A few weeks ago, Epic put out a breathtaking tech demo called “Samaritan.” The demo gave us a glimpse into the future of game visuals and the potential of Unreal Engine 3. It was packed with wet, shiny, metallic realism, all shot with stylish depth of field effects and lighting. The whole purpose of the demo, Epic’s Rod Fergusson revealed (in an interview with Edge), was to present a challenge to console manufacturers like Microsoft and Sony.
“The problem right now is that the console manufacturers aren’t providing the hardware,” said Fergusson. “That was the whole reason the demo exists–as a challenge to the console manufacturers, to say ‘This is what you can do with a current-gen PC, do you really want next gen consoles to be behind what we can do today?’”
The Samaritan demo took twelve people two months to create. When asked about the logistics of creating such detailed graphics, Fergusson said it’s mostly on the hardware. “It wasn’t so much about the team size–it’s not that far off, in terms of model complexity and stuff, from what we do now,” he explained. “It’s really hardware intensive, but it’s not as intensive as you might think in terms of what art was required.”
The current generation of consoles got an extension over previous console cycles, partly because of the economy and partly because of how powerful and flexible the 360 and PS3 have proven to be. The Xbox 360 dashboard, for example, looks completely different from the one it launched with. Motion control devices have also been seen as a sort of second launch for the consoles.
Epic isn’t ready to just sit on its hands and wait for Microsoft and Sony, though. “We look at this demo as our showcase to say, ‘This is the quality that we’d like to see next-gen become. This is where we would like to push our visuals, our games.’ We’re throwing down the gauntlet and seeing who picks it up.”
Looking at the quality of the visuals in the demo, I think it’s definitely time to start thinking about new hardware. A lot of people thought these consoles would be good enough for a long time, but you can see them struggling with games that look half as good as that demo. I loved this generation, but it’s probably time to move on.
