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You know any Triple A game produced by unity engine before?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by thanhle, Sep 19, 2020.

  1. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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  2. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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  3. Martin_H

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    By sheer man-hours spent on "attention to gameplay", I'm pretty sure all AAA games crush upwards of 99% of indie games. It just doesn't feel that way to anyone, because on a multi million dollar project "attention to detail" for gameplay means (among other things) focus testing things to death and filing off all those edges that could make things interesting but would also allow some people to get stuck on. E.g. Portal 2 had those goo substances for jumping higher or running faster. In development they had one that let you run on walls, but they had to scrap that feature because too many players couldn't deal with it (iirc because of motion sickness). We never get to hear about much of the cool gameplay stuff they tried and had to scrap again. Furthermore AAA usually does have dedicated "game designers", while the vast majority of indie games has "programmers that also do gamedesign". I'm sure most AAA game designers would be happy to take more creative risks on gameplay, but the financial risks around those projects discourage this very efficiently.

    But of course I agree that the percentage of man-hours spent on gameplay could, should, and usually is higher on indie games. Focus on "hooks", most don't have the resources to make graphics a hook.
     
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  4. Ryiah

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    A reference is always preferable to someone spouting their own opinions. In this case it's literally pointing towards the first example of the term being used (Final Fantasy VII) and who coined it (Square Enix). Budget is the sole determining factor and everything else is a side effect of that.
     
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  5. angrypenguin

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    One that undermines its own credibility, at that. As a part of defining "AAA" it starts re-defining "indie" on a "case by case basis".

    Alas, a word means what enough people think it means.
     
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  6. MDADigital

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    That's not true at all, AAA does not think out of the box, almost all innovation comes from indies
     
  7. Ryiah

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    IGN's definition isn't the reason for linking it. I linked it because it mentions the history behind the term in a more complete way. Wikipedia mentions the time period and the game but then shows you a book that none of us will likely ever read let alone hunt down for one specific thread of a forum.
     
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  8. Deleted User

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    Uhh, as much as I don't like the big games companies, innovation doesn't always come from broke companies that need to exert their creativity to compensate their lack of money. Innovation requires money too.
     
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  9. MDADigital

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    I'm not saying broke small time indies without experience are the ones that innovate ;)

    You need to have lots of skill to innovate, not just in unity engine, you need to understand things like usability and UX etc
     
  10. neginfinity

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    At the release time, the game had numerous oversights, like protagonist repeatedly trying to leave all his guns on the horse right before a mission that includes a shootout on foot. This incredibly annoying "QoL" glitch made it into release. Basically, if you start riding a horse with guns, the character will try to stuff guns into saddle, and upon dismount the cahracter will be without strongest guns.

    On other hand, they implemented dynamical shrinking of horse balls based on weather and ambient temperature. Investing development time into that wasn't a problem.

    That's how AAA does things, pretty much.

    RDR2 is amazing in art department, and subpar in gameplay.
     
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  11. Deleted User

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    I must say, I've seen a lot of generalization in this discussion ;)
    Especially that AAA studio can be independent and the indie guy can simply clone existing genres. What's the point about making hard statements on either of the industry sectors?

    The biggest studios create a lof of innovations, not necessarily by designing entire game design/production around some "fresh idea". For instance, Fortnite is the game that finally forced cross-play. Sony's Dreams is another example of definitely not-indie which brings one of the most interesting fresh experiences this generation.
    There's a lot of "think out the box" when working on games like Heavy Rain, making a heavily narrative game is extremely production-risky. More than "innovating gameplay based on the single fresh idea" which isn't even happening for the most indies.

    Let be honest, like 95% (percentage out of nowhere, don't get attached to it) of indies don't bring anything new to the table. I wouldn't be so eager to make fun of AAA space and glorify the indie market saturated with clones. Which is natural everywhere, you can't create a new gameplay mechanics or TV series genre too often ;)

    A lot of technology and research happens in big studios or to support big studios. Indie developers can now easily live in ignorance that making simple 3D games is easy and every platform can render beautiful 3D worlds (doesn't matter photorealistic or stylized) thanks to "not innovative" games like first-person shooters - pushing the evolution of GPUs for many years.

    Indie developers utilize hardware and tools not so long ago reserved for big guys. And corporations hiring hundreds of people per project fuse proven ideas into their bigger projects. It's a two-way exchange and every side should learn how to benefit from such an ever-going knowledge transfer.

    Like everybody who wants to create beautiful visuals easier and not being limited by mobile renderers? You seem to judge the entire market by your personal preferences ;)

    Working on top-notch visuals doesn't automatically mean "AAA and hiring hundreds of people". As I said, there's a bit too much generalization here. This generation we've seen a big number of beautiful 3D games creates by small teams. Astonishing gems looking much better than AAA of the previous generation thanks to better hardware and continuous improvement of creation tools.

    IMHO one of the greatest things about those "next-gen console game announcements" is that most of these gorgeous games come from smaller studios. Let's take a look at these examples

    https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/...veals-wave-of-new-unreal-engine-powered-games
    https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/unreal-engine-developers-shine-at-playstation-5-showcase
    https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/...red-games-featured-during-xbox-games-showcase

    Maybe only Bloodlines 2 is close to AAA... the rest of the games seems to be developed by small or mid-sized teams. At least that what I estimated by looking at how it's technically easy to create nice pictures with UE4. (Art style and making an interesting game is another beast).

    That how's HDRP might be commonly utilized if properly implemented. And supported by dozens of tools out of the box, so small teams wouldn't have build artist tools from the ground up.

    It becomes the norm that a small team can tackle both interesting gameplay and visuals. I'd only wait until all of these games (from the one-many army to the biggest corporations) bring more from the narrative perspectives. Games are mostly empty experience aside of visuals and gameplay ;)
     
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  12. unitedone3D

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    Dear MothDoctor, thank you, I should have been more precise : ''When I see HDRP that was made, I thought to myself, Who is going to use this - that happens to be a smalle indie 'solo dev' or 2-3 team Not 10 person team or 30plus medium sized indies And happens to Use Unity engine And happens to Want to make a 3D AAA-size like Game - with said HDRP?''

    I say this because if you look the statistics the large majority of games made in Unity (by (very) Small indies (solo or 2-3 persons teams no more; not talking over 4 people team), are the 2D games or 3D mobile/Android/VR/AR games, it is what it is. Because as solo dev/or 2-3 team making the games you linked there; takes more than 2-3 people. Plus, you linked Unreal games...where are the AAA-like high polish Unity games made like that (by solo dev or 2/3 person team)? What we do have for small solo devs or 2-3 team, in Unity, as example are Cuphead (3 person team), Rivals of Aether (1 person/solo), Return of Obrain Din (1 person), Braid (1 Person), and Stardew Valley (1 person)¸ and a couple of other solo-dev made games...

    Now, how many are 3D AAA mainstream games in that list? And before you would say 'Escapre for Tarkov, République, GO games, Subnautica'..these games are not what you call very 'small indie' but made with larger teams. So I should have restated as 'micro-budget/micro-team/micro...solo dev/one man army'' indie, That lowest level of indie.

    On Unreal side there is Bright Memory, the best 3D FPS shooter game - made by a solo dev;

    which I am trying to emulate somehow (since I'm solo like him). And even then he did not make everything, it was made using assets (like foudn that some assets were used in some games), it's more than understandable you can't make a game liek that alone, yuo need help; so even solo devs must do outsourcing if they seek to 'aim a bit higher' or else be forced to make very smaller games; but I agree with you that HDRP opesn lots of doors..even. for Very small indies, it just it seemed like - where are these solo/low 2-3 team making AAA 3D like games in Unity engine using HDRP? I don'T know.

    But I also agree with you, most likely because HDRP is still relatively new...it needs a chance/be given to chance to be 'learned/used'...so that devs can finally make use of it/make a game with it that has that 3D AAA feel. But games take time/years (if aiming AAA quality) so, they just haven't had the 'time yet' to finish gam; maybe in 2025 we will start to see these games pop up, by then. But, I am thinking it may not be so cut clear result; if there is no adoption of HDRP/ or doing much 3D AAA Games by (Very) Small indies then...it will remain niche and will be used by Bigger indies (team of 10+ not many 2-3 people teams or solos). The brunt of games, still made by very small indies, remain 2d games. And I hope and agree with you it's for best that HDRP 'expands' and finds home with very smaller indies, I hope it, await it

    Just saying/2 c.
     
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  13. EternalAmbiguity

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    I've learned to avoid trying to define the terms. But I also stand by the belief that in the aggregate, AAA games have more creative gameplay, more interesting tech, higher-quality art, greater polish, more interesting narratives, I could go on...than indies.

    Consider how many AAA COD-style first person shooters there are versus how many indie 2D platformers there are. Or cinematic third person shooters versus open world zombie/fantasy survival games there are.

    If you want to play a good game, statistically you're better off picking an AAA than an indie.

    Of course I also think you're better off picking an "AA" or "A" (Obsidian, Larian, inXile, Spiders, or a mid-budget Japanese game) compared to AAA, but that's still not "indie" territory.
     
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  14. Deleted User

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    Dunno, perhaps not as few as you think.
    That's exactly a goal of SRPs - an advanced artist toolbox that would be efficient to use in small teams. For instance, it's quite a new thing in Unity to have proper post-processing out of the box. Without such things, teams must have to spend time developing their own solutions or integrating third-party plugins. And something that should easy for artists seems to be out of reach, or expensive.

    Also, a few beautiful games created by bigger teams didn't even use stock renderer. "Inside" game got quite a rendering team, added volumetric lightning on their own.

    The team behind Ori basically forked Unity into "Moonity". They really seem to call it Moonity, check the timestamp :D


    There's room for improvement here ;)

    Everybody should profit from better artistic tools, also one-man army and all of "true indies". Don't get so much fixated on "3D AAA quality". There's a lot of space between 2D mobile games and AAA, a lot of small but aesthetically polished games. You don't need to master every aspect of visuals ;)
     
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  15. Vryken

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    I agree with everything except for more creative gameplay, which is where I feel that indies shine the most.

    AAA games typically follow gameplay formulas that have already been proven to attract high player counts, because trying to do something unique is taking a big risk that could cost huge amounts of money if it doesn't pay off.

    That's why every big-budget game in the same genres feel so similar to each other, and why sequels of these games are pretty much more of the same, just with different assets, or story settings, or time periods, etc.
    It was quite notable with the rise of the zombie survival and battle royale genres, where every publisher wanted to get in on those next big crazes that everyone was playing.

    In contrast, indies aren't taking much of a risk by trying something unique, so they have as much creative liberty at their disposal. That spawned great titles like Terraria, The Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, Subnautica, FTL, Ori and the Blind Forest, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Rebel Galaxy, and Dead Cells among plenty others that I can't name off the top of my head.
     
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  16. EternalAmbiguity

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    In the aggregate, remember. You saw my examples, right? For every Terraria there are dozens of RPGMaker games. For every Ori there are dozens of crappy 2D platformers. For every Celeste there are dozens of terrible pixel art games.

    But I still disagree a little with your point. Assassin's Creed (in its original form), Devil May Cry, Breath of the Wild, Watch Dogs, Splinter Cell, Mirror's Edge, Yakuza, Sonic the Hedgehog, Shenmue..all of these games (and many more I'm sure) are or were doing interesting or unique things with gameplay.

    Shenmue's one of the most expensive games of its era and you spend tedious amounts of time driving a forklift.
     
  17. Martin_H

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    And Dark Souls, Dead Space, Fallout, Deus Ex, Dishonored, Portal, Tomb Raider, Sniper Elite, Batman Arkham Asylum, Prince of Persia, Alien vs Predator...
     
  18. zombiegorilla

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    I agree with this... with one minor conditional... I would add that indies are more creative (on average) for better or worse. There are some amazingly original indie games out there, not all of them original in a good way. ;). But that is the nature of things. Lower barrier to entry, cheaper publishing and free and solid tools mean that anyone can easily publish a game, and any crazy idea. Which is awesome. AAA (AAA means massive scale production, nothing more) titles will typically innovate in smaller ways that they have tested or proven (or aren't game play critical), they won't blindly risk innovation. Though often they will slide it in in bonus features or side missions or stuff like that.

    A good (and really clear) example of how AAA studios innovate within a franchise is Traveler's Tales Lego titles. With each successive title they typically add a new feature or two and/or some changes to structure. If it works, gets positive response, it will get folded into future title, if not, it disappears. You can see from title to title a very clear line of evolution.

    EDIT, afterthought: It is really difficult to compare creativity in AAA and indies (not to mention the huge slot in between). There are what 20, 30 AAA titles a year? Maybe? There are likely tens of thousands of indie and small games a year? More creativity, but also more generic clones. Just more really.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2020
  19. Vryken

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    Yeah, those are very good points.
    I suppose I'm a bit biased due to my lack of interest towards many of the big-budget titles that have been released in the past 7 years or so.

    Unfortunately, a lot of the tripple-A games that I did find really interesting & unique have all either been cancelled from further production, or the development studios went bankrupt.

    Here's hoping Fable 4 turns out great.
     
  20. neginfinity

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    Assassin's creed and Watchdogs in particular had issue of having low difficulty, and being simplistic free roamers with high production values.

    Actually, I hated Assassin's creed so much for being too easy, that I avoided entirety of the series since. Tried the one set in Italy afterwards, and it was the same thing - high production values, very simplistic gameplay.

    Does anyone here remember Prince of Persia 2008 or Prince of Persia Sands of Time (2003?). "Hold a button to parkour" felt like an insult after them.
     
  21. Deleted User

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    Funny that you would confuse "broke" with "lacking in skills".
     
  22. MDADigital

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    That's not what I ment, I ment they can be broke, lack skill or combination of both
     
  23. MDADigital

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    The AC series is probably the perfect example of AAA, simple gameplay, repetitive, tons of assets, effects and eye candy
     
  24. Doodel

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    I think you can totally make AAA Titles in Unity. You could do something like Dead Space with impressive visuals, Dark Souls or even God of War. The requirements to do this are just the same as for any other studio: you need highly skilled professionals in each department, good management and solid funding.

    Especially Animation is something that separates AAA from low budget titles. Doesn‘t matter if you just have to hold one button to do crazy parkour tricks as long as the animation sells it to you.
     
  25. AcidArrow

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    Again, if you have that kind of resources, why would you handicap yourself with Unity? For the extra challenge?
     
  26. Antypodish

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    For example to not spend on R&D and saving on development time of the engine.
    In mean time, game team can work on actual game, rather than waiting few years for own solution engine.
     
  27. AcidArrow

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    There are other engines more suited to that.
     
  28. Antypodish

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    My understanding is, we not questioning which engine to use, while Unity was just an example, but weather should AAA studio use out of shelf solutions.
    And I tell you that, if talking about Unity, some large studios looking now specifically for DOTs devs as an example.
     
  29. Doodel

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    If you have a team of excellent Unity developers you are better of using Unity instead of looking for the one skilled CryEngine developer somewhere.
     
  30. neginfinity

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    Dark Souls 3 is 4 years old, Dead Space 3 is 7 years old. They're no longer bleeding edge of AAA quality.

    That's the "If you have a team of talanted lisp developers, you should not consider brainf**k as an alternative language" kind of argument. Cryengine used to be infamous for awful documentation, and there's no real reason to consider using it.

    Unity engine has its shortcomings, and they can be insanely difficult to get rid of even with source code access due to them being rooted deep into the codebase. So even if you have a blank check for project expenses, you can hire another team, or retrain existing developers, and that could end up being cheaper than dealing with existing shortcomings.

    That's the issue.
     
  31. Doodel

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    So what is your explanation that there are lots of different successful studios with lots of different engines out there? You make it sound that there is only one right way to develop games. Frostbite is also infamous for being extremely hard to develop for but still has amazing games.
     
  32. neginfinity

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    That's not what I'm saying at all. Not even close to it.

    Successful studios do not worship their tools. They use whatever works and whatever is efficient.

    Frostbite also is not Unity, but an in-house engine. In case of in-houyse engine you'll be far more likely to have a specialist that know its ins and outs in your studio, compared to external tool, and butchering it to shoehorn existing eldritch abomination of codebase will be easier, because you've been doing that for last 10 years and learned ways of dealing with this, along with other things mortals were never meant to know.

    In case of external engine, you'll be dealing with alien logic, historical baggage reasoning behind which has been lost in time, and you will not have an in-house specialist with ten years of experience of making the new engine do things it was not meant to do. So you'll be playing catchup, at which time your studio will be burning through the funding without getting closer to making the proper product. And then the engine can still finish you off by presenting a problem that is outrageously expensive to fix.

    Instead of wasting resources this way, you could research alternatives in the beginning, and pick the tool which means less hassle. That will also reduce your chances of repeating development history of Duke Nukem Forever.

    For example, making a bet on unity if you're trying to make Witcher 5 would be quite suicidal. Chances are the engine will be unable to handle it to degree that you'd need outrageous amount of money for a small possibility of a fix.

    However, unity would be a good choice when targeting mobiles, making small games, visual novels, 2d, something that utilizes Mecanim and so on.

    So, know your tools and know your limits. And do not worship your tools, they're meant to be used and disacarded when no longer needed, not put on pedestal.
     
  33. Antypodish

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    It is a bit weird statement, as an example, Kerbal Space Program and CitySkylines are not small games at all, and it works for them well.
     
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  34. neginfinity

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    Kerbal is a small game, pretty much. It has very low number of on-screen simultaneously active entities. It also does not exactly look good, and had ridiculous amount glitches and oversights last time I played it.

    City skylines likely threw out most of built-in functionality unity offers and wrote their own stuff.
     
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  35. Deleted User

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    Frostbite? This engine has been designed for development of Battlefield and FIFA series. It was hard to use for RPG games (Dragon Age, Mass Effect) since engine wasn't prepared for that, lacking tools and support. Bioware has been forced to drop engines they successfully used previously for corporation reasons.

    That's exactly like someone would choose Unity for AAA game because "we already using the engine and we know it".

    Unity doesn't yet provide efficient pipelines for mid-sized games. It's only excells in "tiny development" of mobile 2D games. It's a struggle in development of something bigger.

    It doesn't handle well projects will a lot of assets. Recent addition was not to delete data cache of platform X when switching to platform Y. Wow, finally.

    After like 15 years it's finally possible to work with prefabs. I couldn't work with it like 4 years ago when team members where constantly "breaking" it in the scene. It was madness even if working in 2-4 people. And AAA development tools are all about efficient cooperation of hundreds of peoole.

    There's finally a basic input system and localization support. Finally shader editors.

    Still landscape and any world building tools lacking or not existing... not sure if engine finally support tesselation on terrain?
    Still is a choire to work on 3D level design.

    Last time I discussed the HDRP (helped to debug reason for a bad performance in simple scene with a hill and trees), it didn't even support occlusion on terrain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but new renderer doesn't even have a draw thread, separate CPU thread to take of processing and issuing draw calls. Its seriously bottlenecks the game performance.

    The efficient build tools for automation aren't simply included into engine. The experienced Unity team tells me horror stories on how they attempted to establish a build system. Spending weeks on trying to create toolchain. While everything it's included with UE4 - setting up automated build system for compiling engine, building lights and packaging game that's like 2-3 evenings.
    (I heard you can now purchase a Build Server setup/license, but not sure what's inside, actually? Anyone got experience?)

    Multiplayer layer doesn't exist in the engine. Quite a big thing to tackle even for AAA studio.

    To sum up, Unity is on the path to a make development of small or mid-sized 3D games more efficient, yes.

    It's still far away from AAA galaxy. It's not designed for it. It's not prepared for it. You keep praising DOTS, but no AAA studio would come to Unity because of it. Simply, OOP doesn't cost AAA engine so much performance if project doesn't rely on C#. And any system in project can use data-oriented pattern, if programmer team simply chooses that. Not a big deal to work with different patterns if you already have a custom engine ;)

    I know about 2 Unity projects with approx 100 developers. These weren't AAA 3D game, but card games from Blizzard and CDP (Gwent). From I've heard it was pain to work with on such huge projects.

    And if you're thinking about AAA as 3D open worlds... well... even current generations of CryEngine and UE4 aren't fully prepared for that. Although Epic spent last 6 years on extending engine, refactoring it, bringing up performance with huge worlds. We're waiting for UE5 which is promised as truly open-world engine. The fifth generation of engine which was designed for rich 3D worlds from day one ;)
     
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  36. Doodel

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    I agree, open world games are kind of a different beast and require very specialized tools.

    Anyway, regardless of what tool is better suited than the other. My point is just that you COULD do AAA games with Unity. You could even pull off e.g. God of War. What makes this game stand out is not that they have an engine that allows them to do things that others couldn't do, it's the skill of the artists, designers, programmers, animators, vfx, tool programmers etc. Of course, you would have to improve Unity with your own tools on many levels, but this is something that you will have to do with whatever engine you off start with.
     
  37. neginfinity

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    Regarding Kerbal.
    Kerbal only processes things within small bubble around camera. Objects that leave this bubble are discarded, destroyed, or optimized into stable orbit. For example, you can launch a rocket into "almost stable orbit" that will touch the atmosphere just a little bit at some point, and as soon as you you switch the view, this orbit will never decay (it should. Due to loss of speed due to tiny bit of air friction). I was also quite upset when I was unable to recover "reusable" boosters, as they left the bubble and the game killed them off.

    Compare it, for example, with space engineers. Space Engineers is infamous for buggy physics (also, longstanding bugs, failure to reach its full potential, staged trailers, and false advertising among other things), but a thing that is 100 kilometers away, is, as far as I'm aware, running full physics.

    That is an example of higher complexity compared to Kerbal. However, Space Engineers are not using unity.

    In case of Unity, a good example of higher complexity (compared to Kerbal) is Subnautica and its Below Zero expansion. This is pretty much the closest we have to large scale environment, and the devs likely tweaked the hell out of the engine to make it possible.It is definitely not stock unity, development started in 2013, and 1st Subnautica hit release in 2013. The game also struggles with base building aspect of the game.

    Now... there's also Abzu, which is fairly similar to Subnautica and largely presents smoother experience in gameplay.

    I believe if you have to prove it is possible, it already means there's a problem.

    You could also write an AAA in assembly. However, why bother doing that when there's an easier way? Doign thigns the hard way does not mean more success or bigger profits.
     
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  38. AcidArrow

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    You could if you got source access and rewrote the whole thing, making choosing Unity more or less irrelevant.

    Even the Ori devs had to change the engine so much, they consider it their own branch and they call it Moonity now.

    But in any case, the issue is not whether it can be done, but whether it’s a good idea. If it was a good idea to make God of War in Unity then we’d probably have seen God of War be made in Unity.

    But we haven’t.
     
  39. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    You see, few months ago I may been keen to consider your point, specially DOTS is still in preview. But since recently I and few others were contacted specifically regarding Unity DOTs offers, you are unfortunately wrong. Seems large studios are open to explore this tech, in both new and existing Unity related projects. And that only considering this subject, if speaking off. I don't know about other fancy sparkly features, weather they are usable, so I will not comment on that.
    How much of Unity left in Unity that is irrelevant. Point is, is still core of Unity used. Meaning, it is feasible for them, rather making own stuff from ground up, or when looking in time constrains, which seems here in a discussion, is very omitted factor.

    Sure it is not ideal game, neither best example and is buggy. Yet still can be fun.
    Lets see where KSP 2 will head on that. I think this may be better example on that matter.

    Assuming what we see, is ingame, could feature wise and graphical wise, this be considered anything in range of A-AAA?

     
  40. AcidArrow

    AcidArrow

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    Absolutely not.

    That is obviously a pre rendered cinematic. Look at its Steam page for actual screenshots.
    DF1D3E42-AC63-457A-B59B-38A53F06731C.jpeg
     
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  41. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    Looks like no GI (no indirect light)
     
  42. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    For anyone who thinks that AAA games don't innovate, watch some GDC talks from people who work there. They are always building in-house tools to do things better, faster and more efficiently.

    The advantage that indies have is with innovation that trades quality for quantity. AAA games are fighting for the top of the hill and won't compromise quality. This gives indies a head start on new ideas until they mature enough and the stars align for them to work in the AAA space - Mass Effect Andromeda wanted to go the NMS route, for example, but it wouldn't have reached the bar that the AAA space has, and they knew it, and went back to the usual approach.
     
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  43. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    I must admit, this is an interesting perspective.

    Sometimes I was even reluctant to call Unity a " multiplatform game engine". By definition, it should provide basic means of creating games for multiple platforms. Vanilla Unity was failing to achieve this with a lack of a proper template system (prefabs) or built-in input system (I'm under the impression everyone was using Asset Store plugin).
    Until recently Unity was to me like something between a "framework" and "game engine" when in it cames something else than 2D games.

    I'm even thinking now on the way of shortly summing up Unity-derived engines in this way
    https://gist.github.com/raysan5/909dc6cf33ed40223eb0dfe625c0de74
     
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  44. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    The biggest innovations in the tool/engine department looking back also was indies like Id software back in the day (before the were bought by zenimax and carmack left).

    Though when I talk innovation its more mechanics and gameplay not tech.
     
  45. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    Who else was there at that time? The landscape has completely changed. It's like comparing the Wright brothers to General Dynamics, except it all happened way faster.

    PS that's not to say that indies cannot innovate today. It's just that they won't be innovating on the same type of thing.
     
  46. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    I did say indie innovation typically happen with mechanics and game design not tech ;)

    I don't have an example in recent time but there are probably examples of indie innovation there too.
     
  47. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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  48. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    And Bethesda innovated with the first fully 3d game with Terminator future shock a year before Quake. (it had some sprites though).

    Edit: come to think about it they made a polygon based game as early as 1991 called the terminator it was even open world based on actual maps from LA. Though the polygons were solid colored not textured
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2020
  49. Neto_Kokku

    Neto_Kokku

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    People are seriously trying to peddle Kerbal Space Program as an example of "AAA" because "space is big"?

    Look at the difference in team sizes and the sheer number and quality of assets between games like KSP and games like Battlefield, Control and Horizons Zero Dawn. The later have individual models that cost as much money to make as all models in KSB put together. They are also *massive* and the Unity editor would have a hard time working with such large number of high resolution assets.

    When it comes to games like those, Unity brings nothing of value. You'll have to fight against or outright replace almost every system to get that kind of scope out of it at comparable performance and fidelity, and will have to license the source code to do so.

    Also, as said before, if you do have the expertise to hack away at Unity's source code, why bother using Unity at all?

    Back in the early 2010's it was indeed an interesting proposition as Unity was pretty much the only one offering reasonably good tools for a low cost (engines like GameBryo, Unreal, and Renderware had very high upfront licensing fees). Some studios made of ex-AAA developers did try their luck with Unity, with mixed results (remember ReCore?).

    But while Unity was just comingup with their plans to become friendlier to larger studios, UE4 came along, offering a solution that is more aligned to the needs of studios that do possess AAA experience (but not the size), as well as studios who would licence engines like Renderware in the past, but with much more accessible licensing.

    Over a decade ago there was a somewhat informal distinction between "game engines" and "game makers". Unity was born as the later: a black box that runs games made entirely via scripting. The lines are more blurred nowadays, but that legacy still weights on Unity's architecture and it is a major roadblock for "first class" adoption by more resourceful studios.
     
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  50. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    (opinion)
    No.

    Very small number of highly polished objects.

    A good example of AAA is GTA5. People sweat and have wrinkle pattern on their clothes change based on their animation frame. (well, at least protagonist).

    KSP2 trailer is not on the same level.