this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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I would describe it as a 2015 GOTY. There are areas where other games like Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky show more polish, and the engine is showing its age, but it's clear that many years of work have gone into it and you get a lot of content for your money.
If I had a dime for every dumbass who says "the engine is old" or something like that I'd take all of you to Popeyes, asking you guys kindly to stay under 12$ per order.
The engine is literally over a decade old. Yes, they have worked on it in that time, but it's still Creation Engine with a new major version number. There were moments where I felt as if I was playing some sort of OpenGL demo - when I'm on a quiet part of a planet and all I can see is blocky terrain and a gradient for a skybox. Great game but it would be self-defeating to say there isn't room for a more immersive sequel.
We're going into ship of Theseus territory here, but do you really know the extent to which they overhauled the engine? Because when I hear blocky terrain I think of LOD generation which all modern engines use to save processing power. Unreal engine itself is still the same propeitary engine based on C++, which similar to CE, has been overhauled over the years. Really what I see is you getting into the semantics of what makes a new engine without understanding the changes to the back end.
I guess what I was getting at is that it might take another engine overhaul or two before it starts to feel "next gen" to me. Maybe consumer hardware isn't ready for a game at this scale that has trees that don't look like paper, textures that don't look muddy up close, and some sort of particles floating around in the air so that the world feels less static. There have always been sacrifices made to create a world at this scale that performs well, and I just don't think we've hit peak yet. This stance seems to put people on the defensive for some reason. It's still a good game, don't shoot
I love this game and this engine.
Cyberpunk 2077 has a horrible gameplay style, the action is constrained and clunky, the stories have too many rails. It doesn't feel free and open. It's basically just Grand Theft Auto with better stories.
No Man's Sky seems endlessly pointless (or pointlessly endless?). It's a cool idea but I enjoy Starfield a whole lot more.
I agree totally.
I don't get people stanning NMS over Starfield. I mean No Man's Sky is alright as a tech demo sandbox but even with the latest update, I get bored so quickly. Even the stations and civilization hubs feel dead, the plot is just so haphazard and slapdash. Starfield feels so much more cohesive and....has actual characters. But they're also just very different games. Starfield is heavier on story content and NMS is heavier on procedural generation.
I loved Cyberpunk's story but I've found very little reason to come back outside of the main plot. GTA5 was a technical achievement under sweatshop conditions and while I hated the story, the world felt alive and full of things to do and places to explore. Cyberpunk feels like GTA if it was made with half the team and with one less year of development (because it was).
And you stanning Cyberpunk and No Man's Sky as polished games is hilarious to me.
It took several years of fixing No Man's Sky before it was anything more than a boring tech demo. Cyberpunk took years of bug fixes and a popular anime to break people out of the hate circlejerk and actually experience the fucking game. Starfield hasn't even officially released yet. People need to chill the fuck out.
Also what are you talking about with "the engine is showing it's age?". This is a brand new fucking engine. I'm playing the game on my Xbox in 4k and it looks better than anything I've played this year.
I said "there are areas" for a reason. Seamless space travel is more polished in NMS. Cyberpunk has more visual polish imo.
It's not a new engine. It's a major iteration of Creation Engine, which is called Creation Engine 2, but not built from scratch.
Calling it a GOTY for any year in the last decade is still high praise.