People tend to forget how good the 2018 game looked. It was and still is one of the best looking games of that generation.
Soooo, any theories on why there seem to be centaurs and gladiators in this game? They’re not flashback scenes because I saw Boy! in the little snippets. Curious 
.
Because you will go other other areas that are not Asgard? The game already establishes that these pantheons exist in the same world. But they also talk about going to war, so maybe an invasion of some sort?
2 Likes
True but: the pre-release material states that you finally get to travel through all Nine Realms. Which still falls under the Norse sphere of influence. Now I know God of War has always played fast and loose with mythology, but, I am wondering if that is what they are doing here or are the Greek creatures and warriors there for a reason.
I have no confidence in my ability to judge graphics or even gameplay from trailers any more. It seems like every time I think a game looks great it gets ripped online, and every time I think “meh” people rave about it. Ha.
2 Likes
I don’t care, so long as the gameplay is good.
It looks fantastic even if it’s a cross gen game. GOW 2018 was my goty that year with Spider-Man close behind. The art direction and texture work makes GoW age extremely well.
If you are upset over re-used animations or assets you are a clown. There’s zero reason not to re-use assets where applicable and everything is subject to change anyway. It’s a sequel. Of course things will look similar. Horizon Zero Dawn likely re-uses a lot of stuff, but has had more time to re-work some lookdev stuff (and while off topic, I don’t like their new look and prefer GOW sticking to consistency).
3 Likes
There definitely are… Halo I think is held back because studio wants to keep its original art style or something like that.
GoW:R seems like story extension rather then complete new entry of the game from 2018
FH5 had an extra year from its traditional development cycle and I think that’s why we are seeing a difference in this game.
When most of the games are delaying because of vivid, FH5 had a extra year from the start to develope for new consoles.
Lots of Xbox Game Studios are rebuilding their engines to make their games look next gen
Slipspace (Halo) F tech (both Forza, Fable) IDTech (Doom, Indiana Jones) UE5 covers everyone else Creation Engine 2.0 (Starfield, TES6)
Takes a little longer, but you get that next gen leap. Microsoft is fortunate they have a plethora of studios that they could take long enough for others to do this, Sony’s first party is stretched thin so Forbidden West, god of war and gt7 are band aids on last generation games and taking a year off to rebuild engines means a drought.
Think we’re just going to have to accept Xbox will have better looking games this gen, though the hardware difference made that logical.
7 Likes
But thsts disrespectful. Saying it’s an expansion. It’s a near 40 hour game. It’s a straight up sequel. Expansions are 5 to 6 hours.
What new animations do people want? First game had amazing animations. You can’t beat him throwing an axe and catching it. Perfection.
Also you’re absolutely right. Boss fights was lacking. The Valkyries got a bit boring to fight after a while. And the last boss left a lot to be desired.
I want a God of War 2 style Zues 1v1 with Odin. Zues is still the best boss fight in any God of War game.
1 Like
I don’t think people intend to disrespect when they say something like it looks like an expansion. They simply mean that the sequel is not doing anything that differentiates it from its predecessor.
2 Likes
But we haven’t played it. For all we know it could have bigger hub world with more variety in this level design and shit ton more bosses.
Again…people need to give examples of different things it needs to be doing. Like I said. God of War 2 didn’t do much different than God of War 1. Except more bosses and a few newer weapons. Gsme controlled and played exactly the same and it was still one of the best games of the year…in a year where we had 360 and ps3 games.
God of War 2018 was one of the best games that gen.
I don’t need it to do things different. The things I want it to do are stuff like more bosses and maybe change the menu and upgrade system a little bit. The whole gem socket thing was a bit of a waste.
If they can streamline the upgrade system a bit more that would be good.
1 Like
People are looking at the game and seeing its not a huge leap graphically. DF even apologised to Horizon Forbidden West for not looking next gen, because Ragnorok really doesn’t look next gen in comparison. This has lampshaded every aspect and people are looking at the seams and seeing that SSM are reusing animations, which though common in videogames, is painting the picture that this is a PS4 game in all but resolution.
Bare in mind, Sony didn’t even confirm this game was coming to PS4 until 3 months ago, so for the last 3.5 years, people got it into their minds this was PS5 exclusive and would blow minds.
It didn’t help that Sony and their fans were fanning the flames that cross-gen = bad. Contrast this reveal to Forza Horizon 5…I figured as it was cross gen, it would basically look just like Forza Horizon 4 at 4K/60fps …but then they showed it and jaws were dropped. Its not too much to ask Ragnorok does the same, this is a flagship game isn’t it?
3 Likes
I’m saying it looks like an expansion. Graphically. From what we’ve seen so far.
Not that it is an expansion.
1 Like
Most people have been expecting it to look atleast at par with the Hellblade 2 trailer/screenshots, UE5 demo but it looks just like a last gen title which is totally fine because RDR2 also runs on last gen consoles which looks far better than GoW imo.
Maybe Playground had different design goals from beginning of the cycle. They thought they could pull it off very well using 12K photogrammetry in 2-3 years of development time. There’s nothing to complain about GoW as we also have Halo Infinite. But it definitely hurts the image of GT7 when compared to the 2021 game FH5.
1 Like
No doubt. Hellblade 2 is being made with Unreal Engine 5 and the same paradigm shifting techniques that allow for example rendering “infinite” geometry while everything Sony showed thus far is being developed under the same process that they have for Ps4.
One related question is how quickly can Sony change to this new pipeline. I reckon it’s something Ms teams might have a big head start (Almost everyone already has experience with UE, they have been toying with mega scans and procedural content generation for a while, smaller teams + outsourcing which makes it easier to switch to new tech…)
1 Like
With the increased gpu and cpu power we could see more stuff simulated/dynamic regarding simulations.
For example in that clip of they boarding on the boat there’s a bit of warping of both the characters and the boat itself so they are perfectly positioned when the animation plays.
The main problem is that it’s PS who has set a unrealistic expectation for the casuals with stuff like UE5 demo. Now the kids think they can automatically expect their games to look like that from day 1 on PS5.
1 Like
The Sony nuthuggers who were saying cross gen is bad can do one. Absolute delusional they are. People can’t buy ps5’s. Forcing sequel to your best game last gen that is clearly able to run fine on last gen consoles is scandalous. This isn’t cyberpunk were talking about. Halo infinite will look fine on a one x. Mp will look and play great on a base xbox one. If your game can’t run on last gen. Then we have an issue.
Also I’m not worried about God of War.
If I was a Sony fan which I’m definitely not I would be worried about Gran turismo. Game looks average and will probably be a boring sim like the last few GT games. I wouldn’t worry too much about God of War. Even if it doesn’t look next gen at this stage.
Horizon is a game I look at and think yeah it looks good. Is the gsme going to play better than the first.
1 Like