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[EGM1966]

No PC demo seems... ominous.

I'm hoping it's not ominous and is down more to marketing decisions... but yeah I'm approaching with caution on PC until details of performance profile are known.

 

[nOoblet16]

Are you talking about the same PBR that makes materials look more realistic?
Think about it for a minute, you're saying every art style, even on the cartoony end of the spectrum, needs to look more realistic??
Imagine TF2 or Overwatch with PBR, dear God...

Agree to disagree then.

Ermm..Overwatch already uses PBR or atleast some form of it if I am not mistaken.

PBR is not just making materials look more realistic. It's about how the materials react uniformly to the lighting in the game and follow a logic. That logic can be based on the real world or it can be based on the fictional world's art style. If PBR was only about "making things look real" then how do you think games like Sunset Overdrive and Ratchet and Clank use PBR then?

 

[Auctopus]

I didn't really mind/notice the input lag and thought the graphics were fine.

For me, it was the sound mixing and encounter design of the mimics just became unbearable after an hour. Audio spikes when enemy appears, battle music that goes on too long and makes it impossible to hear other audio (dialogue/audio-logs etc.)

 

[Sad Affleck]

I'm hoping it's not ominous and is down more to marketing decisions... but yeah I'm approaching with caution on PC until details of performance profile are known.

If it's a marketing decision it is a baffling one. Not releasing a PC demo after your last PC game was a dumpster fire at launch seems like a guaranteed way to kill your PC pre-orders.

 

[etta]

Ermm..Overwatch already uses PBR.

PBR is not just making materials look more realistic. It's about how the materials react uniformly to the lighting in the game and follow a logic. That logic can be based on the real world or it can be based on the fictional world's art style. If PBR was only about "making things look real" then how do you think games like Sunset Overdrive and Ratchet and Clank use PBR then?

My understanding of PBR is that it makes materials look more like their real life counter parts, wood looks like wood, plastic looks like plastic... etc. You even said that in Prey wood looks like plastic, that it's hard to distinguish materials.
Now if PBR can be adjusted to match the art style, that's great and all, but then every developer's take on the use of PBR would be unpredictable. Case in point, I had no idea Overwatch (and neither did Primithius) and Sunset Overdrive used PBR. Which means that you can't really claim that using PBR would make Prey look better, because you don't know how Arkane would implement it, right?

 

[EvB]

I think this is a great example of how the game has a style, it looks like a piece of concept art.
If you just took this an applied super realistic rendering to everything it would look like you were in a Disney theme park queuing area.
Why can't a game not look like the real world, but instead be an approximation of it?
Nobody has the same complaints about the character designs that many games feature.

 

[Primethius]

I think this is a great example of how the game has a style, it looks like a piece of concept art.
If you just took this an applied super realistic rendering to everything it would look like you were in a Disney theme park queuing area.
Why can't a game not look like the real world, but instead be an approximation of it?
Nobody has the same complaints about the character designs that many games feature.

Since there hasn't been a PC demo of the game for us to try, we are judging the graphical prowess based off the console versions. Which don't really look like that. Maybe the art style works better at higher resolutions, but that doesn't dilute talk of it not working as well on the base consoles, for which the demo is out on.

Edit: And yea I forgot Overwatch had PBR. I got mixed up since I was searching GAF for the threads that R&C had PBR while checking up on whether or not Team Fortress 2 implemented it at a later date.

 

[EvB]

Since there hasn't been a PC demo of the game for us to try, we are judging the graphical prowess based off the console versions. Which don't really look like that. Maybe the art style works better at higher resolutions, but that doesn't dilute talk of it not working as well on the base consoles, for which the demo is out on.

But it has the same lack of "realism" and overall look

 

[Snefer]

My understanding of PBR is that it makes materials look more like their real life counter parts, wood looks like wood, plastic looks like plastic... etc. You even said that in Prey wood looks like plastic, that it's hard to distinguish materials.
Now if PBR can be adjusted to match the art style, that's great and all, but then every developer's take on the use of PBR would be unpredictable. Case in point, I had no idea Overwatch and Sunset Overdrive used PBR. Which means that you can't really claim that using PBR would make Prey look better, because you don't know how Arkane would implement it, right?

Well, your understanding of PBR is not quite there.

Using PBR, and authoring the content well is not the same thing. You can make shitty looking things in PBR aswell, but what it does is to make materials more predictable to work with across an entire game, less sensitive to individual artists eventual mistakes. It fits well with both realistic and stylized artstyles. What it does mainly is to make things easier to work with, AND make realistic looking lighting response, which may or may not be used to make things look photorealistic.

Every pixar and disney movie uses PBR shading.

 

[Primethius]

But it has the same lack of "realism" and overall look

Yea but it's also a handpicked screenshot with fantastic IQ that solves some issues that the game has in motion.

Could that screenshot still be improved? Absolutely.

 

[Koobion]

But Dishonored 2 looks modern graphically...this one does not. Also this is not the same studio as Dishonored 2. So any comments that "this is how Arkane is" is kind of unaware of that fact and not quite right.



When people say it looks dated they are not asking for Horizon level graphics...that's just dismissing the criticism and ignoring that the game actually does have sub par graphics.

Lol, dismissive? The game has a certain art style, and that style is clearly intended to not be photorealistic. The human characters make that clear. Also, consider all of the physics objects in the game, the size of the maps, etc. Just saying that the game has sub par graphics is very ignorant.

 

[Messofanego]

I have to disagree with both you and John here, the game looks ok but there's nothing especially impressive about its visuals. It's not bad but I expect more out of triple-A games nowadays. It has the look of a launch title and even then I think that it doesn't compare favorably to games like Killzone Shadowfall.

When have immersive sims ever had amazing graphics, tho? Priorities. Killzone Shadowfall only had graphics going for it.

 

[nOoblet16]

My understanding of PBR is that it makes materials look more like their real life counter parts, wood looks like wood, plastic looks like plastic... etc. You even said that in Prey wood looks like plastic, that it's hard to distinguish materials.

When I said wood looks like plastic I meant the wood in game looks like the plastic in the game. As they are both similar looking and the only way I can tell them apart is because I know based on my real life experience a brown table with streaks is suppose to be wood and that home appliances often have plastic surfaces.

Now if PBR can be adjusted to match the art style, that's great and all, but then every developer's take on the use of PBR would be unpredictable. Case in point, I had no idea Overwatch and Sunset Overdrive used PBR. Which means that you can't really claim that using PBR would make Prey look better, because you don't know how Arkane would implement it, right?

Oh but I can, PBR is an unquestionably superior way of doing what they are already doing. It's a rendering philosophy that just makes sure everything in the world reacts uniformly. If a game doesn't use PBR then they will still have to adjust the specularity of metals and the diffuse of non metals, but they'll have to do it manually (causing irregularities) instead of just letting the engine take care of it on its own depending on how the materials are lit.

What you are saying would be kind of like saying since mocap's quality depends on the technique used, we don't know if a game doing hand animations would benefit from it. Obviously it will under any situation where mocap is available as an option.

 

[EvB]

I just saw an advert for it in the cinema and it was all PC footage according to the disclaimers. Then the PS4 Pro came up at the end.

 

[More_Badass]

Yea but it's also a handpicked screenshot with fantastic IQ that solves some issues that the game has in motion.

Could that screenshot still be improved? Absolutely.

In what ways could it be improved?

 

[etta]

When I said wood looks like plastic I meant the wood in game looks like the plastic in the game. As they are both similar looking and the only way I can tell them apart is because I know based on my real life experience a brown table with streaks is suppose to be wood and that home appliances often have plastic surfaces.


Oh but I can, PBR is an unquestionably superior way of doing what they are already doing. It's a rendering philosophy that just makes sure everything in the world reacts uniformly. If a game doesn't use PBR then they will still have to adjust the specularity of metals and the diffuse of non metals, but they'll have to do it manually (causing irregularities) instead of just letting the engine take care of it on its own depending on how the materials are lit.

What you are saying would be kind of like saying since mocap's quality depends on the technique used, we don't know if a game doing hand animations would benefit from it. Obviously it will under any situation where mocap is available as an option.

Hmmm, ok then.
I maintain my stance that the game looks great, it's pleasing to my eyes.

Shrug.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

Sub-par graphics?
Come the hell on.

Have you actually played the demo? The texture work doesnt look AAA quality at all.

For example, that little aquarium that you break through. They tried to simulate the look when high intensity light hits the water surface and makes this shimmering rippling effect underwater. Except it looks like ass. Like why even bother putting that texture there if you can't make it look right.

 

[Primethius]

In what ways could it be improved?

A better implementation of ambient occlusion is one of the things that jumps out to me immediately. The scene lacks a lot of depth in that regard and generally comes across as flat.

 

[trugc]

If you are talking about art then that's different from graphics.

It doesn't look amazing graphically...it's actually quite mediocre with very off and dated looking materials. For example, I can't tell ceramics from metal very well, leaves lack any sort of translucency or specular highlights, wood seems the same as plastic. All these materials look even worse when they are put under a different light source like this flashlight...which doesn't even cast shadows.

Basically the PBR in this game seem to be non existent, it's why it's lacking the "current gen" look.

Prey was developed on an old Cryengine build that didn't support PBR initially, which means when they moved to PBR pipeline later they wouldn't have enough time to redo all the textures and lighting that strictly follow PBR standard. The asset quality in game is also mediocre IMO, although they have great art direction in concept.

 

[Justinh]

"To address input lag, the fix within the final release in the game changes the raw input curve on the PS4 controller to be more responsive at the low end, and to tweak responsiveness to the center point on the controller (narrowing the dead zone.). The net result is faster/more responsive movement,"

I'm a little concerned that what they plan to do will actually really fix the input lag problem or just kinda mask it. Like with Rise of the Tomb Raider for Xbox One, I went into the Xbox Accessories app and set the sticks to "instant" which, I assumed (could be wrong), did just that: shrunk the dead zone and diddled with the responsiveness curve in the lower end to make it "faster" and lowered the in-game sensitivity a little.

It did feel a bit better, but I still had a bitch of a time aiming on small, fast targets like rabbits after playing it on PC and getting used to it there (playing with controller on PC, too). That said, I do get used to it after I play the Xbox version for a long period of time, although aiming still never feels great so I'm not sure how much this will end up bothering people, especially if they only stick with one version.

 

[nOoblet16]

Lol, dismissive? The game has a certain art style, and that style is clearly intended to not be photorealistic. The human characters make that clear. Also, consider all of the physics objects in the game, the size of the maps, etc. Just saying that the game has sub par graphics is very ignorant.

I didn't "just say" it has sub par graphics", I gave good reasons and made points over why I think it has sub par graphics.

But more importantly, did you read my post that you quoted? Because if you did then you'll notice that I mentioned a game called Dishonored 2 in it and said that Dishonored 2 looks modern looking but this game doesn't. You would think that if I was arguing for photorealism then I wouldn't mention Dishonored 2 of all the games considering its even more stylised than this game and it isn't even the most technically impressive game out there. If I wanted to do that then I'd have mentioned something like Mankind Divided.

If the demo area is any indication of map size then I am also confident to say that the size of maps are well smaller than Dishonored 2. Now granted I haven't played the whole game but so haven't you and your point about area size is based off the demo as well, which as I've just pointed out is not really as big as you think it is.

 

[Sad Affleck]

It doesn't look bad, just dated.

 

[nOoblet16]

Prey was developed on an old Cryengine build that didn't support PBR initially, which means when they moved to PBR pipeline later they wouldn't have enough time to redo all the textures and lighting that strictly follow PBR standard. The asset quality in game is also mediocre IMO, although they have great art direction in concept.

I originally suspected that but the timeline didn't make sense. How long has this game been in development again?

Cause for that to happen they'd have had to started development way before 2013...back when it was still called CryEngine 3. Since every CryEngine iteration since August 2013 (when it got rebranded) has supported PBR, so unless they had a ton of content made by the end of 2013 or if they were not allowed to use the newer CryEngine (not sure how it's licensing works), I can't see how they couldn't have made the switch in the following 4 years time.

 

[nOoblet16]

It doesn't look bad, just dated.

That's all I am saying.
Somehow some people automatically equate dated to bad. It doesn't look bad at all, it looks nice actually but it is indeed dated in areas.

Think of it as if the visuals and art style are being "held back" rather than "not good enough", if you will.

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

Are you talking about the same PBR that makes materials look more realistic?
Think about it for a minute, you're saying every art style, even on the cartoony end of the spectrum, needs to look more realistic??
Imagine TF2 or Overwatch with PBR, dear God...

Agree to disagree then.

PBR allows texture artists to define materials in a way that properly describes the way real life objects react to light (color+metalness+roughness) and that allows for much more consistency when dynamic lighting changes. In other words it makes the authoring of textures easier and more predictable, and lets artists focus on getting the textures right once and not on fixing them for the tiniest change in lighting/for each level.
The previous model, namely the specular model, basically made everything look like plastic.
So in a nutshell yes, PBR benefits everything, you can have a very cartoony artstyle and assets with cel-shaded postprocessing and whatever and still have it so that wood looks like wood, metal looks like metal, etc, and not make everything a plasticky mess.
It's just a better tool, and good use of it is expected in 2017 for a game to be called graphically excellent. Not that Prey looks bad, especially art-wise, but it's not at the top of the game.
PS: take a look at Zelda BOTW or at videos from Borderlands 3 and see how the materials feel like their real life counterparts while keeping the artstyle painterly in one case and comic-like in the other.
Then compare Borderlands to the previous ones.

 

[Maxey]

videos from Borderlands 3

Whoa, hold the phone... There's footage from BL3?

Where can I see this?

 

[Fafalada]

The entire point of PBR is that it is a rendering philosophy that brings out the best in art

Last I checked PBR was a content workflow, not a "philosophy", and energy conservation constraints were there for the sole reason they match the behavior of REAL world, which has little to do with artistic vision if said vision isn't trying to do the same.

 

[Drewfonse]

The lack of announced Pro support is disappointing. If it shows up in the retail version, great, but between that confusion and the input lag (which will be fixed), this really isn't the way to show off your game, at least to the hardcore crowd.

 

[L.O.R.D]

i am playing the demo right now,i killed all the monsters and don't know where to go,the area where i should go is locked and it's says only on the full game.
why make a demo that can't end?

also,the game is avaiable on UAE right now

also,some other game leaked as well

 

[Dictator93]

Is the game on consoles missing SSR? Seems to be missing in the obvious places where one would see it!

Cool to see an area light here or there:

 

[dark10x]

Yeah, it seems like SSR is not present in the game. Just cube maps for reflections.

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

Whoa, hold the phone... There's footage from BL3?

Where can I see this?

Well, it`s literally a tech demo of their PBR implementation with Unreal Engine 4, and it's here.

 

[Via Purifico]

Hope they fix the aliasing, the jaggies were eye bleeding.

Played it on the pro, so I wasn't used to seeing them again so prominent.

 

[Jake2by4]

The lack of announced Pro support is disappointing. If it shows up in the retail version, great, but between that confusion and the input lag (which will be fixed), this really isn't the way to show off your game, at least to the hardcore crowd.

Yea surprised no Arkane or Bethesda employee has shed light on Pro support by now.

 

[tuxfool]

Hope they fix the aliasing, the jaggies were eye bleeding.

Played it on the pro, so I wasn't used to seeing them again so prominent.

Yup. I just don't see how a developer in this day and age looks at that and says, "yup, looks great", when there are so many good ppAA solutions that are publicly documented. All their other media was utterly replete with that crap and I was thinking that they'd just fix it for the final game, but it appears that they have done nothing about it.

 

[pretty done]

Yea surprised no Arkane or Bethesda employee has shed light on Pro support by now.

Seems like recently there's been a decent amount of games skipping Pro support. Let's hope it doesn't become the norm because this game could definitely use some extra hardware power. The IQ is dreadful on PS4.

Don't understand why so many devs are allergic to AA/AF. It's like they don't even play games.

 

[icecold1983]

does not look good IMO

 

[Stoze]

So I've been very positive towards the game, even among a lot of the negative reactions and pessimism in the demo thread, but I felt this was important to bring up for PS4 users. From a Prey demo impression thread on /r/games, user ContributorX_PJ64 posted this:

They've asserted that they're going to patch aiming on PS4 before release. From what I've read, they've altered deadzones and curves and the like. But... I am a little concerned because "CryEngine game has noticable input lag on PS4 that is absent on every other platform" is almost a consistent trend at this point.

• Everyone's Gone to the Rapture had input lag on PS4.
• EVOLVE had input lag on PS4.
• Homefront: The Revolution had input lag on PS4.
• Prey Demo had input lag on PS4.

Ghost Warrior 3 probably has input lag on PS4, too, but I haven't seen any reports yet.

I have no clue how accurate that is considering I haven't played any of those, but there you go.

 

[Inceptional]

I had to stop playing after 30 minutes because I was feeling dizzy. I don't know if it was the FOV, the input lag or what but it wasn't good. That's never happened to me with a game before

 

[haikira]

I have no clue how accurate that is considering I haven't played any of those, but there you go.

I've only played Homefront The Revolution, and Evolve. Homefront definitely felt very sluggish, but I remember Evolve being fine.

 

[OBias]

It's wierd to see Cryengine next to words like dated.

I remember when nothing could touch it.

I still can't get used to Source Engine being referred to as dated.

 

[StrikeFirst117]

No PC demo seems... ominous.

Yep I'm holding off on buying this for a couple of weeks because I have a bad feeling about the port for this after the problems the dishonoured 2 one had.
I know this is by a different team on a different engine but I still have my doubts.

 

[EGM1966]

If it's a marketing decision it is a baffling one. Not releasing a PC demo after your last PC game was a dumpster fire at launch seems like a guaranteed way to kill your PC pre-orders.[/QU
Oh agreed. Just noting I can't see any reason not to drop a PC demo - unless its bad - unless marketing felt it was only worth effort to push on console.

It's just odd decision. Given the game really seems to hark back to classic PC's titles too.

I remain mystified at the use of "Prey" brand too as it hardly carries any weight and I don't think it actually seems aligned to the title's design approach.

Given the mimics are definately a bit of a pain to combat on PS4 I want to know K/B responsiveness and performance is acceptable.

 

[ktroopa]

NX Gamer says XB1 res is 900p and PS4 1080p. DF says identical res on both platforms. Whos right?

 

[funkystudent]

Didnt know it was CryEngine so I was pleasantly surprised to finally see a 3rd party CE game on console that wasnt a trash fire.

NX Gamer says XB1 res is 900p and PS4 1080p. DF says identical res on both platforms. Whos right?

Uhhh. DF said it was the standard split of 900p on XB1 / 1080 on PS4 in the video.

 

[Peterthumpa]

I liked the demo, but the shimmering is absolutely horrible. If the final game has Pro support, I'll buy it.

 

[killroy87]

NX Gamer says XB1 res is 900p and PS4 1080p. DF says identical res on both platforms. Whos right?

Did you just not read the DF article at all?

 

[Terbinator]

NX Gamer says XB1 res is 900p and PS4 1080p. DF says identical res on both platforms. Whos right?

Does it? Because in the DF article it literally says

....We have the standard rendering split here - it's 1080p on PlayStation 4 and 900p on Xbox One.

Third paragraph.

 

[Dictator93]

NX Gamer says XB1 res is 900p and PS4 1080p. DF says identical res on both platforms. Whos right?

John makes mention of the "usual split" in this video. After the 2:10 mark.

I liked the demo, but the shimmering is absolutely horrible. If the final game has Pro support, I'll buy it.

Higher res may not help much at all with specular aliasing.

 

[Pagusas]

The gunplay looks bad, why do enemies not react to being shot?