Will Unreal 4 engine bring back complex games?

[shiajun]

So, Epic unveiled their work on the Unreal 4 engine not long ago. Of course, you can focus on all the graphic upgrades and whatnot. What stands out for me is the fact that, if it works as advertised, the engine could help developers cut development time to a third. This due to being able to see the impact of their changes in real time (if I understood correctly), among other things.

Why do I bring up complexity in games? Most recent games, especially those in long running franchises, seem to be extremely linear in their level design and smaller in scope compared to similar games in the late 90s. From what I can gather of developer commentaries this is generally due to two factors: 1) Creating the graphically rich environments takes way too much time for complex levels. That time equals exponentially escalating costs, thus, shorter and simpler means less development costs. 2) Related to that, ballooning budgets demands new markets to be wooed into buying the game, otherwise there will be no profit. New gamers may be put off by big, complex game environments and gameplay.

So, if it takes less time (and thus less money) to build new games based of U4 engine, there is a reduced dependency on new gamer sales to balance expenditure. Could both of this changes, combined, be able to make games more complex, non-linear, open, etc and still remain within reasonable budgets?

 

[shiajun]

Yeah, but which "market"? I do feel it's the need to greatly expand the market on most relseases to bring in profits that's contributing to that notion. If you don't need to cater to "everyone", then you don't need to do drastic streamlines, concentrating on your intended design and not only the design defined by broad, diverse market, more familiar with movies or TV than any other entertainment medium. The need to be a big AAA blockbuster on every single release is tragic to design visions. If a game can retain production values yet be turn a profit even if produced on a lower budget and time, the idealist in me thinks companies could take those lower risk avenues.

 

[TrevHead]

Any tool that allows devs to make games more easily is a good thing. However i've no idea if UE4 or the tools that come with it will help.

With regards to making console FPS games more like PC shooters, ild say the Wii U's touchpad could help us move away from the shackle that is the analog stick for aiming

 

[oplinger]

Making things faster will just make publishers use less money, cranking up the profits from the same games we have now. It won't change, they'll just pay themselves more. Some publishers may take more risks, but really, it's not going to change anything in a significant way.

 

[Wolfram23]

So, Epic unveiled their work on the Unreal 4 engine not long ago. Of course, you can focus on all the graphic upgrades and whatnot. What stands out for me is the fact that, if it works as advertised, the engine could help developers cut development time to a third. This due to being able to see the impact of their changes in real time (if I understood correctly), among other things.

Why do I bring up complexity in games? Most recent games, especially those in long running franchises, seem to be extremely linear in their level design and smaller in scope compared to similar games in the late 90s. From what I can gather of developer commentaries this is generally due to two factors: 1) Creating the graphically rich environments takes way too much time for complex levels. That time equals exponentially escalating costs, thus, shorter and simpler means less development costs. 2) Related to that, ballooning budgets demands new markets to be wooed into buying the game, otherwise there will be no profit. New gamers may be put off by big, complex game environments and gameplay.

So, if it takes less time (and thus less money) to build new games based of U4 engine, there is a reduced dependency on new gamer sales to balance expenditure. Could both of this changes, combined, be able to make games more complex, non-linear, open, etc and still remain within reasonable budgets?

Unfortunately a large reason why games are more linear as you say is entirely due to out dated hardware in the consoles. They have such puny amounts of RAM that you can barely pre-load anything - and their weak GPUs aren't really helping anything either.

However, as far as Unreal 4 goes, it does look good. But we already just got CryEngine 3 and Frostbite 2 and they look fan freaking tastic as well. I don't know just how much better or worse one is compared to another, though, because honestly all the tech demos look fantastic.

My opinion is that the latest and greatest game engines are making it pretty easy on developers to create amazing graphics - the problem is scaling them way, way back for consoles and running all kind of optimizations. PCs might require more power for similar quality graphics than a console, but it's also way, way easier to develop for.

 

[Bad Jim]

Actually it's got less to to do with technical limitations and everything to do with the fact that stories and linearity go hand in hand.

Personally I was having plenty of fun in the days of Doom. "You're conducting teleportation experiments when everything goes to hell (literally)". I could write a better plot than that in about five minutes, but I didn't care, because it didn't get in the way of the game. Then id used pretty much the same plot for Quake and I still didn't care. Nor did I care when the same dumb plot showed up in Half Life.

Unfortunately it seems the majority do not think like me and they insist on stories, which must be tied in with the gameplay. Since stories are inherently linear, the game itself must be linear to accomodate the story. And people will go on insisting that stories are important and buying story focused games and the only thing I can do about it is cry into my pillow every night.

 

[Wolfram23]

SNIP

SNIP

And yet the last-gen consoles with their even weaker amounts of RAM were perfectly capable of giving deep, varied experiences. So were old weak P.C.'s. It's almost as if processing power doesn't define how good a game is.

It's almost as if nobody was even disputing that.

 

[shintakie10]

Any tool that allows devs to make games more easily is a good thing. However i've no idea if UE4 or the tools that come with it will help.

With regards to making console FPS games more like PC shooters, ild say the Wii U's touchpad could help us move away from the shackle that is the analog stick for aiming

I remember readin about one of the major things they were talkin about when it came to the Unreal 4 engine was the improved tools that allowed developers to have to spend far less time creatin stuff like level layouts and whatnot.

I could be imaginin that though.

 

[JediMB]

Since stories are inherently linear, the game itself must be linear to accomodate the story.

Depends on your definition of "linear". There are a few (older) games with branching stories leading to different endings, etc.. The big problem with making those today, though, is that publishers tend to not see the point of creating huge amounts of content that 80% of players won't see in their first playthrough.

Because, I suppose, longevity/replayability through "new" content only matters if the customer is paying for a subscription or DLC.

 

[skywolfblue]

Linear vs. Complex is a developer decision, and is rarely dependent on the platform.

There were massive RPGs back in the early days of computing, there are games like Red Dead Redemption or Skyrim with massive worlds in this generation.

Unreal 4 will help to make all games look better, perhaps help smaller studios to pump out better content then they could previously afford to make. But it's not going to make Call of Duty clones anything other then hallway shooters.

 

[Bad Jim]

Since stories are inherently linear, the game itself must be linear to accomodate the story.

Depends on your definition of "linear". There are a few (older) games with branching stories leading to different endings, etc.. The big problem with making those today, though, is that publishers tend to not see the point of creating huge amounts of content that 80% of players won't see in their first playthrough.

Because, I suppose, longevity/replayability through "new" content only matters if the customer is paying for a subscription or DLC.

Replayability is a poor argument for branching stories. With the money it costs to make a playthrough interesting X times, you could make a linear game X times longer, giving the player the same amount of content either way.

Another thing about branching stories is that they are still very linear. It's not like real life where you could suddenly decide to become an accountant instead. It's one or two points where you can choose linear path A or linear path B, and probably saved first so you could do both.

 

[omicron1]

I believe it's an artifact of situation vs. simulation. Most games design a player experience, not a world; as a result, even what freedom the player has is limited to what the developers intended. Contrast with Skyrim, which is in large part simulation, and is much more compelling (and glitchy) as a result.

Point bein', we need more Skyrim-style simulation games in the industry.

 

[JediMB]

Since stories are inherently linear, the game itself must be linear to accomodate the story.

Depends on your definition of "linear". There are a few (older) games with branching stories leading to different endings, etc.. The big problem with making those today, though, is that publishers tend to not see the point of creating huge amounts of content that 80% of players won't see in their first playthrough.

Because, I suppose, longevity/replayability through "new" content only matters if the customer is paying for a subscription or DLC.

Replayability is a poor argument for branching stories. With the money it costs to make a playthrough interesting X times, you could make a linear game X times longer, giving the player the same amount of content either way.

Another thing about branching stories is that they are still very linear. It's not like real life where you could suddenly decide to become an accountant instead. It's one or two points where you can choose linear path A or linear path B, and probably saved first so you could do both.

For the first paragraph, that depends entirely on how you go about creating the content. One branch could, in large part, use the same assets as another, with unique dialogue and repositioned assets being where the extra work goes. This process could be much less organic if you have to force the player to return to the same areas over and over in a single playthrough.

For the second, branching storylines only work as you describe if there's a single flag dictating what happens, and if triggering it gives you an obvious and immediate branching point. Sure, more variables require more planning (flowcharts!), but who says it can't be worth it?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Man have you been drinking the marketing Kool-Aid, all that shaz is marketing bollocks playing it up for extra sales.

But anyway does a quicker tool result in complexity? No, no it does not, because it is down to the craftsman to decide what he will make with it.
And they usually don't make deep complex stuff because it takes lots of extra time and money, meanwhile all the top sellers are a bunch of copy/paste casual shit ... sadly the market right now is not fond of quality.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

Sure, if people can ever afford to make complex games for next-gen, sure.

I think graphics technology should fucking stop right here.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I always laugh when they do a showcase for a new shiney engine. Oh look! IT'S SO PRETTY!

The reality is that regardless of how nice it looks or how complex it is, it will never look or run as good as people think it will. This is because developers will always cut it down and simplify their game to give it mass market appeal or to compensate for outdated console hardware.

Unless we get the odd developer who spends the time and money to make a decent PC version of their game, the engines potential will essentially be wasted. Rockstar Vancouver, the guys who made the PC version of Max Payne 3, are a great example of the rare developer who doesn't half ass their game.

 

[Bad Jim]

Replayability is a poor argument for branching stories. With the money it costs to make a playthrough interesting X times, you could make a linear game X times longer, giving the player the same amount of content either way.

Another thing about branching stories is that they are still very linear. It's not like real life where you could suddenly decide to become an accountant instead. It's one or two points where you can choose linear path A or linear path B, and probably saved first so you could do both.

For the first paragraph, that depends entirely on how you go about creating the content. One branch could, in large part, use the same assets as another, with unique dialogue and repositioned assets being where the extra work goes. This process could be much less organic if you have to force the player to return to the same areas over and over in a single playthrough.

For the second, branching storylines only work as you describe if there's a single flag dictating what happens, and if triggering it gives you an obvious and immediate branching point. Sure, more variables require more planning (flowcharts!), but who says it can't be worth it?

1) The second visit to any given area will feel watered down either way. A branching plot makes it possible to see the ending first, but it's probably a better plan to make fresh content. If gamers didn't care about locations being endlessly recycled, they'd be endlessly recycled in linear games already.

2) It's nice to imagine a story that branches dozens of ways in hundreds of places in ways that are interesting without requiring thousands of times more work but I think you're just dreaming. Or you're referring to games like Medieval 2 Total War which evolve according to the game rules rather than a real story, so the Pope tells you to crusade against a country while also making peace with that same country. If there is actually a working example of this magical nonlinear storytelling I'd like to know what it is.