Epic: Photo-Realistic Graphics Will Exist Within Ten Years

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Uhm....you guys all realize he's pointing out in this very same set of quotes that Epic realizes that being diverse and focusing on things other than AAA omgphotorealism is the way to go?

Now that you mention it...

"Last generation, most of the company was focused on building Gears of War 3, a massive project," Sweeney explained. "Gears of War 1 was a 60-person project at peak. Gears of War 3 was more than 100-people at peak. Now we're building several games at different scales. <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118590-Epics-Fortnite-May-Require-Always-On-Internet>We're building Fortnite, a PC online game which is a fun, sort of Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead. It's a 35-person team. It's not aiming to beat Call of Duty in terms of graphics. It's more of a Pixar art style and a limited project in scope, just aimed at fun as opposed to massive breakthroughs in scale."

The sad part is, that Fortnite link goes to a article about how Epic might use always online drm for the game which is my problem with Epic lately. They seem to have the "how to make games people want to buy" part down but they still support crap always online and are against used games

I like great looking games but I just hope the next gen will tend towards style over realism because of costs, a few of the next gen trailers seem to indicate that

 

[Olas]

I don't care. Photorealism is a neat end goal unto itself in terms of showing what is possible with rendering, but it won't make games any better.

Besides, I don't think we'll ever reach photorealism anyway. It's not something you can reach, only get progressively closer and closer to but at a smaller and smaller rate. Basically it's an asymptote.

We'll just keep getting closer and closer until nobody cares anymore, which is already starting to happen, and happened to me almost a decade ago.

 

[zerragonoss]

A lot of you people must be looking at a different real life than me because it looks amazing and colorful. It would be rather nice to have in a few games. I mean just imagine photorealistic purple skies and the like. Though I do agree that most studios should just not care till at least 5 years after it becomes possible. The main point I have though is I dont want all studios focusing on any one thing. I want variety, Crytech and Epic can go on pushing realistic graphics. Other companies can make beautiful game of other styles. Than most other companies can just use whatever engine is at hand to focus on the game-play. In an ideal world the specialists will make all game better because their innovations will be adapted by the nonspecialists in future games

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Amaranth: What's the ETA on games that have solid gameplay mechanic, depth greater than a teaspoon and plots that are equal to or better than those found in porn?

Because those are things I actually give a crap about.

POLYGONS IS EMOTIONS!

They tried that but not enough people bought The Walking Dead for them to consider making it standard practice.

However they bought the hell out of Killzone and Halo.

 

[1Life0Continues]

I think I'll just echo some of the other responses. Get back to me when the AI isn't braindead, and the story is a lot deeper and more complex than "Bad guy over there, kill him."

Graphics in my opinion should be a tertiary concern, after Gameplay and Story. Sure, that will probably hurt the FPS games out there, but quite frankly I could care less. Also, there are FPS games out there that are quite good at telling a story that is deeper than a thimbleful of water...aren't there?

(Also, can someone please explain to me the whole CAPTCHA thing I keep seeing? Forgive my ignorance, but I am very curious.)

 

[unstabLized]

You know.. When I was a kid, playing on my Sega, I was wondering how amazing they got these visuals got to where they are. Then came PS1, and when I popped in Driver 1, my mind was blown. I kept wanting to push forward, more and more, and it looked amazing every step of the way.. Until now. Believe me, I love my graphics, I have a tiny itch that gets satisfied whenever i can max a game's settings out, but.. It's not worth it. Not to this much of a degree. The cost, the drawbacks, all the problems that would come with it, it wouldn't be worth it. Not to mention there's still more things to fix then just graphics. Slowly, one step at a time. To me, graphics is the very last thing on my mind. I want everything else perfected first.

 

[Something Amyss]

They tried that but not enough people bought The Walking Dead for them to consider making it standard practice.

However they bought the hell out of Killzone and Halo.

They also bought a lot of games with shittier graphics, too. I don't think it's the graphics that's at issue. Shooters, even shitty shooters sell. Point and click adventure games? Not exactly the best sellers to begin with.

Unfortunately, that doesn't do the thought of better gameplay, better AI, better story, better characters, etc any favours as they'll still come flocking to shooters where the AI will stand around or run in circles, the characters are flatter than a crepe (and just as thin), and controls are...Adequate, generally speaking.

 

[Something Amyss]

A lot of you people must be looking at a different real life than me because it looks amazing and colorful. It would be rather nice to have in a few games.

If anything, games are too colourful. Just look at this photograph:

How can you say games need more colour?

Joking aside, the brown (or sometimes red, yellow, whatever) is probably here to stay. And that's unfortunate, but that's what we get when people will buy it.

You know.. When I was a kid, playing on my Sega, I was wondering how amazing they got these visuals got to where they are. Then came PS1, and when I popped in Driver 1, my mind was blown. I kept wanting to push forward, more and more, and it looked amazing every step of the way.. Until now. Believe me, I love my graphics, I have a tiny itch that gets satisfied whenever i can max a game's settings out, but.. It's not worth it. Not to this much of a degree. The cost, the drawbacks, all the problems that would come with it, it wouldn't be worth it. Not to mention there's still more things to fix then just graphics. Slowly, one step at a time. To me, graphics is the very last thing on my mind. I want everything else perfected first.

Except for maxing out graphics, I'm pretty much the same. I used to be blown away by the upgrades in visuals between generations. Hell, even SMB 3's jump from 1 and 2 was pretty cool, and that was the same generation. And each time, I used to think it probably wasn't going to get much better. And I would be wrong.

These days, I think the best I get is a "that's pretty neat." I mean, I can go back a couple years and notice a difference, and new games might get a "cool" from me, but there's not much of a need or a draw. Even PS1 and 2 titles could sometimes have graphics that inhibited the game, but I rarely see anything even close to that (usually it's just bad controls obscuring something).

I could probably live with PS2-level games, and I'm still more than satisfied with the graphical presentation of most current gen games. Slightly shinier graphics don't do it for me anymore, I guess. I got what I wanted for the most part. What I would rather see, as you said, is a better game.