So, I've been watching this and it's a magnificent remake of
parts of the original game that incorporates many iconic scenes and fights from it but isn't afraid to deviate from the original if the current team feels it is beneficial to the story they want to tell.
But it got me thinking about a discussion that went on in another thread involving next generation consoles. Especially when I see things like this.
I think SSR is more of a computing, bandwidth case which isn't related here, poor texture res or streaming is either an engine issue or memory quantity issue.
Or a cost of development issue.
I think FF7 remake is a prime example of how development costs increase rather dramatically with each generation of consoles. Newer generations can do more "things" and store more "things" (carts -> CDs -> DVDs -> BRDs -> DD) so need more "things" or higher quality "things" created for games on those consoles.
And thus we see a progression where larger and larger development teams are needed and more and more development time is required. We went from single digit development teams to now teams in the hundreds. We go from development time in terms of months to finish a title to development time in terms of years to finish titles.
And in many cases, we see a decrease in the scope of modern titles compared to past titles.
FF7 Remake has a significantly larger team that took a significantly longer time to make a game that is a fraction of the scale of the original. Limiting the game to Midgar allows them to reuse locations and assets that they wouldn't have been able to do with a larger world in a game with a larger scale. They can pad out sections with more side quests and more time spent on sections of the story to keep players in the same location for longer periods of time in order to better use the available development resources (developers and time). They can revisit locations multiple times to again make more efficient use of manpower and time. And since it's always in Midgar almost any asset created for the game can be reused multiple times in multiple locations.
Looking at the game thus far, in total FF7R is probably around 1/4 to 1/3 the size and scope of the original. And it required far more developers, far more time, and thus far more money to create.
We see a similar effect with Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series where we see the world and scope of each game shrink as demands for increased graphical detail and world complexity increase, hence increasing the time of development as well as manpower required.
This is only going to get worse with the next generation of consoles. Other than RT which can potentially help reduce the time needed to implement good lighting, everything else is going to increase the demands placed upon developers and increase the time required (which can be offset to some degree with having a significantly larger development team) to create a game.
I've seen some people mention procedural generation as a potential solution to the problem. I'm not sure it's a good solution or the best solution, but it may end up being a required solution unless we want games to shrink even further in terms of scope and scale.
NOTE - this mostly applies to AAA developers which can't afford to lower graphical detail in order to go with a larger scale and scope. For example, compare the scope of a prior indie AA developer, Obsidian's Divinity Original Sin games (large scope, lower graphical focus) versus The Outer Worlds (much MUCH smaller scope but larger graphical focus).
Regards,
SB
I mean....breaking the rules of the game?
