I’m Not Sure If I Buy it…
If you watched the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo for the PS5, you probably remember the cliche hidden load screen trick featured in it. You know, the moment when the player character is forced to squeeze past a small gap between rocks so the game can load the next area while you slowly work through it? Well, if you didn’t know that it was a secret load screen, now you do! That’s why they are everywhere. BUT according to Epic, that sequence wasn’t to hide a load screen…
A spokesperson answered to Kotaku by saying “The actual goal of that part was to force the player camera to be really close to the wall to show how much detail there is in the scene. We were not trying to hide any loading but actually show good looking assets in close-up.”
That’s a good excuse for sure, but I’m not sure if I buy it. There are so many other ways to get a close-up of the assets, yet they decided to go for the cliched load-hiding trick. If they were really that concerned off showing their tech off, wouldn’t they have just done it in a way that couldn’t be mistaken for the exact thing they were striving against?
If years and years of watching tech demos and pre-release game footage has taught me one thing is that these are just advertisements. Their primary focus isn’t to be honest and show off the art. Even with SSDs are we sure that there will really be no load times for PS5? Please, SSDs are nothing new, I’ve had them for years on PC. What does it take for these devs and studios to be honest with us? Who am I kidding? Probably nothing.
Who knows, maybe I’m wrong and they are being honest. What do you think?
Source: Kotaku