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Ready at Dawn wasn’t showing much gameplay of its upcoming alternate-history shooter The Order, but the tech it did demonstrate was impressive.
Showing off the game’s physics engine, writer and creative director Ru Weerasuriya dropped into a test area. Before, he argued, all physics had been approximated. Now, independent forces are exerted on different areas, causing real-time changes that would have been faked before. Three flags were shown, each fluttering differently from one wind source. Similarly, a table was repeatedly shot, affecting both the table and the items on top of it.
“This generation we’re finally able to do things that will take us out of the uncanny valley,” Weerasuriya said. “It’s not just skin [or other organic attributes], it’s the way things interact.”
It’s an impressive feat, albeit one running on a high-powered PC at the moment. The usual assurances were made that on PS4 it would be exactly the same, and I hope so, because the game, as it stands, looks very impressive indeed, from both a technical and artistic standpoint.
World’s aren’t ‘painted’, according to Weerasuriya. They’re constructed, he said, from how materials interact. The Order’s take on Victorian Britain looks to have nailed that concept, using the PS4’s power to create environments that suggest serious consideration (38,000 photos of London, and its various architectural constructions, apparently) has been paid to crafting the world.
We’re yet to see any true gameplay, of course, and judgments on the game beyond this tech will have to wait. That said, technically it’s very interesting indeed.
