PRO THOUGHTS
Powering up
James Burrows of Immersive Studios explores the exciting prospects that next-gen gaming tech offers designers and developers alike
James Burrows
I n many ways, 2020 hasn’t been the best year – but luckily, even if you live somewhere that’s facing new restrictions and longer lockdowns, the gaming industry is here to cheer us all up. The latest announcements from Epic Games and Sony PlayStation are real reasons to get excited for gamers, game designers and developers alike – and here’s why.
AMAZING GRAPHICS
The recent demo of Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 technology gives us a good idea of what’s to come – and it (literally) looks amazing. The quality of the graphics (shown on PS5 hardware but with the promise that it should be possible on Xbox and PC too) is stunning with a new dynamic lighting system and highly detailed models. This is in part due to the new standard bulk storage SSDs which dramatically accelerate real-time rendering without overloading the memory – seen in action on the PlayStation 5’s recent Ratchet & Clank live gameplay demo – and also due to Epic’s new ‘Nanite’ system. This is designed to automatically create LOD models of high-end 3D assets that are suited to the scene and device, whether that’s a console or smartphone – making it easier for creators to build content and deploy it across all devices without having to create special lower LOD models themselves. This is exciting news for independent game devs, and larger companies too.