CryENGINE 3 Updated, Crysis 3 Announced 60
zacharye writes "The next-generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles currently being developed by Microsoft and Sony will make the disparity between console and mobile gaming even more vast, adding more fluid animation support and a number of additional enhancements that will make video games more realistic than ever. But even when confined to the capabilities present in today's home consoles, new video game engines show us just how amazing gaming will be moving forward. Ctytek, the lab behind the popular Crysis franchise, recently released the CryENGINE 3 SDK 3.4.0 DX11 update for developers, along with a quick reel to highlight some of the engine's capabilities."
Crysis 3 has also been officially confirmed. They're aiming for a Spring 2013 release date, and the game will be set within a dome in New York City that contains an 'urban rainforest.'
Re:A Game Now? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the video shows off nothing but graphical effects, it's unlikely.
Seriously, at some point, the oceans will be as realistic as they can be, the HDR will be spot on, the reflections won't affect performance, the model detail will be high enough for ANYTHING.
Then, what will they do? All their old games will look like junk, and have no redeeming feature beyond their graphics. And, maybe, finally, we can get back to making *games*. You know, things with plots, gameplay, a point, freedom, etc. Sound hit that point a long while ago - you know, I don't think there's much more you *can* do to improve upon a game that has proper 3D sound with real-time effects - so games don't even mention it any more whereas ten or fifteen years ago stereo, or 3D sound, was something to boast about.
As it is, the gaming scenes are currently dominated by rehashes of old-school games that are playable, open, and fun (hell, Minecraft pales in comparison to something like Hunter on the Amiga, etc.). While crap like this sinks billions into graphics and engine development that will eventually stop recouping its costs.
I'm just hoping, beyond hope, that if HL2:Ep3 ever does appear, it will show something NEW. I don't care about graphics - I want something I can play on my laptop. I want something that's *fun* to play and engaging. HL2 managed that. I literally played it through in one hit and then later went back to play through all the released episodes again in one long session (with, I think, only one or two breaks in gameplay - and NOT to play another game).
Seriously, developers, what are you going to do when EVERYONE can play games with ALL this crap in them? It's not as far in the future as you seem to think. And just what will you do then?
Re:A Game Now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... some companies will continue to make game engines, others will make games?
Camera companies, whatever will you do when all your cameras can do colour, high res, steady camed shots with the minimum of glare?
Crytek is a technology and tools company, that makes a game on the side to show off what can be done with their tools, to some degree gamebryo. Epic does something similar, as does gamebase (gamebryo aka Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Civ4, WAR). You can argue on the quality of the games they produce, but the products they have are technology projects. Don't think for a moment that the content creation side of things isn't hugely important. How quickly you can generate worlds, water, ground, buildings etc depends very much on the quality and usability of the tools. And I don't just mean procedurally generate, although that too, I mean that you're building all of these level design tools for a bunch of artists and non- programmers (and not computer scientists, not engineers, they are tradeschool level people) who actually build most of the game. Making it so they can actually use the tools, understand what they do etc is a big challenge. Crytek (and Epic) both work collaboratively with their own teams and anyone they licence too to improve the tools, but ultimately the first title produced is being made while the tools are being made. Game engines since DX9 have gotten to the point that that isn't a huge problem. But they're still building tools primarily around workflow, build integrity, management etc.
All of the development happening is happening to support people who actually make games.
Seriously, developers, what are you going to do when EVERYONE can play games with ALL this crap in them? It's not as far in the future as you seem to think. And just what will you do then?
Dance for joy? Focus on actually making games and not fighting a technology battle with deciding what features we cut based on what percentage of the market will support whatever we're doing. Tell stories. Build worlds. That's the whole point. Go play Skyim. This comment will still be here after you've played a while. Say 80 hours worth. That's what we're trying to do. Build the tools that make an experience believable, and grandiose. Oblivion and Morrowind (elderscrolls 4 and 3 respectively) had great technology for their time, but compared to skyrim, they look like student projects. Now that you've played skyrim for 80 or so hours you'll also realize how far we have to go in actually building worlds. As cool as it is to see a horse that has a fur mane that waves around, or armour that has fur protruding out of it, swords that look like real metal, animals that look sort of like real animals, there's a long, long way to go. People like you will have said the same thing 10 years ago, and on one hand, you're kind of right. Since directx 9 and the ability to make arbitrary 3D worlds there's a lot less pressure on graphics, and a lot more on building the world. On the other hand, if you wanted to make a game today at the quality of morrowind (directx 8) or oblivion (still directx 9 with skyrim) you would be compared to skyrim, and found very much wanting. If you *can* do the graphics, whether that is weather, bricks, lizard men, or whatever, the better it looks the more believable it can be, the better the experience for the player. The easier it is to build those worlds, the more we'll make them. But even from the day we can produce photorealistic images in real time on desktop hardware (and we are no where near that) we will still have work to do, to make the content creation easier, to make more exotic objects and materials and optical physics effects. And as people below have talked about, there's a lot more to games than just visual quality, there's animation, sound, AI etc. And some of those problems are a lot farther away than photorealistic images. But a lot of them don't play as nice with videos either.
Caveat: I'm not sure how skyrim loo
Nobody seems to have put the pieces together yet (Score:5, Insightful)
But so many games still can't be arsed to do it right, so things in the environment aren't things, they're lumps of terrain with a picture skin. Cars on which you can't shoot out the tyres. Or the windscreen. NPCs your gun won't shoot at, or won't hurt if you do. Glass that doesn't break, wood that doesn't burn, and magic invisible walls at the edge of the world. Or in the case of the Battlefield games, a magic invisible line with artillery insta-death just 5 seconds away if you dare to cross it.
Ramping up the triangle count just doesn't cut it any more. Yes, the face in the video is very clever - what happens when I shoot it? The water's lovely - does it make ripples when I walk through it, or splash when I jump up and down? The AI might well react to my presence - how will it react to a 9mm to the kneecap? Or a fire? Or a rocket going off 10 feet away? Are NPC soldiers all inhuman combat robots, totally unafraid of death, and 100% combat effective until their last hit point is gone?
Because, you know, I've played Doom. A super-shiny version of the exact same gameplay no longer appeals. I know there were restrictions on game design caused by having less memory for the game than my current CPU has cache. All the right things have been done at least once. Now could someone just please do them all together?