The run up to previous console generations usually had moments where a few companies would release tech demos to give us a preview of what they were aiming for with next-gen graphics: The Final Fantasy VI Interactive CG tech demo for the PS1/N64 era in 1995, the FF8 PS2 tech demo in 1999, the tech demos for Metal Gear Solid 4 and FF13 in 2005 and 2006 respectively, the "Samaritan" Unreal demo in 2011. I don't think we've had that moment yet and next-gen consoles are probably less than 24 months away.
For last-gen, even as far back as 2011 there were games mainly focusing on PC hardware which offered a glimpse of what would become current-gen graphics when cranked up on PC, like Battlefield 3, The Witcher 2, and Crysis 2. I don't even think we've had that moment on PC yet for today's games.
The last time someone posted a thread asking "what will a next-gen game look like" I saw a lot of people just post screenshots of Red Dead 2 or Last of Us 2, but those are current-gen games. Red Dead 2 is already running at 4K on an Xbox One X. It doesn't look like a different game on base PS4. TLOU2 will still run on base PS4 and will look like the game you saw at E3, just with worse IQ. TLOU2 will be cross-gen at best. Even Cyberpunk 2077 is just cross-gen -- the current-gen equivalent of Assassin's Creed IV or Far Cry 3. Do those games really look light years better than AC Unity? I think people just post those answers because they haven't been shown any higher goalpost yet.
Do we even know what the Halo Infinite footage we've seen is running on? If you watch a DigitalFoundry video analyzing the latest trailer they say it's pretty impressive, but that's also cross-gen if I'm not mistaken.
Even if next-gen launch GPUs aren't a huge leap forward from the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X GPUs, we haven't seen what a game looks like when optimized for those GPUs as the minimum spec. Even if PS5 and Scarlett only have around GTX 1080-level performance, we haven't seen what a game that requires a 1080 at minimum looks like, not even a tech demo from what I can tell. Today's AAA games are all designed to achieve some acceptable level of performance on a 760.
For last-gen, even as far back as 2011 there were games mainly focusing on PC hardware which offered a glimpse of what would become current-gen graphics when cranked up on PC, like Battlefield 3, The Witcher 2, and Crysis 2. I don't even think we've had that moment on PC yet for today's games.
The last time someone posted a thread asking "what will a next-gen game look like" I saw a lot of people just post screenshots of Red Dead 2 or Last of Us 2, but those are current-gen games. Red Dead 2 is already running at 4K on an Xbox One X. It doesn't look like a different game on base PS4. TLOU2 will still run on base PS4 and will look like the game you saw at E3, just with worse IQ. TLOU2 will be cross-gen at best. Even Cyberpunk 2077 is just cross-gen -- the current-gen equivalent of Assassin's Creed IV or Far Cry 3. Do those games really look light years better than AC Unity? I think people just post those answers because they haven't been shown any higher goalpost yet.
Do we even know what the Halo Infinite footage we've seen is running on? If you watch a DigitalFoundry video analyzing the latest trailer they say it's pretty impressive, but that's also cross-gen if I'm not mistaken.
Even if next-gen launch GPUs aren't a huge leap forward from the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X GPUs, we haven't seen what a game looks like when optimized for those GPUs as the minimum spec. Even if PS5 and Scarlett only have around GTX 1080-level performance, we haven't seen what a game that requires a 1080 at minimum looks like, not even a tech demo from what I can tell. Today's AAA games are all designed to achieve some acceptable level of performance on a 760.
