First off, we appreciate that this is more substantial than a sizzle reel tech demo, and we think you should see this as a realistic take on what the ceiling of next-gen graphics looks like at this early stage. It’s easy enough to imagine a next-gen Uncharted-style game looking like this, for instance.
Having said that, you probably shouldn’t expect launch games to look this good. This is a highly-scripted, highly-specific game demo. Full-size games have much more to account for in terms of design and real-world complications which will initially slow down the progress of graphical innovations. At the very least, developers will need the time to maximize this technology, and the spread of COVID-19 probably hasn’t helped that transition process.
Still, there’s nothing in this demo that looks impossible based on what we’ve seen in recent PC gaming technology advancements. We knew that lighting effects would benefit greatly from ray tracing technology, so you should expect to see more and more initial next-gen games take advantage of those visual features. Environments and characters are also impressively detailed, and it’s certainly telling that many of the most impressive visual tricks are playing out in what appears to be real-time. The audio is also downright incredible.
What’s particularly interesting is how much Epic praises the PS5’s SSD and how they claim that it’s largely responsible for much of the real-time visual clarity you see in this demo. In our breakdown of the PS5 vs. the Xbox Series X, we noted that the Xbox Series X looks to be more powerful on paper but that the PS5’s SSD was clearly its best element. What remains to be seen is whether or not there is a significant technological gap between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X’ SSD, and how that will translate to larger titles such as open-world games.