Xbox One resolutions a 'non-issue', says Ryse designer

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Xbox One resolutions a 'non-issue', says Ryse designer

Microsoft and Sony fans have been at each other's throats again, after news that Call of Duty: Ghosts will be running natively at 1080p on PS4 but upscaled from 720p on Xbox One.

But none of that really matters, according to Ryse: Son of Rome design director Patrick Esteves, who believes that it's very much a storm-in-a-teacup situation.

"People are kind of grasping onto things that are really non-issues. For us, it was far more important to have artwork that looked beautiful. And if you're a shooter, of course you want 60 frames [per second]," he told TechRadar.

"So if you're going to do 60 frames at 720 then that's your choice to do it but it's such a small piece of the experience."

Up to the Cloud

"It's all apples and oranges," said Esteves. "The part I'm more interested in is what people are going to do with the Cloud because that has far more implications on gameplay than resolution."

"Currently on your iPhone you take a picture and the picture is sent off into the cloud, it computes it using multiple computers, it ages you thirty years, and it sends you a picture back in 30 seconds that lets you know roughly how you're going to look when you're 70 years old. That is essentially like cloud functionality.

"Now imagine what we could do with games if we had that kind of focus. Maybe we can have ten thousand units on the screen. Ten thousand AI running around and fighting. That's the dream. If you can do 60 frames on 720 with ten thousand enemies, that's awesome."

Despite the fact that Ryse is locked at 30fps at 900p, Esteves said that the importance fades when you look at the bigger picture stuff, and especially when you stand it next to the current gen.

"Going back to 360, there is a total experience jump in quality, rather than individual little things. Just the amount of facial fidelity we can do on Ryse, the cloth physics, all this kind of stuff. When I go back and play a game on 360, maybe one character has cloth and it's only on very specific things. Everything else is baked."

He added: "In Ryse, our cinematics are the same quality as our in game stuff. That's a huge jump."