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DF: Is Uncharted 4 the generational leap we were hoping for?

V

valkyre

Member
On a technical level, these early moments confirm that we're looking at a native 1080p presentation with some incredibly high quality anti-aliasing. It's not quite as clean as the near-flawless E3 teaser trailer but the results appear more impressive than just about any other solution we've seen on the platform to date. Edge-aliasing is all but eliminated, yet sharpness is retained while temporal aliasing (pixel pop and edge shimmer) is kept to a relative minimum. Some details, such as the skeletons early on, Drake's belt and some of the vines still show minor artefacting in motion but, overall, the solution Naughty Dog has adopted is looking really impressive. We're interested in learning more about this process - Sony shares its technology internally, so there's a strong chance we might see it deployed on other titles.
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At first glance, traversal seems familiar but the animation has received a noticeable upgrade giving a bit more weight to Drake's motions. Furthermore, the tools he wears around his belt bounce around in a very realistic fashion in this revised engine.
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However, further on, Drake runs across a group of enemies - and it is here that the real changes and improvements start to become evident. It truly feels as if the team has learned a lot from creating The Last of Us, as the level design - from what we can tell - seems a lot more open than anything in previous Uncharted games. Drake is attacked from all angles on and around a series of rock formations. Taking a page from many of the best stealth action games, the level design seems to present open-ended design within a linear framework - that is, you're provided a large area filled with enemies and given the tools and skills necessary to eliminate them as you please.
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This area is quite a bit more impressive than the initial cave sequence, with a deluge of reactive foliage blowing softly in the breeze, reacting to collisions with the player and enemy soldiers alike. It's a beautiful effect and one that seems to have real gameplay uses as well, with Drake able to stalk enemies from the brush. Foliage is drawn out remarkably far, retaining its reactive properties even at a great distance, but there are definitely some LOD issues that linger, with an ugly mesh effect used to fade detail in and out of the scene.
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The real clincher for this segment is the AI on display. Enemies appear to have free rein of the environment this time, jumping between various spires and actively working together. There is a real sense of cooperation in the demo that makes the scene appear much more dynamic than previous Uncharted combat sequences. The stealth gameplay seems to be a huge step up from previous titles as well, with Drake able to more effectively lose enemies only to re-engage on his own terms later.
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Overall, if this demo is any indication, we're actually looking at some pretty meaningful changes to the core gameplay due to more complex level design, improved AI, and a larger selection of tools. After our first viewing of the footage, Uncharted 4 definitely felt like an iterative evolution, but after re-watching several times, the improvements become clearer, suggesting a real leap forward for the series - but perhaps not quite to the extent hoped for in the areas we expected. The fact that Naughty Dog was able to deliver such an interesting combat sequence without resorting to any major set-pieces says a lot about what the studio is trying to achieve this time.

In a way, the demo flips our expectations somewhat. Naughty Dog may simply be keeping its powder dry for now, but the visuals seen in this gameplay segment aren't quite the jaw-dropping spectacle we had hoped for based on the immense promise of the E3 teaser. Clearly, the slice of gameplay seen here is very attractive, if a bit subdued overall. However, we are surprised by the large number of meaningful changes to the gameplay that the studio is showcasing in this segment. First impressions might suggest a visually upgraded 1080p Uncharted experience - something we would relish - but could it be that the real generational leap lies in how it plays?
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More here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...ed-4-the-generational-leap-we-were-hoping-for

Holly crap! lock if old.
 
H

Hubble

Member
Agree. That was my initial impressions. The game doesn't look as good as I thought it was going to be for a generational leap, it looks just OK to me, nothing special. Kind of disappointed to be honest.
 
cheezcake

cheezcake

Member
Okay scratch what I said in the other thread, if this is lacking per object motion blur it seems like it's a fairly old but stable build they've used for the demo. I don't expect gigantic lighting overhauls but the final product should look a fair amount nicer.
 
A

Amused

Member
Game looks very, very good.

At the same time I would be very happy if most of their focus went into improving the gameplay - and to me it looks like that has been at least as important to ND this time around as making "the best looking thing ever".

And that is a good thing.

Still, game looks very, very good.
 
C

Canis lupus

Member
The Order...


image_the_order_1886-27140-2752_0001.jpg


image_the_order_1886-27140-2752_0006.jpg


image_the_order_1886-27140-2752_0010.jpg
 
D

daman824

Member
The game isn't going to truly blow anything away on the ps4 imo. It doesn't look much better than other games already on, and coming to the system.
 
E

emag

Member
We're never going to see a SNES->N64 or N64->GameCube generational leap again (at least not with flat 2D displays). Anyone expecting it is delusional.
 
P

PodcastFips

Member
I'm pretty sure we will see visual improvements until E3, even though it already looked really nice.
The thing that really impressed me the most is how all the animations merge into each other almost seamlessly.
 
E

Elixist

Member
looks pretty great to me and theres still close to a year of dev left. if other fights have just as awesome mini action sandboxes as this one, were in for a treat.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
By the way, if anyone wants to see a truly amazing dissection of the demo in both gameplay and tech watch this video.

He catches all sorts of shit I missed the first time, really gives you an appreciation of what Naughty Dog is already accomplishing. It's infinitely more useful than this Digital Foundry article, but your mileage may vary.

And he brings up some great points about the framerate as well.
 
EGOMON

EGOMON

Member
GillyH said:
Agree. That was my initial impressions. The game doesn't look as good as I thought it was going to be for a generational leap, it looks just OK to me, nothing special. Kind of disappointed to be honest.
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Yeah because the final game will look exactly like the pre-alpha build a year from now *smh*
 
M

Man

Member
A mere handful of devs to catch up in 2018. Their contextual animation blending and gameplay flow is unrivaled.
 
C

cchum

Member
PodcastFips said:
I'm pretty sure we will see visual improvements until E3, even though it already looked really nice.
The thing that really impressed me the most is how all the animations merge into each other almost seamlessly.
Click to expand...

This. It seems to be sony's modus operandi . The God of war 3 alpha to final was a HUGE difference.
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Amir0x said:
By the way, if anyone wants to see a truly amazing dissection of the demo in both gameplay and tech watch this video.

He catches all sorts of shit I missed the first time, really gives you an appreciation of what Naughty Dog is already accomplishing. It's infinitely more useful than this Digital Foundry article, but your mileage may vary.

And he brings up some great points about the framerate as well.
Click to expand...
He's wrong about a lot of details, though. He's just throwing around features that aren't actually being used. Still enjoyable to watch, though.
 
V

valkyre

Member
The talk about being disappointed that the demo runs in pre alpha stage on a locked 30 fps is really irritaning me....

I mean wtf! Does DF know a lot of games that in their pre alpha stage showings run at 60 frames per sec????

I am fairly confident ND is still on target to deliver 60 fps. But with what they have now they cant -obviously- match a rock solid 60 fps for showing. So they resort to 30 fps lock so that no1 is going to come out of the show and write things like "framerate dips all over the place!"

I mean it is just common logic the way I see it...
 
E

EGM1966

Member
Amused said:
Also this.
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My take was to see a pre-alpha - admittedly vertical slice of sorts - that's looked terrific but more importantly looked seriously good from a gameplay perspective.

TBH the gameplay shown puts a lot of recent releases to shame and still with very good visuals.

There's s lot of runway left before this title takes wing and on the basis of this very confident showing I'm expecting the title to be great. I'd actually praise DF for actually hooking into the gameplay mechanics focus.

More power automatically means better visuals, but gameplay jumps require more thought and design and I'm glad to see ND seem to be focusing on building gameplay first then polishing the title visually (although it already looks terrific and stable at 1080p).
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
dark10x said:
He's wrong about a lot of details, though. He's just throwing around features that aren't actually being used. Still enjoyable to watch, though.
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He gets the terms wrong often, but he does spot a lot of details that I missed. Particularly about the lighting in the cave and some of the gameplay minutiae.
 
M

Majanew

Banned
dark10x said:
He's wrong about a lot of details, though. He's just throwing around features that aren't actually being used. Still enjoyable to watch, though.
Click to expand...

Yep. He's wrong about a lot of techniques being used in games, but his vids are being pushed here recently. Same about his reflections in GTAV.
 
C

Corgi

Banned
article reminds me of how exaggerated and ridiculous the jumps the AI do with zero startup movement.
 
W

Wabba

Member
I actually think that The Order looks even better then Uncharted now, but it has 1 year of Naughty Dog polish left. I wasn't floored in the same way that i thought i was going to be, but as the demo progressed and after watching it a couple of times i am even more hyped about the gameplay changes and there isn't exactly anything to critique about the graphics.
 
A

Always-honest

Banned
It is to me. Beyond any doubt. I hope the final game has this fidelity (clean as fuck), this constant 30fps and this level of detail, more animation, etc, etc.

I'm very happy with it and they stiull have time to improve. Who knows.. maybe they'll even hit 60.

The Order looks great too. This is what i hoped for this gen. And i must say Infamous and Killzone allready made a good attempt. But this is really what i hoped for.
 
U

Uncle Rupee

Banned
What's the point when the game is like a year away? It looks great already but I suspect we'll see some improvements between now and then.
 
D

DC R1D3R

Banned
anything running at 30fps cannot leap a generation.

put this game out on a customisable pc with occulous. now we talking babygirl.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
Graphically it looks wholly similar to other nextgen games in terms of techniques used and overall quality. I am not sure why it is a generational leap that is hoped for, you can already see the graphically generational leap in other games.

I really dislike the inordinate level of hyping that comes to some games and not others that use similar graphical tech...
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
Always-honest said:
It is to me. Beyond any doubt. I hope the final game has this fidelity (clean as fuck), this constant 30fps and this level of detail.

I'm very happy with it and they stiull have time to improve. Who knows.. maybe they'll even hit 60.
Click to expand...

There's some disparity already between the tech Naughty Dog was pimping in their "Bringing Nathan Drake to PS4" panel and what was shown. So I'm betting the game is going to look a lot different as it comes toward release.

Not that anyone should stop complaining about it now. It's a far ways off from the teaser, just as I always said it would be. But I also don't think we're close to indicative of where we'll be. Interview said the game looked extremely differently only 2 or 3 weeks ago, and they probably tried to get this demo running at as solid a framerate as possible, prioritizing that over putting all the effects they're going to have in place up.
 
R

Ramenman

Member
DF articles on on-stage demos are such bullshit, really why do they do that. They're supposed to be the tech analysis part of Eurogamer, who needs them to tell you gameplay stuff you can actually see.

And like The Last Of Us they make this stupid statement of "AI looks so much better wow" when most of it is very likely to be scripted in those kind of demos.

I enjoyed this demo and think the game will be cool but seriously why does DF do that.
 
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