While the PS5 has drawn some criticism from some people over its perceived lack of power as compared to the Xbox Series X, one aspect of the console that has universally excited developers across the industry is its SSD. The console’s solid state drive promises to be the best on the market, and theoretically, should lead to actual, tangible improvements in game design, on top of other relatively more minor but still welcome upgrades.
Another developer who’s quite excited about the PS5’s SSD is Balthazar Auger of Nimble Giant Entertainment, lead designer on the unique upcoming competitive shooter, Quantum League. Speaking with GamingBolt, Auger talked about how the SSD would, of course, help reduce load times, before saying that more importantly, it will probably trigger “a paradigm shift” in how developers approach designing their game’s worlds.
He said: “Well, it definitely should help loading times, for a start, but speaking as a game and level designer what this will probably bring over time is a kind of paradigm shift in how we structure our game worlds, and how detailed they can be.”
According to Auger, however, it remains to be seen if and when those theoretical advantages will actually manifest, which is something that will be determined by various other factors, such as development engines that can evolve to the point where they can actually handle that kind of stuff.
“It remains to see what actual benefits we can get from that right now, as engine technology also needs to evolve to match the hardware advances, and developer mentalities need to catch up as well,” Auger said. “Sometimes more isn’t really better (remember the Cell?).”
Meanwhile, when asked about possible ports of Quantum League on the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, Auger responded, “Nothing is off the table!”
In the same interview, Auger also spoke to us about the difference between the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s respective GPU clock speeds, and what sort of an impact he sees that having. Read more on that through here.
Quantum League is due out for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC later this year. Our full interview with Auger will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that.