Digital Foundry: Star Wars Outlaws and AC Shadows Tech Talk

Overview of Ubisoft Forward

The team discusses the major titles showcased during Ubisoft Forward, focusing on the technical presentation and gameplay of Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin's Creed Shadows. A significant portion of the conversation is dedicated to the poor quality of live streaming, which often unfairly impacts the viewer's perception of game fidelity.

Star Wars Outlaws

• The game appears to be an open-universe title featuring seamless space-to-planet travel.
• Significant technical concerns were raised regarding the frame pacing and perceived judder in recent promotional footage, which the team suspects may be due to early builds or problematic capture methods (possibly NVIDIA Share).
• The team noted the use of ultra-wide presentations and questioned whether this formatting is native to the console experience or a conscious design choice.
• New lighting effects, such as physically-based penumbra shadows, and technical adjustments for indoor environments were highlighted as improvements over previous Snowdrop engine titles.

Assassin's Creed Shadows

• The transition to current-gen only hardware has allowed for greater geometric density and foliage variety.
• The team expressed satisfaction regarding the move to RTGI (Ray-Traced Global Illumination) lighting, though they noted the absence of motion blur in the 30 fps showcase made animations look stuttery.
• Discussed the potential use of virtualized geometry to handle draw distance and level-of-detail transitions.

"The game feels fundamentally different to what they've done before. I think that's really impressive."

Gears of War E-Day

• The team clarified that the Gears of War E-Day reveal trailer likely used in-game assets rendered out as a high-fidelity sequence rather than real-time gameplay running on consumer hardware.
• They advocate for clearer labeling of such trailers to avoid consumer confusion regarding what represents actual real-time gameplay.

News and Industry Trends

• The discussion touched upon the Epic Game Store database leak, confirming the potential for several upcoming game releases.
• A demo for the remake of Riven was praised for its visual fidelity in Unreal Engine 5.