon, halo all have their own aesthetic that wouldn't suit real world assets.

[Brad]

Tried this out and found it totally bonkers. Kind of annoyed on behalf of game devs who are now going to have to deal with ridiculous expectations around what's possible on these systems.

Yeah this is like the 16 bit days when we were wowed by Amiga demos yet the games never matched those, not even when the demo teams got into making games themselves and realised that you simply cannot have a thousand sprites and 7 levels of parallax scrolling whilst also running a game engine.

[Asura]

It is staggering what they've achieved on consoles with it. It's worth mentioning though that other games will probably not look as good as this on these machines. It's running at 30 without combat AI, next gen animation systems etc. As soon as any more gameplay is put in, the fps will plunge. That's fine by me as I'm not into big graphics prestige games but I worry that some people might think this is the new standard.

Yeah; this is important - it's similar to how some VR games in Quest can look amazing even though the Quest is a glorified phone - or, for a more retro-themed analogy, how lightgun games and fighting games always used to look amazing in the 16/32-bit era. When the scope of the experience is small, you can do a lot because you're packing everything into a small area, and can trim stuff out. Virtua Cop doesn't have any real enemy AI, and all Virtua Fighter 2 puts onscreen are 2 characters and a ring.

[MartyG]

Yeah this is like the 16 bit days when we were wowed by Amiga demos yet the games never matched those, not even when the demo teams got into making games themselves and realised that you simply cannot have a thousand sprites and 7 levels of parallax scrolling whilst also running a game engine.

The team that created it have said that it's a realistic example of what is achievable, having a CPU/GPU budget in which the demo needed to work, leaving enough for a game engine to be possible with that level of fidelity as explained here: https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/t...rix-is-unreal/

The final experience however is indicative of what is possible for a game, running on a PS5 or XBox Series X/S there is still a lot of CPU headroom that would allow a game designer to run the normal mechanics of a game. The team did not want to build a demo that was unrealistic for what a new AAA game would be able to achieve.

It had a fair number of artists working on the project and was done over the course of a year, but it's still well within the realms of big budget games on current gen consoles.

[Asura]

The team that created it have said that it's a realistic example of what is achievable, having a CPU/GPU budget in which the demo needed to work, leaving enough for a game engine to be possible with that level of fidelity as explained here: https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/t...rix-is-unreal/

Honestly I'll believe that when I see it. They're cross-promoting Unreal.

Epic has done these demos for every generation, and their games never look quite as good.

[Neon Ignition]

Honestly, I think we'll see games that look this good as the gen goes on.

They'll just be from first parties and not using UE5

[MartyG]

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Batman: Arkham City, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Gears 5 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order all use UE4 and look excellent, I don't doubt UE5 will be able to produce the goods too.

[Brad]

The team that created it have said that it's a realistic example of what is achievable, having a CPU/GPU budget in which the demo needed to work, leaving enough for a game engine to be possible with that level of fidelity as explained here: https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/t...rix-is-unreal/

Yeah I know what they said :-)
So, Unreal is Epic so I guess we'll see new games form Epic looking this good in the next couple of years. Spoiler alert: We won't. Love to be wrong on this. Also I don't care though. I don't need games to look that real, I just want the interactions to be better. There hasn't been a 4K game on any platform that looks as good as The Matrix film does in standard definition. I realise I'm shouting at clouds at this point.

EDIT: Yeah Hellblade looks excellent already.

[MartyG]

Hellblade 2 is using UE5, so we'll see, so is STALKER 2 which is due out in April next year.

[Brad]

Stalker 2 I am well up for I reckon. Hellblade probably not; I finished the first one but I was bored long before the end. Bet it looks nice though. Really base level gameplay though; clearly they were focused on the rest of it, all of which was masterfully done, especially the audio I thought.

[nonny]

Stalker 2 I am well up for I reckon. Hellblade probably not; I finished the first one but I was bored long before the end. Bet it looks nice though. Really base level gameplay though; clearly they were focused on the rest of it, all of which was masterfully done, especially the audio I thought.

I agree but also remember the first game was made by a small team on a small budget. It was pretty limited in overall gameplay mainly because it had to be... It was literally an indie title.

This one has clearly gotten a bigger budget to play around with and more time to invest. I'd hope as a result it's going to have more depth and scale to go with it.

That is very hard to judge at the moment given what we've seen but I'm hopeful it's not all just fancy graphics and simple gameplay.

[Neon Ignition]

The risk with Hellblade I feel is less that it will be bad, more that scaling it up will lose what made the original the game it was. It's curious they're going all in on it rather than make a new IP given the nature of the first game