I finished TLOU2 yesterday but I'm not going to discuss the game itself, story, etc. because it's offtopic here. However, I'd like to share some findings on the technical side that I noticed while playing:
- ND engine (does it even have a name? I think I've missed it) already uses streaming a lot and, I think, loads only those objects and their textures that are needed in the frustum. For example: I was in a small room (let's say it was a room, to omit spoilers), focusing on objects in front of me (textures were okay) then I turned towards the exit and back, then I noticed a texture pop-up. While I tried to replicate that error, I couldn't repeat it. That'd mean the game shuffles assets all the time, not only when you enter/exit a certain area.
- I haven't noticed any frame drops in game. I tried to turn the camera around, especially in places where you could expect performance drops (like in front of mirrors), couldn't get it. To my eye, the game is rock solid 30 FPS.
- Sound design is phenomenal. There are thousands of different samples that play around you and you can actually listen to enemies not only through the visual "listening mode" but also by yourself. Footsteps on various surfaces differ, rain drops on different materials give different sounds, guns sound incredibly. It was a pleasure to play and great immersion. However, I didn't get the up/down awareness of sound, just the 360 panorama on a plane. I think my setup was wrong (settings in game and headphones with VSS). My headset is a bit malfunctioning right now but I hope it lasts till November so I can get a new one. If anyone can comment on that, please do. Speaking of sound, I noticed something interesting in the game menu. If you scroll down the sound section, there's that last entry which is inactive. Is it waiting for Tempest?
- Graphically speaking, this game is a league of its own. Simply the best animations I've ever seen and the best material implementation (hair looks like hair, fabric looks real, wet concrete walls shine exactly as they should). You can notice a lot of reflections, not only mirrors but various metal surfaces. I think those will be patched into RT for the PS5 version. I also think that this phenomenal texture quality is due to the fact that they're prepared for higher resolution in PS5 and downscaled to be squeezed through the antique HDD.
I'm definitely going to play it again on PS5, with higher difficulty setting (let's hope new CPU will allow enemies to be smarter) and in quality mode. I didn't feel any need for a higher frame rate in this particular game. I think we've seen the last of PS4's capabilities. Time for a change.