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[JEMC]

Careful with what you say about FF 7, Jizz, or you may upset Adonis, tho I'm sure he agrees with you about the poor lightning in that game.

Part of the problem, I think, comes from the engines used today. And yes, I'm obviously talking about UE5 and how resource heavy it is. The DOOM games running on ITech look great and run flawlessly in a wide range of hardware.

But, ultimately, I think the problem is that publishers still rely on graphics to sell games, and not features or gameplay, and it dosn't look like that will change anytime soon.

I'd love to see more focus on gameplay, tho. Don't get me wrong, Global Illumination looks great and makes games look better, but there are other aspects of ray tracing that don't really do much. Like, yes, look at this puddle on the street and how perfectly it reflects the light around it. How long will you stare at that puddle? How does it affect the way you play the game?

Now, improving the gameplay can also bring more demand for more powerful hardware, but the effect is more long lasting and noticeable. A couple of examples of things that were done once in the past by big publishers and IPs that have been lost:

Assassin's Creed Unity_ It's not a great game, being ok at most with a bad story and bugs and glitches (remember the characters with eyes and mouth but no face?), but the city... my God the city felt real, alive! Any street you went in that Paris was full of people, dozens of them goin arouns doing their things. It's a game where I actually walked from one point to another instead of running just to blend with the NPCs. And not only that, but you could also enter (some) homes! If there was an open door or window, yoiu could get in there and look around. In how many other games can you actually do that?

GTA San Andreas_ You could change the physical appearance of your characterby eating (getting fat) or going to the gym (growing muscles), as well as being able to get tattoos. Now, because that would be a problem with the cinematic experience, that's no longer possible.

Yes, those things take horsepower, but they were done years ago and there is no reason not to do it today. It's like the article I posted this week about the numer of planets in Starfield, where less but more detailed would have been a better option. That's true for almost every game where a smaller but with more "ñpve" map would leave a much better impression to anyone playing it.