First details on Crysis 2 have found their way onto the internet in the wake of Crytek boss Cevat Yerli explaining the FPS has been designed as a trilogy.

According to a report on fansite inCrysis - via GameStar.de - Crytek lead animator Steven Bender has let slip that the developer will focus even greater attention on graphics for the sequel, a translation from German explaining, " Their ambitious aim is to push the game' s visuals to an advanced level, that could be considered near photorealistic movie quality."

A tiny plot detail is additionally given - that the sequel will concentrate on more than battles with aliens and Korean military. Which, you probably would have guessed at anyway.

And that' s your lot for now...

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The first game has only just been released, it looks godly, and it' s almost impossible to play the game at high resolutions at max settings.... and they' re talking about pushing the graphics further already?

How far away from almost true photorealism? 10 years?

The original:

10 years?

i predict 6 to 7 years.. 5 years tile the next gen console shows up, one to two more years for the first next gen games... consider that crysis has outstanding graphics today that are getting closer in some aspects to reality, or high quality cg (heck even mass effect or call of duty 4 do) , that is happening today !! next gen consoles will leave the PC' s that will be released in 5 years to dust, there they can do much better than Crysis, and we all know what that means.

ORIGINAL: Abasoufiane

...and we all know what that means.

Virtual reality sex slaves?

exactly.

I am not sure i want photorealistic visuals in games .

photorealistic will always be a welcome, at the end it will depend on the artists and how they will make their games look. RPG for instance will mostly be a fantasy so i think it' ll have that CG touch ( mass effect) rather than photorealistic ( COD 4).

lawl way longer, u guys are nubs

ORIGINAL: locopuyo

lawl way longer, u guys are nubs

. 10 yrs down the line we are sure to have photorealistic graphics . I mean crysis is almost there .

ORIGINAL: locopuyo

lawl way longer, u guys are nubs

10 years ago...

That hand looks almost good.....

I think they' ll give up on true photorealism once they realise how much its going to cost vs how much they can sell, when they can make much more money making games like Brain Training. The cost of photorealism will shoot up exponentially.

There' ll always be companies like Crytek who will ask companies like EA for millions to try, but even high resolution textures and postprocessing wont account for poor animation.

I think animation and control/feedback mechanisms should be the next focus of next-gen. I want a whole body tactile feedback suit and VR please. Thanks.

Awooga!

Someone invent the holodeck already!!

Btw, anyone seen Beowulf yet?

And Majik, you get your new PC yet?

I don' t like the word photo-realistic. Every time a good looking game shows up, the term gets thrown around.

The best example I can think of is when a handful of PGA 06 screens hit the net. EA claimed that the game was so good looking that any sort of on screen menus or heads-up displays would not be necessary because the game was bordering photo-realistic.



And while the game has held up well, it' s certainly nowhere near photo-realistic (nor has it ever been). People look at all the elements in a game that look near photo-realistic (character models, the high-res textures), and avoid some of the more common things that prevent games from truly being " photo-realistic" .

I believe that we' re going to come to a point when the humans creating the games, and not the hardware itself is going to be the limitation. If the graphical quality of games increases at the rate it is now (or even slower), we' re going to reach a point when developers simply won' t have the time or resources to push the machine to it' s full potential.

Not to mention, I' m also a believer in the Uncanny Valley theory. At some point in the future, games are going to become so " photo-realistic" , that they actually start to look displeasing, or subconsciously " off" . (It' s complex, go read the Wiki link, I can' t do it justice).

Btw, anyone seen Beowulf yet?

Yeah! It wasn' t at all like the poem, but it was a solid enough action epic. The 3D gave me a bit of a headache part of the way through, so I ended up taking off the specs for part of the film towards the end. If you take off the glasses at a certain point near the end, where Richard Griffith' s character (Beyowulf' s dwarflike friend) is riding across a stone bridge it looks like a PSOne game. (which is odd, because the movie is quite good looking.) I don' t know if it' s just a combo of the flat terrain and the not-so-hot horse animations, but it looked awful (wouldn' t have thought anything of it until I got out of the theater and found that all my friends had seen the same thing).

Right now I can handle Crysis maxed out but if they increase the graphical level anymore I' m going to end up needed a second 8800GTX card so I can SLi my rig.

eddie, remmember heavenly rain? that game looked amazing and the acting was the best i ever seen , by the way i wonder what happened to that game, though she was so real that the non human characteristics stood out, the way she looked, the lips movement, that' s an example of the uncanny valley. you don' t need full ressources to head the graphics toward photorealistic, japanese don' t do that, they always aim for anime style or high quality cg style, Advent children is an awesome exemple of how cg came far, if the game look fully like that , that would be amazing.

Right, but anime movies and games aren' t photo-realistic. They' re stylized.

I' m not saying games won' t get to Pixar levels of quality, just not photo-realism (At least not without some as-of-yet-undiscovered development in the way games are designed).

that' s what i wanted to say, advent children is CG , it can' t be compared to photo realism, except some enviroments or elements but as a whole it looks different, the colors, character look , there is a style but it looks almighty good, so if they reach that and they will at next gen , it' ll be awesome.

Gotcha.

No man, I totally agree. I' d be more than happy with Advent Chidren-esque graphics.

Games with pre-rendered backgrounds and highly detailed characters were photo-realistic-ish the past generation (Resident Evil 1 remake GCN).
They could probably take it to another level this generation.
But I seriously can' t see the payoff in creating perfect photo realistic videogames when you can be totally immersed on a game that only has a 1/10000 of detail compared to photo realism. It' s like shooting flies with a cannon if you get my point.
I' ve seen computer graphics still pictures that were photo realistic, at least to my eyes. And given some time they could make animation and we' d have some very impressive looking CG movies.
But again, what' s the point? Isn' t it more fun to choose a stylised way like aba said?
And I think more focus should be put on animation, AI, gameplay, and acting before we go photo realistic. Because seriously, it' s not often I play a game and stop to think " crap, this game doesn' t look like the real thing" . But very often I think " what the hell is that NPC doing?" " Who the h*** did the voice acting for this idiot?" " Why the f*** is this level created like some kind of weird puzzle?" .
I don' t think photo realism should be a priority. It just steals time and money away from more urgent issues.

ORIGINAL: ginjirou

Because seriously, it' s not often I play a game and stop to think " crap, this game doesn' t look like the real thing" .

While I can agree with pretty much everything you said I want to point out this quote. Sure, it' s rare you look at a game and say it doesn' t look real because for the most part we don' t expect games to. We haven' t become accustomed to games looking that realistic. However on the opposite side when you look at a game that does go that extra mile in terms of visuals most people would say " Wow, that looks almost real!" Crysis is a prime example. The game doesn' t nail photo real but just the fact that it attempts to and in fact comes pretty damn close gives people a sense of awe.

Both stylized games and graphical intensive games have their place. I do hope to see graphics keep getting more advanced (more towards a Advent Children look than photo) because at least for me, it can make the experience more entertaining.

In the end you may not always think " crap, this game doesn' t look like the real thing" but I' m sure you' ve thought " crap, these graphics suck" for one game or another..

dude if assassins creed graphics (minus the minor bugs and the clipping) is the standrd in the graphics this gen , i' ll be extremly happy.