Will PS5 era games finally "age well".

[kitler53]

we often times talk about some games as aging well and others not aging well at all.   games that tend to age well tend to me nintendo games and frankly I think the reason why is obvious,.. their focus on simplistic art design isn't being greatly improved gen over gen anymore since about the gamecube era:

n64


Gamecube

Wii


WiiU


Switch



However, in the games with a more realistic art style there have been massive improvements gen over gen for a while now.  however, things appear to be leveling out recently.

ps1


ps2


ps3


ps4


ps5



so,.. will ps5 era game now all age well?   i think yes.

[Legend]

No

[kitler53]

No

it's your insightful responses that i admire most. 

[Legend]

Haha in a few more words, I agree with your general point. This is the first gen ever that I have not been impressed by graphics or cared about the differences. Having a 4K tv would help, but PS3 games never felt like PS2 games regardless of definition.


That doesn't mean there isn't room to grow. As a developer that has been far too focused on graphics recently, the flaws in your cold war screenshot stick out. Just look at that ugly tessellated mud! Or the horrible lighting around the fire. The sand itself seems to be burning at the bottom right yet it has the same brightness and color as sand elsewhere. What about the funky alpha effect with the dirt splatting up? Have you ever seen a photo with dirt in the air that looks like that? Also check out the green hill in the background. That's just a flat texture up there with some sprinkled on trees!

The game still looks great, but games will continue to improve on all these elements. Plus this is just a 720p screenshot. Character animations are starting to age incredibly poorly thanks to motion matching (TLOU2) and other experimental approaches. I think by the end of this gen, current games will feel very old.

[Dr. Pezus]

Haha in a few more words, I agree with your general point. This is the first gen ever that I have not been impressed by graphics or cared about the differences. Having a 4K tv would help, but PS3 games never felt like PS2 games regardless of definition.


That doesn't mean there isn't room to grow. As a developer that has been far too focused on graphics recently, the flaws in your cold war screenshot stick out. Just look at that ugly tessellated mud! Or the horrible lighting around the fire. The sand itself seems to be burning at the bottom right yet it has the same brightness and color as sand elsewhere. What about the funky alpha effect with the dirt splatting up? Have you ever seen a photo with dirt in the air that looks like that? Also check out the green hill in the background. That's just a flat texture up there with some sprinkled on trees!

The game still looks great, but games will continue to improve on all these elements. Plus this is just a 720p screenshot. Character animations are starting to age incredibly poorly thanks to motion matching (TLOU2) and other experimental approaches. I think by the end of this gen, current games will feel very old.

God of War 2 PS2 looked better than many ps3 games tho

[the-pi-guy]

What does "age well" really mean?  

Games that actually look irritating: kind of a tough one. Personally I feel like even most PS2 games weren't that bad.  Some PS1 games are still great.  Some PS1 games are atrocious. Like FFVII I had a hard time trying to play it.  There were probably a few early PS3 games though that I probably would find irritating.  

Games that won't look bad. I can't think of any PS4 games that I think look down right 'bad'.

Games that won't look bad for Legend: PS9. He looks at the opposite stuff.  I appreciate the progress and what looks good.  Legend looks at all the flaws and thinks everything looks bad.  PS7 might have the first genuine photorealistic game. And then by PS9, the average game will have that fidelity (not that it will all look real, but the average game won't be packed with flaws).

[kitler53]

I'm kind of responding to the entire thread here.  

age well is not sometime I can personally define.  the entire gaming community contributes to the classification.  

clearly graphics is an important part of this.  but gameplay and controls matter too.  even quality of life things like "save points" contribute to that feeling of a game "not aging well". 

clearly, graphics will improve and I won't argue against that legend.  but will the current level of graphics be so bad in ten years that the games feel unplayable?   ..I think not.  

not like the ps1/2 era games where character models were Soo low poly.  in the ps3 era things start to look okay for the games with pre rendered cut scenes but gameplay was still quite bad.  

with ps4 I feel like things are finally good enough on the character models that even as things improve these games won't be distractingly bad but I still think there are a lot of environmental issues. 

with ps5 I'm getting the feeling the environmental issues will addressed and things will all start to age well instead of just a subset of games. 

...because of course some ps3 games age pretty well. I'd say ratchet and clank aged well but those games have a lot in common with "nintendo" games. 

[Xevross]

Its a tough one to call really isn't it. I look at TLOU2 and think how can this ever look bad, its phenomenal. But maybe in 10 years time it will look bad. Games with certain styles are more immune to aging too.

I suppose in 50 years time most games will look bad, aging well is perhaps the games that last the longest time before people think they look bad. By that definition then who knows really. Also a simple game like Tetris Effect is pretty hard to age, that game will always look good.

I guess the question is when will the average released game always be considered to look good. In that case, this coming gen could be it. Its starting off very strong, pretty much every native next gen game looks amazing.

[Legend]

God of War 2 PS2 looked better than many ps3 games tho

Yeah it did but as a kid I only remembered PS3 and 360 games looking like huge leaps. I specifically remember analyzing a Halo 3 screenshot over and over in a gamepro magazine, just being wowed by the leaves and lighting.

Games that won't look bad for Legend: PS9. He looks at the opposite stuff.  I appreciate the progress and what looks good.  Legend looks at all the flaws and thinks everything looks bad.  PS7 might have the first genuine photorealistic game. And then by PS9, the average game will have that fidelity (not that it will all look real, but the average game won't be packed with flaws).

I appreciate the progress but yeah it sucks. I'm like the opposite of Neo because a lot of times I just see code instead of pretty pictures.

No joke, it makes you really appreciate nature though. I regularly stop and stare at plants, mountains, and clouds because I'm in aw of their beauty compared to the stuff in games.

I'm kind of responding to the entire thread here.  

age well is not sometime I can personally define.  the entire gaming community contributes to the classification.  

clearly graphics is an important part of this.  but gameplay and controls matter too.  even quality of life things like "save points" contribute to that feeling of a game "not aging well".

clearly, graphics will improve and I won't argue against that legend.  but will the current level of graphics be so bad in ten years that the games feel unplayable?   ..I think not.  

not like the ps1/2 era games where character models were Soo low poly.  in the ps3 era things start to look okay for the games with pre rendered cut scenes but gameplay was still quite bad.  

with ps4 I feel like things are finally good enough on the character models that even as things improve these games won't be distractingly bad but I still think there are a lot of environmental issues.

with ps5 I'm getting the feeling the environmental issues will addressed and things will all start to age well instead of just a subset of games.

...because of course some ps3 games age pretty well. I'd say ratchet and clank aged well but those games have a lot in common with "nintendo" games.

Graphically I think PS5 games will age slower but they'll still look bad in a few generations.

Animations are something I think will be distractingly bad.


As far as Nintendo games aging well, I think for better or worse they're great at not biting off more than they can chew. Super Mario 64 was incredibly innovative but all the graphics are clean and polished. The system couldn't handle grass so it just used a bland green texture. Your PS1 example however is trying to replicate real life and is failing horribly.

[Xevross]

What does "age well" really mean?  

Games that actually look irritating: kind of a tough one. Personally I feel like even most PS2 games weren't that bad.  Some PS1 games are still great.  Some PS1 games are atrocious. Like FFVII I had a hard time trying to play it.  There were probably a few early PS3 games though that I probably would find irritating.  

Games that won't look bad. I can't think of any PS4 games that I think look down right 'bad'.

Games that won't look bad for Legend: PS9. He looks at the opposite stuff.  I appreciate the progress and what looks good.  Legend looks at all the flaws and thinks everything looks bad.  PS7 might have the first genuine photorealistic game. And then by PS9, the average game will have that fidelity (not that it will all look real, but the average game won't be packed with flaws).

Yeah I guess being a dev gives you a different perspective but this...

Haha in a few more words, I agree with your general point. This is the first gen ever that I have not been impressed by graphics or cared about the differences. Having a 4K tv would help, but PS3 games never felt like PS2 games regardless of definition.


That doesn't mean there isn't room to grow. As a developer that has been far too focused on graphics recently, the flaws in your cold war screenshot stick out. Just look at that ugly tessellated mud! Or the horrible lighting around the fire. The sand itself seems to be burning at the bottom right yet it has the same brightness and color as sand elsewhere. What about the funky alpha effect with the dirt splatting up? Have you ever seen a photo with dirt in the air that looks like that? Also check out the green hill in the background. That's just a flat texture up there with some sprinkled on trees!

The game still looks great, but games will continue to improve on all these elements. Plus this is just a 720p screenshot. Character animations are starting to age incredibly poorly thanks to motion matching (TLOU2) and other experimental approaches. I think by the end of this gen, current games will feel very old.

is just so weird to me to read. The "ugly tessellated mud" I don't see at all. I actually couldn't even tell you what that means. The fire doesn't look realistic if I focus on it but to me it still looks great.

I guess when games do this stuff better in the future and we adjust to it and get used to it, looking back at this game we may think it looks bad. But these are very minor details we're talking about now. Most older games look bad (to most people) simply due having low res textures, running in low res, using very low poly assests and having pretty much no detail in the environments. Games are doing a lot of this well and we're hitting heavy diminishing returns here now I think. 4K res and textures is basically perfect for the human eye with the size of screens and distances we use, and poly counts are already getting insanely high.

Graphically I think PS5 games will age slower but they'll still look bad in a few generations.

Animations are something I think will be distractingly bad.


As far as Nintendo games aging well, I think for better or worse they're great at not biting off more than they can chew. Super Mario 64 was incredibly innovative but all the graphics are clean and polished. The system couldn't handle grass so it just used a bland green texture. Your PS1 example however is trying to replicate real life and is failing horribly.

In motion and animation is a different big step. I think animations will still age badly now, there's a lot of improvement to come.

Nintendo using smooth assets like the bland green ground is exactly why their games age better, yeah. But I don't think that's the case now, when realisitic games are just as high res and clean looking to most people.

[the-pi-guy]

No joke, it makes you really appreciate nature though. I regularly stop and stare at plants, mountains, and clouds because I'm in aw of their beauty compared to the stuff in games.

I really like looking at nature too.

I really like those little downhill rivers that form after it rains.  It's a weird little thing I want to put into a game.  

As far as Nintendo games aging well, I think for better or worse they're great at not biting off more than they can chew. Super Mario 64 was incredibly innovative but all the graphics are clean and polished. The system couldn't handle grass so it just used a bland green texture. Your PS1 example however is trying to replicate real life and is failing horribly.

I really feel like this was a particularly big problem on PS1.  Final Fantasy VII and VIII are trying to do too many things and it really looks bad, even worse than a lot of SNES games.  

Actually on that note, I think SNES is when games started looking okay. Not good by any means, but okay. NES games really suffer from a lack of color.  

[Legend]

is just so weird to me to read. The "ugly tessellated mud" I don't see at all. I actually couldn't even tell you what that means. The fire doesn't look realistic if I focus on it but to me it still looks great.

Look between the logo and the left boot. See how instead of the ground being a flat plane, it has a bunch of bumps? That's tessellation, the same thing as this.



It's a great technique that is used in a lot of different ways but in the COD screenshot it feels bulbous and stretches the texture.

[Xevross]

Look between the logo and the left boot. See how instead of the ground being a flat plane, it has a bunch of bumps? That's tessellation, the same thing as this.



It's a great technique that is used in a lot of different ways but in the COD screenshot it feels bulbous and stretches the texture.

The COD screenshot just looks like rocks covered in sand and dirt to me, I guess if you super zoomed in you could tell it looks bad. Most people don't view things like that though.

[kitler53]

Look between the logo and the left boot. See how instead of the ground being a flat plane, it has a bunch of bumps? That's tessellation, the same thing as this.



It's a great technique that is used in a lot of different ways but in the COD screenshot it feels bulbous and stretches the texture.

yes, i can see it.  especially now that you specifically point it out.   i think my counter point is that for the purpose of the game the rocks is at best in your peripheral vision.  yes, when i focus on it it looks silly but for the dirty console peasant gamers like myself it's not a distraction.  

however as i said above,.. i kind of feel like the ps4 era brought character models up to good enough to not be distractingly bad.   they aren't always amazing but between a bit of adding "artistic flair" to people and high quality models we are, imo, at a point where people are good enough.   however, environments could be beautiful at a distance but often glaringly bad at the medium to close distance especially in the first half of the gen.  things improved a lot by the end of the gen but still have it's moments.  for me personally i think about the time in horizon where i spent 5 minutes walking on the tops of the tents and noticed how silly it was that the fabric was 100% rigid.



my early impressions of late gen ps4 and early gen ps5 makes me think the environmental issues will be resolved by the end of this gen.  at least to the point where things are never distractingly bad even for scenarios like you mentioned here.