Elden Ring [2022-21-01] [PS, XB, PC]

I can't say it looks bad because it doesn't. I can see they put some special attention in character detail in the MC's armor, NPCs, enemies, etc.
But the environment detail is just not great. Lots of low-polygon rocks and buildings, grass looks like alpha textures not very well done and the lack of GI is missed dearly inside the dungeons.

But I have to say the 1 year-old Demon's Souls Remake from Bluepoint spoiled me a lot. It's impossible not to make the comparison between what FromSoft is doing and what Bluepoint could have done had they been involved.


On the mixed quality of the graphics, there's probably something to be said about a company with around 300 employees creating a cross gen open world with complex systems. It's probably inevitable that some things have to give or are of relatively poor quality.
Bluepoint released Demon's Souls in late 2020 and they had 70 employees at the time. FromSoft has 330 employees and they'll release in early 2022 a game that looks a generation behind.
It's probably not a matter of number of employees but rather of focus, and of course having to develop for those super old 8th-gen consoles.

I think that, regardless of what some developers may say in PR situations, having to develop a game for the older generation of consoles is always going to create enormous limitations on how a game can look.


(They should still sort out those bloody trees)
Vegetation in general looks pretty bad IMO.
 
I can't understand how people are comparing Bluepoint's remake to this. Demon's Souls Remake sure is a beautiful game, but they worked on top of a very small game, compared even to Dark Souls the content is not that much. They didn't touch the gameplay at all, and that art direction is...well, different from the original.
 
I can't understand how people are comparing Bluepoint's remake to this. Demon's Souls Remake sure is a beautiful game, but they worked on top of a very small game, compared even to Dark Souls the content is not that much. They didn't touch the gameplay at all, and that art direction is...well, different from the original.

Is Demon's Souls Remake not the last Souls game that released?

What is your point? That if Demon's Souls was a larger game then Bluepoint wouldn't have achieved the same level of graphics fidelity? There are plenty large areas in that game, and with the SSD streaming there's little caching needed so RAM amount wouldn't be a problem. Besides, scale and scope wouldn't justify the enormous difference in graphics fidelity in the dungeon areas.
 
I can't understand how people are comparing Bluepoint's remake to this. Demon's Souls Remake sure is a beautiful game, but they worked on top of a very small game, compared even to Dark Souls the content is not that much. They didn't touch the gameplay at all, and that art direction is...well, different from the original.
Is Demon's Souls Remake not the last Souls game that released?
Not by From Software. That'd be Sekiro.
What is your point? That if Demon's Souls was a larger game then Bluepoint wouldn't have achieved the same level of graphics fidelity? There are plenty large areas in that game, and with the SSD streaming there's little caching needed so RAM amount wouldn't be a problem. Besides, scale and scope wouldn't justify the enormous difference in graphics fidelity in the dungeon areas.
My point is that Bluepoint are masters of building good technical showcases on top of already created games. It's much easier taking something already finished and done and polishing it to perfection, specially if you focus only on graphics/audio. I'd like to see something entirely original from them and not another remaster. And you cannot compare the scope of Demon's Souls with any From's later titles.
 
It's graphically unimpressive but art direction makes it look as good as any of the most technically impressive games for me. I know I won't be satisfied by games going for realism this decade so I'm over complaining about it. (except when it comes to FF7).

Very excited for the gameplay and at a glance you can see the similarities to BoTW pretty easily just from the layout and spacing of the world's design, the creator wasn't kidding when he said he referenced BoTW and that it was his favorite open world. I totally agree with him so I'm happy to see the inspiration so clearly.
 
The game would be totally transformed with RT GI. But I don't expect anything extravagant, maybe AO or shadows.
 
Well that’s a new one. First time we hear RT in ER. From the footage, it’s not GI. It may be reflex as you can easily limit that - hence why we haven’t seen evidence so far? Intriguing.
 
Well that’s a new one. First time we hear RT in ER. From the footage, it’s not GI. It may be reflex as you can easily limit that - hence why we haven’t seen evidence so far? Intriguing.

Well, it does say that it’ll be available via a patch so it’s probably not enabled in the releases footage.
 

Interesting footnote on the Bandai-Namco page.

Performance priority mode: adjusts screen resolution and load balancer to approach 60 FPS.
Resolution priority mode: load balance functions at a fixed max resolution, with a lower limit of 30 FPS.

That implies that resolution mode has unlocked framerates rather than being locked to 30 FPS. For XBS consoles that's fine if you have a VRR display. Are they hoping that PS5 will have working VRR by then?

But for people without VRR displays then resolution priority mode might not be all that great.

Regards,
SB
 
Very curious what they use the RT for.
Praying for GI but that might change the art too much, Reflection and shadows would be great.
 
Well, it does say that it’ll be available via a patch so it’s probably not enabled in the releases footage.
Right! Getting a bit bored of these RT patches after launch. I've left Guardians until that's released and it looks like I'll wait to play ER until that patch is released.
 
Do their animations or physics go wonky or something if it's uncapped?
 
Yes, running speed, some ground collisions and interaction with ladders.

Sekiro worked mostly fine up to 90fps, after that more glitches appeared.
 
Interesting footnote on the Bandai-Namco page.



That implies that resolution mode has unlocked framerates rather than being locked to 30 FPS. For XBS consoles that's fine if you have a VRR display. Are they hoping that PS5 will have working VRR by then?

But for people without VRR displays then resolution priority mode might not be all that great.

Regards,
SB
Maybe. Sony stated (to a TV reseller) that PS5 will have VRR in december. Not 100% official though and it's still a target date.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/games/news/playstation/157899-ps5-could-get-vrr-this-december
 
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