Project Ryu (PC probably, consoles?)

[Silent_Buddha]

This game stuck out to me in the UE5 list that Jofan posted in the UE5 thread.

[edit] adding another video that T2098 posted. This one is better and a lot longer.

[/edit]

S. Korean developer with 6 people working on it. Platforms haven't been announced but it's a given that PC will be the main development platform due to it being developed in S. Korea. It may or may not come to consoles. That'll likely depend on whether or not they are picked up by a larger publisher.

It's a great example, IMO, of how UE5 is allowing small development teams to produce something that graphically would have required a much larger team in the past.

Basically, it's one example of many, of things I've been hearing from smaller developers about how UE5 completely changes/challenges the advantages that a AAA budget gives to developers attempting to create graphically impressive games. This is allowing those smaller developers to continue to focus on gameplay (where they usually do significantly better than AAA studios because graphics isn't generally the #1 concern for indie and AA teams) while also now being able to have graphics that can potentially rival those put out but significantly better funded AAA studios.

AAA studio budgets will still have advantages WRT asset creation, but UE5 narrows the gap significantly in many areas between small studio budget teams and AAA budget teams.

Regards,
SB

 

[Remij]

The biggest differentiating factor holding back small studios compated to big AAA studios is animation. You simply can't get the same level of fidelity of animation unless you have access to state of the art studios that big AAA publishers have.

With UE5 we're going to get a lot of really stunning looking visuals, which are severely let down by the animation.

 

[Malo]

There are going to be so many UE5 game set in a city or a forest that all look basically the same with a different HUD and some kind of basic gameplay. The shovelware on Steam will be constant.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The shovelware on Steam will be constant.

As if it wasn't already? UE5 won't change that for the better or worse.

I'm already used to ignoring and filtering out shovelware. I'm just extremely excited at what the good indie developers will be able to put out now that their graphics will be significantly closer to big budget AAA studios.

Regards,
SB

 

[T2098]

This game stuck out to me in the UE5 list that Jofan posted in the UE5 thread.

S. Korean developer with 6 people working on it. Platforms haven't been announced but it's a given that PC will be the main development platform due to it being developed in S. Korea. It may or may not come to consoles. That'll likely depend on whether or not they are picked up by a larger publisher.

It's a great example, IMO, of how UE5 is allowing small development teams to produce something that graphically would have required a much larger team in the past.

Basically, it's one example of many, of things I've been hearing from smaller developers about how UE5 completely changes/challenges the advantages that a AAA budget gives to developers attempting to create graphically impressive games. This is allowing those smaller developers to continue to focus on gameplay (where they usually do significantly better than AAA studios because graphics isn't generally the #1 concern for indie and AA teams) while also now being able to have graphics that can potentially rival those put out but significantly better funded AAA studios.

AAA studio budgets will still have advantages WRT asset creation, but UE5 narrows the gap significantly in many areas between small studio budget teams and AAA budget teams.

Regards,
SB

Thanks for sharing the video - it certainly does look amazing for such a small team. Checked out their YouTube channel and realized that they also recently posted a much longer one:

 

[Flappy Pannus]

The biggest differentiating factor holding back small studios compated to big AAA studios is animation. You simply can't get the same level of fidelity of animation unless you have access to state of the art studios that big AAA publishers have.

With UE5 we're going to get a lot of really stunning looking visuals, which are severely let down by the animation.

Exactly my thought before clicking play on that video. "I bet the animation will be shit" - and the one instance they have of a character jogging is well...er...um...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Exactly my thought before clicking play on that video. "I bet the animation will be shit" - and the one instance they have of a character jogging is well...er...um...

Pretty sure that has to be a place holder as it's basically Tifa from FF7. Although I suppose a lot of stylized anime characters look like Tifa from FF7. Regardless it's still really early in development. I wouldn't expect the title to release for at least another 2-4 years.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Thanks for sharing the video - it certainly does look amazing for such a small team. Checked out their YouTube channel and realized that they also recently posted a much longer one:

I should have looked at their channel before posting the video, I just grabbed the first one that came up in search. Ooops. I'll add that one to the OP as well.

Hey look, even the snow appears to be modeled using Nanite. This should make a certain someone happy that more resources are being put into modelling snow.

The level of interactivity is impressive.

Regards,
SB

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Pretty sure that has to be a place holder as it's basically Tifa from FF7. Although I suppose a lot of stylized anime characters look like Tifa from FF7. Regardless it's still really early in development. I wouldn't expect the title to release for at least another 2-4 years.

Regards,
SB

We'll see, but it's always the main bottleneck in lower budget titles. It's never the material quality or lighting for me, animation quality is where there's consistently been this huge gap.

That doesn't say anything about the quality of the game, you don't need perfect motion capture to have a good game of course. It just makes me very skeptical though when I hear "These tools will enable AAA games at AA budgets".

My pessimistic attitude is we'll see more games with better lighting and material quality, and it will ultimately just stand out that much more against poor lip syncing and animation. Still an improvement, perhaps big - but I'm not expecting there still not to be a very noticeable visual gap with the final product wrt to development team size.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

We'll see, but it's always the main bottleneck in lower budget titles. It's never the material quality or lighting for me, animation quality is where there's consistently been this huge gap.

That doesn't say anything about the quality of the game, you don't need perfect motion capture to have a good game of course. It just makes me very skeptical though when I hear "These tools will enable AAA games at AA budgets".

My pessimistic attitude is we'll see more games with better lighting and material quality, and it will ultimately just stand out that much more against poor lip syncing and animation. Still an improvement, perhaps big - but I'm not expecting there still not to be a very noticeable visual gap with the final product wrt to development team size.

Oh I agree mostly. A small indie studio is never going to be able to afford high quality mocap, for example. A lot of the other stuff is going to still come down to tools and talent and thousands of hours of iteration. It's why I don't say they'll ever match AAA studios and why I mention AAA budgets will still allow for some things that just using UE5 won't get you. It's just that the gap will close significantly for many things.

Regards,
SB

 

[orangpelupa]

The biggest differentiating factor holding back small studios compated to big AAA studios is animation. You simply can't get the same level of fidelity of animation unless you have access to state of the art studios that big AAA publishers have.

With UE5 we're going to get a lot of really stunning looking visuals, which are severely let down by the animation.

The myriad of freely (or cheaply) available mocap would help.

Although still not as easy as facial animation, as epic currently only published facial capture. No full body capture.

 

[PSman1700]

Hard pill to swallow however ultimately its better for the gamer that were seeing the gap between smaller and larger studios shrink each generation when it comes to graphics. AI/ML will be tech that helps out on some fronts too probably.

The big AAA titles these days are kinda meh gameplay wise with the biggest thing going for it being the presentation, but that gap between smaller and larger teams is defenetely shrinking.

We may finally see a future with less of these ’cinematic 3rd person experiences’ which are practically all the same idea.

Its that these smaller indie/aa teams games dont see as much attention primary due to their presentation, its harder for them to get noticed even though its these smaller teams that bring intresting gameplay and diversing experiences. Just look at Johns list of his best games of 2022.
These games closing the gap with the larger AAA studios is one of the true gamechangers this gen.

We may be saved from the dire and stale situation were in today were we see less and less visually impressive games due to long and costly dev times that games require these days, too. The amount of games these AAA studios can pump out has strongly decreased, not forgetting prices.

Good development for sure.

 

[orangpelupa]

Hard pill to swallow however ultimately its better for the gamer that were seeing the gap between smaller and larger studios shrink each generation when it comes to graphics. AI/ML will be tech that helps out on some fronts too probably.

The big AAA titles these days are kinda meh gameplay wise with the biggest thing going for it being the presentation, but that gap between smaller and larger teams is defenetely shrinking.

We may finally see a future with less of these ’cinematic 3rd person experiences’ which are practically all the same idea.

Its that these smaller indie/aa teams games dont see as much attention primary due to their presentation, its harder for them to get noticed even though its these smaller teams that bring intresting gameplay and diversing experiences. Just look at Johns list of his best games of 2022.
These games closing the gap with the larger AAA studios is one of the true gamechangers this gen.

We may be saved from the dire and stale situation were in today were we see less and less visually impressive games due to long and costly dev times that games require these days, too. The amount of games these AAA studios can pump out has strongly decreased, not forgetting prices.

Good development for sure.

to me, what i dislike from indies are how they are often times so full of design elements that i find uncomfortable/unwieldly. AAA games are not immune from this issue (hello Destiny 2!) but most of the times even if they got these kind of issues, its still bearable.

Tunic is one of the best 2022 indie for me as it was polished and things flows well