Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions is proving to be quite the efficient group when it comes to maximizing a lot while working with a little. During this year’s PlayStation Experience 2017 event in Anaheim, California, Hideo Kojima revealed a little bit more about the game, including that the eight minute cinematic that debuted at The Game Awards 2017 was actually running entirely in-engine, in real-time, on a PlayStation 4 Pro.
During a sitdown interview at PSX 2017 with technical producer Mark Cerny and former SIE executive Andrew House, following the airing of the eight minute trailer, Kojima stated…
“So you just saw the trailer. That is all working real-time on the PlayStation 4 Pro.
“And also, in the latter half of the trailer you see Norman in like water, kind of swimming, [and] going into his own body… that’s playable.”
If you go back and rewatch the trailer, this is actually an extremely impressive feat when you realize that everything you’re watching is running in real-time and isn’t pre-rendered or running on a high-end PC.
If you missed it (and I don’t see how you did) you can check it out below.
There are a lot of little things that are highly impressive.
For instance, when the body fades into the black goo and the gold mask turns into particles, you can see lots of individual particles being rendered, very much like the Unreal Engine 4’s advanced particle simulation. This means that Kojima Productions have elevated the Decima to pick up where they left off with the Fox Engine.
What’s most impressive here is how smooth the transition is from one massive scene to the next without massive load times or obvious LOD pop-in.
Now it’s completely possible they chose all the right angles and all the right load time sequencing to ensure that the game’s presentation at TGA 2017 and PSX 2017 looked as good as possible, but even still, it’s an impressive feat. A lot of pre-rendered sequences in games don’t look as good as Death Stranding does running in real time.
The game is still a long ways off from release, but is set to arrive on PlayStation 4 and PC.
