Star Citizen, Cyberpunk, and the future of video games

We are approaching a point where video games will have the ability to render photorealistic scenes. This is especially true with newer game engines such as Unreal Engine 5, which can render an almost unlimited amount of detail. The real limitation is now on what the artists can create, and I would argue that we are already seeing this limitation. Many games use lower quality assets simply because that's all they can afford, but they can often use stylized art and innovative gameplay mechanics to make their game appealing regardless of that.

Now that game assets are so hard to create, they can take up most of the development budget, which often takes away from other important things. Many modern games have pretty graphics, but they are completely lacking in terms of gameplay depth because they didn't focus enough on the coding. We can see this with games such as Cyberpunk, it looks great but is lacking many game mechanics that we would expect from an open world game created by a AAA development company, despite the fact many older open world games have those features.

In the past it wasn't necessary to spend so much time on creating art because our computers were very limited, and that allowed developers to put much more time into the code. There are many old games which are still praised for their complicated yet bug free game mechanics, some mechanics which developers still struggle with. A big part of the problem is due to developers being limited by the game engine they are using and the coding tools it provides. Game engines make it easy to create a good looking scene, but creating good game mechanics requires skill.

Many of the old classics didn't use a game engine, they wrote their own engine or they used a bare bones engine which they would highly customize for their own needs. This gave them a great deal of control and allowed them to implement unique game mechanics that would be a pain to replicate using only the tools provided by a game engine. A truly great game requires that adequate resources are allocated to both art and programming. An open game world can look photorealistic, but it wont feel very immersive until we bring the world alive with clever programming.

Personally, I feel that Star Citizen is one of the very few games to achieve this feat without sacrificing graphics quality or game mechanics. The graphics are almost photorealistic and to give you an idea of how complex Star Citizen is, almost every key on a full size keyboard has a function. For those unaware, Star Citizen is an online space simulation game, there is also a single player narrative-driven version of Star Citizen called Squadron 42, both of which are still in development. Star Citizen is currently playable and it has been making great progress recently.

It has massive planets covered in massive cities, and the quality of the graphics really makes it feel like you are living in a future civilization. They are obviously using a game engine but they have heavily customized the graphics pipeline to support the mind-boggling scale of the world they are trying to render. But it's not just the graphics which set Star Citizen apart, it's the complexity of the game mechanics which also draw me in. They are aiming for realistic physics, for example planets have different gravity, ships have momentum and fly in a plausible way, etc.

You could be flying at a fraction of the speed of light, and get out of your seat and walk around the ship, and some how you wont be flung into space, even when you get lag from a slow internet connection. Now obviously Star Citizen has its fair share of bugs, which is one of the main criticisms I hear, but it's to be expected with a game so complicated and so massive. Star Citizen and Squadron 42 have been in development for about a decade now, but they are still considered to be in a fairly early stage of development, and it's not simply due to a lack of funding.

GTA5 is the only game which had more funding than Star Citizen, the real issue here is the sheer scope of Star Citizen and the quality they are aiming for. It's not something that can be made quickly even with a large team, and this isn't just a problem which is impacting Star Citizen. As I said, many modern games require immense resources dedicated to art assets, because people expect the latest games to make use of the latest hardware. But now our hardware is starting to outpace our ability fully utilize it, and forcing us to cut resources in other areas.

As much as I hate to say it, the the solution to this problem is more AI generated art. The latest AI models such as DALL-E 2 can generate art which is comparable to an expert artist, but it can do it much faster. Another important part of the solution is photogrammetry, which involves scanning real world objects and turning them into 3D models we can use in a game world. I remember the first game I played which made use of photogrammetry was The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and it's still one of the most beautiful games I have played to this day.

There's just something about using real world objects which makes a video game feel way more immersive, like your brain is much more willing to accept what it is seeing as being real. Even though you might not notice any obvious differences between a hand-crafted rock and a rock scanned in from the real world, your brain will notice the subtle details. That applies to not only the shape but also the textures which are applied to the mesh, it's much easier for your brain to accept when the textures are essentially photos of real objects.

Star Citizen gets a lot of criticism for the slow development, but I do fully understand why it's taken so long to build, the quality they are putting into it is unprecedented. It always amazes me when I watch their old trailers and see how far ahead of the curve they were compared to everyone else. I'm probably more hyped for Squadron 42 than any other game, even though it might not be released before I'm an old man, if it ever gets released. That's why it's so crucial for their team and other development studios to make use of technology to speed things up.

The future of gaming looks very bright if we can learn the important lessons taught to us by older games, and improve on that with modern technology. Star Citizen gives us a glimpse into what this future could look like when you merge amazing graphics and immersive gameplay. That's why I'm so excited for Squadron 42, it will be Star Citizen but with a story line, character development, and none of the online networking issues. If the elevators work reliably then I'll be happy. I'll end with this epic trailer for Squadron 42 which uses in-game footage:

This one here:
"Many modern games have pretty graphics, but they are completely lacking in terms of gameplay depth..."

In addition to many, many other self-created problems the gaming industry has nowadays. Like unfinished or at least unfinished feeling games for moon prices on full release day, games being in early access for all eternity and often get worse than better. We own nothing anymore and are happy about it, not long ago when you paid for a game you got a physical copy, often with some extras like a map, artwork etc. If you waited a few months after release you could buy these games up from 5 Euros to 20 Euros. Many of them work till today without any games selling platform, without internet etc. But then they demanded an active internet connection from their customers to activate their already paid games and from that time on it all went downhill.

Because then they learned that the internet makes it possible for them to sell unfinished games, sell them as finished but still have to polish, patch, fix and whatever else them, for sometimes years if ever at all, before it really could be called finished and ask for the full price. The customers didn´t complain. Then early access was invented and it got worse. There are way too many games out there meanwhile and 95% of them are pure trash if it comes to quality for the money. 3-4% of the really good games are older games, only 1-2% newer games. Often there is a huge hype train created before release but all you get is a train wreck or a hobby railroad for the basement (with missing parts which allegedly all arrive later...) when the game is released.

Problem nowadays is that you can sell trash and customers throw their good money at you, often for nothing more than future promises. If it´s crap what the people bought they will praise it anyway because they can´t admit that they made a failure. I have seen that with a lot of really bad games, in terms of quality, game play, depth etc. Nobody can admit anymore that he got fooled by a hype train and instead of warning others about such scams they recommend that crap to others, maybe thinkinh: If people think that i really like that game then, in their eyes, i wasn´t fooled... xD

It´s not even the fault of that industry, it only uses possible advantages. Like selling low quality but decent looking stuff only fast enough. For example, sell 10 cheap games a year and make ten millions instead of making one good game over the years but only making 1 million because you weren´t fast enough for the grey customer mass that prefers something new every week instead of quality.

Somehow it´s no fun anymore to buy and play new games for moon prices. Because most of the time they are simply not worth the money and not worth to invest good time for them because, rather sooner than later, you will come to the point that you shelf it and look for something else because it was "meh" at best. Like RDR2, nice graphics but once you have played the story mode you can put it away for a good while because now you know the story, good graphics are nice to have but even them don´t make a good game from the online mode.

Last really positive surprise was Satisfactory, early access but nice graphics and it works, even you build a megalomaniac factory all over the planet with everything moving around all the time.
Cheers

I played Elite Dangerous and No Mans Sky. Both are similar, Really enjoyed elite it just took up so much time to play.

I don’t have a new console yet but will def be getting one next year for what will be the greatest game ever made, NCAA Football 2023.

A buddy of mine and I spent an unnatural amount of time with the GECK in Fallout 3. Bender and Gimp as well. Textures and meshes sell the item but how it acts is what makes it real. One thing done on a whim was to make Victory FTW as a competitor to NukaCola. A Pepsi to their Coke complete with adding dialogue to NPC’s and even commercials to the radio broadcasts. Victory FTW machines, posters, etc as clutter. These changes were subtle in established areas and increased as you came closer to the bunker that mod added. Visiting the bunker triggered the radio ads.

Other things we played with was building things out of junk, making jukeboxes play songs added, making NPC’s break their sandbox actions while a song was played as a trigger. We even played with “live AI animation” by building items as a jigsaw puzzle and letting the physics model redistribute the pieces (propane tank exploding).

It was easy to make the tank explode and the animation place pieces that looked okay in predetermined spots. Even have a random outcome using several “finals” but the jigsaw pieces really sold the idea especially when assigned weights to the pieces placed parts 50-100 feet away for five minutes. (Duration limits so the game didn’t have to keep track of persistent items).

We tried pictures as textures and it ended up looking “too good” to the regular assets in the game so you always had to tone it down to fit into the game. But one time we used a USGS topographical map of a local hill area. Once the road, trees and grass were added and the character ran down the hill in first person view…it gave that eerie Silicon Valley vibe seeing it in game. Because everything was there to visually sell it as real.

a reply to: Ahabstar

We tried pictures as textures and it ended up looking “too good” to the regular assets in the game so you always had to tone it down to fit into the game.

Using a real picture as a texture rarely works well, you need photogrammetry methods to ensure the texture properly fits the mesh. You also need to ensure all objects have the same level of detail otherwise the difference will stand out. I have actually created some mods for Fallout 4 and I love how Bethesda provides all the tools required, it's what allows their games to remain so popular.

I'm also looking forward to Starfield, should be a great space game, but it certainly wont be on the scale of Star Citizen, it wont have stunningly huge cities or space stations like Star Citizen, it wont have highly detailed physics or game mechanics like Star Citizen. Starfield will be like Fallout in space and I'm sure it will be fun, the ship customization and settlement system looks awesome.

But Starfield wont provide the same level of immersion as Star Citizen or Squadron 42. On the other hand, they created Starfield much more quickly than Star Citizen because they weren't aiming for the same level of quality. Which is why I think we need faster methods for developing games in the future if we are going to be creating games which look as good or better than Star Citizen.

Was just watching a video on YouTube about Meta's "Metaverse." Did you see the graphics on that? It has a budget of $10 billion! I am just curious how it is possible to budget $10 billion and have this type of graphics.





Mark Zuckerberg spent $10B on the metaverse and all he got was this stupid selfie

(That's the title of the article, not my personal opinion)

Before I head out for a while, I thought you guys might enjoy this ship "commercial". It was uploaded in 2014 which shows just how long Star Citizen has been in development, and I'm pretty sure it shows in-engine footage, which shows how far ahead they were thinking back then. And as shown in the Squadron 42 trailer, the graphics are even better now. I understand why Star Citizen gets some hate but I also think many people fail to recognize all the things it does right.

a reply to: randomuser

lol yeah it always confused me why they went with such a cheap looking style, I guess they wanted it to look cartoony and easy for any device to run.

Disclaimer that I have worked for Blizzard for the past 4 years which also means ATVI, King and all the ATVI studios like IW, TreyArch, Ravensoft , Beenox , VV and others. Nothing I say here is an official stance of Blizzard or any other entity listed.

Solid post and nothing I can disagree with. Nothing about building games is easy nowadays and no matter what you do, how good you develop something, how successful something is there will always be a % of gamers who wont like a single thing you do. Factor in you are trying to code for multiple different platforms with multiple different levels of quality then it becomes more challenging.

Still I hope any game, regardless of studio, that gets released and is solid ultimately is successful because that is better for the industry and the user base as a whole.

Star citizen will never be finished until the money starts to dry up. Roberts is probably gonna switch to UE5 and add more years. Its freaking 20 yrs old now?
I love wing commander, but SC seems like a pyramid scheme.

a reply to: yuppa

My ex spent several thousand dollars on Star Citizen buying ships when the fundraiser first went live. Of course, I found out the scope of how much he spent after the split. Was not impressed especially since money was very tight, supposedly.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I long for the days of actual good games with enjoyable systems and imagination put into them.

Id gladly pay 1-200 bucks for that kind of game vs a visual, ADD riddled, cash shop dependant, recycled clusterfluff.

originally posted by: DerBeobachter
It´s not even the fault of that industry, it only uses possible advantages. Like selling low quality but decent looking stuff only fast enough. For example, sell 10 cheap games a year and make ten millions instead of making one good game over the years but only making 1 million because you weren´t fast enough for the grey customer mass that prefers something new every week instead of quality.

Make a good game and you are looking at a billion dollars + (See Fallout 4 figures)
Make a crap game and your studio could go bankrupt

What is really going to be mindblowing is when AI starts kicking in and making levels and npcs.
Take technology today like the social brain of Replika (AI chatbot that is actually good)
The creativity of Midjourney (the best AI art maker...seriously, the stuff is wild, check it out)
and integrate it with a game, We are on the cusp of some outstanding gaming experiences that can be churned out yearly (normal development cycle time is many years per game).
In 15 or so years, gaming will be unlike anything we have witnessed to date..mix that with VR and there may be a very real problem of addiction to virtual world.

a reply to: SaturnFX

Look at EQ and WoW. Made serious money with a limited gaming environment graphically and mechanically speaking. But that had far more to do with the timeframe than anything else. Neither would be a blip if introduced today…assuming advances in gaming happened to overcome their stranglehold on gamer time and wallets.

Star Citizen, Cyberpunk, and the future of video games

Right now the future appears to be all phone games.
Side scrolling , 8 bit graphics , nothing to them , mass produced games .

Pathetic.

a reply to: randomuser

Don't you know, metaverse is the future. Those graphics are top of the line, you just can't understand it boomer!

But for real, it is bad. Unless the graphics are purposelly very low quality so that even people on phones can play. (I think there is VR attachments for phones).

www.youtube.com... (gameplay footage)

It is god-aweful and worse than roblox.

Even if this was designed to work seemlessly to play on a browser / phone ; That does NOT explain how they spent billions developing this.

And you know facebook is going to datamine the living hell out of you, push ads and try to persuade people to buy land or tokens in this god-forsaken 2006-like hellscape of a universe.

Idk. I feel until AR and VR really progress past it's current iterations the next level of gaming won't evolve no matter how real the graphics look. Even if it's almost indistiguisable from a movie with real people.

With how close the screen is in VR headset and the human field of vision and deoth of field and the weird dead space on the sides of the field of vision takes out of the immersive experience. Especially how the displays would have to have an insanely high resolution to come close to hiding the pixelation. And on that note I feel like the uncsnny valley effect would definitely come into play there.

a reply to: SaturnFX

Look at EQ and WoW. Made serious money with a limited gaming environment graphically and mechanically speaking. But that had far more to do with the timeframe than anything else. Neither would be a blip if introduced today…assuming advances in gaming happened to overcome their stranglehold on gamer time and wallets.

a reply to: yuppa

I believe it's just over a decade old (10 years) and I highly doubt they will switch to UE5 considering how much time and money they have spent customizing their CryEngine/Lumberyard engine. Even when Star Citizen is fully released, the money wont dry up, if anything sales will increase. And it's not like they will stop selling ships when they release the full game. It will continue to make money like GTA5, although I hope they don't make it a grind to buy ships in game. I've been playing Star Citizen the last few weeks (hence my inspiration for this thread) and right now it isn't super hard to earn money in the game and buy the best ships. You can make a few million in a single day mining with the prospector.

a reply to: Subrosabelow

lol that's pretty bad. I bought a starter ship package for around $80 but I couldn't stop myself from spending another $100 on ships. That's my limit, even if I could afford the most expensive ships, buying them with real money would ruin the game. Most of the fun comes from doing missions to buy better ships. So I don't think Star Citizen can be called a scam or pyramid scheme, it's not like people need to throw their money at Chris Roberts. The fact they do anyway shows that people are craving these sorts of realistic games with highly detailed assets.