Jim Ryan should leave. Ragnarok looks like 2018's GoW, games are cross gen nowadays or simply lacking the oomph we got from other playstations.
Cross gen has nothing to do with it. This is the smallest hardware jump WRT core rendering hardware (GPU and memory) that we've ever seen for a new console generation.
Core rendering isn't going to have a huge leap, but the overall gaming experience should have a generational leap (loading, streaming, higher framerates, etc.) due to significantly larger upgrades to the CPU and storage subsystem. And while the storage subsystem can alleviate many of the bottlenecks (like loading in assets, streaming or otherwise) imposed by a smaller generational growth in available memory, it's still a LOT slower than memory when used for rendering (do something on GPU, write to memory, read from memory, do something on GPU, write to memory, read from memory, etc. until final frame is rendered to screen ... the new I/O won't really help with this part of rendering).
Static screenshots or stills will suffer the most. But higher framerates will result in better looking games during gameplay where you'll retain far more detail once the camera starts moving. Although it's worrisome if GOW: Ragnarok ends up being a 30 FPS game, that would be a huge shame. I'm going to guess that they'll offer a 60 FPS setting, though. Have a 30 FPS setting for screenshots and a 60 FPS setting for actually playing the game.
IMO, Dad Simulator 2 looks fantastic.
If I were to take a guess, the new hardware will allow them to open up the world a bit more and it'll be a little more open world and less an on rails corridor type game with constant loading checkpoints. That means that scenes will either be more dense or more open with larger and more impressive vistas than the first game had. The first game, other than some exploration areas (like the lake), the view was very constrained and you rarely got to look very far. Lots of tricks were used to accomplish this (fog, caves, rocky canyons, small islands, etc.) so that you were basically in a small rendering box, but you didn't necessarily think you were in a small rendering box.
I'm fully expecting the second game to open things up more and you'll have larger combat arena's, more detailed exploration areas, etc.
Basically better looking playable areas that are also larger than the previous game. The PS4 version might actually end up being a downgrade visually from GOW (2016) if the playable areas do end up being larger (or completely open) as well as being more densely populated with art assets.
Regards,
SB
