DF Direct Weekly: 2022 Year-End Supporter Special

2022: Industry Reflections and Highlights

This special episode of DF Direct Weekly is dedicated entirely to answering questions from the supporter community, providing a comprehensive look at the state of the gaming industry at the close of 2022.

Epic Games and Licensing Controversies

• The panel discusses the controversial decision by Epic Games to delist classic Unreal titles from digital storefronts.
• Panelists describe this as a concerning act of "historical vandalism," questioning the long-term accessibility of gaming history.
• Despite official delistings, the community has stepped in to bridge the gap via custom servers.

The State of Cross-Gen and 2023 Hopes

• The transition away from last-gen hardware remains a key focal point. While titles like God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West are praised for their scalable performance, others, such as The Callisto Protocol, struggled on older machines.
• The panel identifies Fortnite as a surprising showcase of cross-gen scalability and Unreal Engine 5 technology.
• Looking toward 2023, there is optimism that developers will finally feel comfortable dropping legacy support, easing the burden of optimization across multiple disparate platforms.

PC Performance and the "Stutter Struggle"

"I honestly think things will improve in 2023. It kind of feels like the whole shader model almost needs a rethink."

• The discussion moves to persistent shader compilation issues on PC. The panelists argue that current benchmarking practices often ignore the actual player experience, which is marred by stuttering.
• There is hope that awareness campaigns by tech media and developers acknowledging these issues (e.g., UI indicators for compilation) will lead to a better future.

Technical Milestones

• Ray Tracing: The panel highlights the increased penetration of ray tracing and path tracing as a major positive trend, breathing new life into older titles through modding efforts like Quake RTX.
• Steam Deck: The device is lauded as the most significant hardware of the year for revolutionizing portable, Linux-based PC gaming.
• DLSS and FSR: New temporal upscaling solutions are becoming essential tools for game developers to maintain frame rates while pushing graphical fidelity.