Fast forward to Assassin’s Creed Unity which looked fantastic on its reveal and ended up running horribly on pretty much all platforms at release. What does all of this have to do with Tom Clancy’s The Division? Well, when the MMO/shooter was first revealed at E3 2013, it looked amazing. With each subsequent delay and reveal, it started to look less and less amazing as time went by. Granted, it wasn’t the first open world title to suffer this but given Ubisoft’s track record, it certainly wasn’t a good sign. The industry has seen its fair share of downgrades since then and as long as “in-engine” gameplay footage is a thing, it’s likely that we’ll continue being disappointed with final releases.

However, has Tom Clancy’s The Division really been downgraded? GamingBolt set about examining the PC build of the closed beta to find out. It should be noted this isn’t a final verdict on the game by any means given the nature of closed betas. Also note that the comparisons done in video aren’t 1:1 comparisons of the same scenes.

Comparison of E3 2013 gameplay footage against PC beta running at Ultra settings. Select 1080p and 60fps for best possible video playback quality.

That being said, The Division is incredibly impressive. No one doubts that the build at E3 2013 was running on a high-end PC and honestly, expecting that level of detail – even on current gen consoles – just isn’t realistic. PC users will still have a ton of graphical settings to play around with and it’s no stretch to say that The Division on PC in 2016 will look very close to the initial E3 2013 reveal.

Close but not quite. Whereas the E3 2013 trailer carried an indelible atmosphere of despondence and decay, as is to be expected from disease-ridden New York City that seems to be missing from the closed beta on PC. The game still looks great but that feeling of a New York on the brink of collapse just wasn’t completely there. The sensation of war around every corner was present and sure, there’s a bit of debris here and there (damn looters) but it lacked that encompassing sense of realism for us.

Technically speaking, the textures on clothing weren’t as high quality as the reveal trailer either. Snow doesn’t accumulate on clothes like it did with the initial reveal and physically based rendering for materials, both environments and cars, seems downgraded. Draw distances have been scaled back pretty heavily and the snow effects have also been suitably toned down.

Don’t lose all hope just yet. The lighting technology and global illumination looks incredible. In fact, in some ways, it looks even better than the initial E3 2013 trailer, both indoors and outdoors. Dynamic weather also helps to make things stand out and it was impressive to see how different environments looked in various weather conditions.

So while The Division does look amazing on PC, the downgrade controversy won’t go away immediately. The game has been graphically downgraded in places even while it still looks pretty amazing. Should Ubisoft have allowed a high spec E3 build for those whose hardware can handle it? Would that allow all users to fully enjoy the MMO on PC? Was there a balance somewhere that the company sought? Regardless of all this, the publisher should really cut down on raising expectations with less-than-final footage of its games.

Tom Clancy’s The Division in 2016 isn’t the same game from E3 2013. The game is still a graphical splendour on PC and if it offers as much gameplay as the beta presented but on a larger scale, then it will find a strong following without any issues. We’ll revisit the game when it launches on March 8th so stay tuned for more information and our upcoming analysis on the differences between the Xbox One, PC and PS4 versions of the closed beta.

A while ago, we covered how Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 15 would be using Silicon Studio’s Yebis 2 engine. This was based off a listing that appeared on the middleware developer’s site which listed FF15 and having been used for the E3 2013 trailer. According to Silicon Studio on the page, “Beautiful natural light is represented as real-time computer generated effects by utilizing the optical effects of Yebis 2.”

However, when speaking to Masaki Kawase, an architect for Silicon Studio, about how Yebis 2 was used in Final Fantasy 15, he stated that, “You must have made a mistake. There was no announcement that Yebis will be used for FF15. Yebis was however used in the Final Fantasy 15 E3 2013 Trailer from Square Enix. There is nothing more we can say for now :),” he said to GamingBolt.

Take that for what you will – in fact, it could signify that though Yebis 2 isn’t being used for Final Fantasy 15, it might currently be implemented into another project Square Enix has going on. We’ll find out more in the coming months so stay tuned.

The Order: 1886 unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) skipped the Spike VGX Awards, and we were thus denied a new look at the game. Nonetheless, developer Ready At Dawn Studios has confirmed that the PS4 exclusive, which it is developing with some help from SCE Santa Monica, will exceed the initial E3 reveal trailer in graphical fidelity. This was stated by studio founder Andrea Pessino on Twitter:

@omek90 of course I am biased but yeah… graphic fidelity definitely exceeds the trailer. You'll see… 🙂

— Andrea Pessino (@AndreaPessino) December 9, 2013

He also revealed that the cut-scenes in the game will be rendered in real-time on the PS4.

@Gitaroo236 @omek90 they are indeed.

— Andrea Pessino (@AndreaPessino) December 10, 2013

In development since 2010, the game is set during an alternate history timeline when King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table battle brutal half-bred enemies. As the timeline veers into post-Industrial Revolution London, the successors use tesla coils, zeppelins and other weapons to fight off the half-breds in a battle for survival.

The Order: 1886 hasn’t received a solid release date, though it is rumoured to be arriving in 2014, most likely by the third quarter of the year. What are your thoughts on the game’s looks thus far? Let us know in the comments below.

However, speaking to producer Mike Read, this is most definitely not the case. “What we showed at E3 was a small slice of what we had planned to deliver for the final game. Unfortunately, we had to make a series of cuts to the demo to make it a more enjoyable and polished experience for both the visuals and the gameplay.

“After E3, we took note of the response to it and felt that we could have done a better job in explaining where we were going with the combat systems. We feel that coming into Gamescom last month helped to dispel some of the negative views people had on what we presented with regards the ‘game playing itself’ or being ‘nothing but a series of QTE’s”.

We also quizzed Read on how Ryse was supposed to work out on the Xbox 360, especially since Kinect isn’t as major a component on the current-gen console as it is on the Xbox One (though recent developments now allow Kinect to be disabled on the latter as well). Read replied that, “The game you see now is very different than what we showed some years ago as a purely Kinect-based title. There were a series of prototypes that were put together and the version that we are showing now is what ultimately ended up as the winning idea in the end. The option for Kinect integration is ultimately left up to the developer as to how far they want to take it.

“We experimented with a series of things including things like hand gestures as a method of control. At the end of the day we found that things like this took away from the player experience we were trying to deliver. That’s not to downplay the Kinect at all. It’s a very powerful device and with the standard inclusion of this with the Xbox One it will be interesting to see what kind of things developers will be able to pull out of it in the years to come.”

Ryse: Son of Rome is currently scheduled to launch with the Xbox One when the console releases on November 22nd across 13 territories.

When asked about the combo system in the game, Read stated that, “This is why had need to do a deeper explanation because what we presented on the kit for E3 was being perceived as what the final game is going to be. And really, it was a very tiny slice. There are some scripted moments in there that we had to put in.

“There are a couple of guys you strike them two times – especially the first guy you strike in there he immediately goes into an execution state. This is the same demo that we used in actual E3 piece that we’ve shown online as well.

“What you’re going to see in the final game, you’re going to see various levels of difficulty from easy mode I think up to nightmare. I don’t know if they have decided on that. But, what’s going to change in there is the amount of the damage that enemies is going to do to you and how accurate that you are going to do on blocking. And then of course what ties into that is execution state when you put them into that.

“Some of the higher archetype guys, I mean they are going to take a lot of hits to put it. We are going to throw some stupid guys in there, where it’s probably going to take two hits, especially early on in the game to get you used to the control system and how that all works. There’s a lot we should have explained. We didn’t do a good job of doing that.” Read also clarified that the number of executions in the game would close to 100, rather than 120.

It’s still early yet for Ryse though. “A lot of the design elements and balancing weren’t even in there yet. So, to throw those in and here to play the game, I mean, it makes for an awful experience. But I think at the same time, we simplified things a little bit too much but we didn’t do a good job in explaining the combat.

“Right now, you play the demo you have X is your hit, Y is your shield bash, A is your block, B will lead you into execution mode. [Pointing to the left triggers] So that’s for your call-outs. This will be like your focus. This [right trigger] is to throw out your pilums.

“It was such a small core bit of what we were showing in the gameplay itself, and you know, maybe we should have shown more. Maybe we should have done a hands off piece and gone into a lot more detail.”

“I believe we need a revolution in subject matter. It has been four E3s that I’ve gone to, and it’s always the same thing. I get it: we all like space marines and shooters, but come on, we need to talk about something else.

“We’re still talking about these things because the medium is really in its infancy. It’s so much easier in terms of production and coding to just blow stuff up than to create an interaction about human beings. It’s so much more subtle than killing. Eventually we’ll get there, and it’s really a shame that I cannot finish 1666, because it was about all of that.”

Of course, while the overwhelming success of Call of Duty mean this trend won’t be ending any time soon, at least games like The Last of Us are attempting to work outside the medium and do things somewhat differently. What does the future hold with games like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – which are trying to do things differently while still pleasing the crowds – though? We’ll soon find out.

(Source)

Speaking to VG247, Sinclair stated that,“They [Sony] approached us actually. I guess it’s coming up to about four months ago. We were in our open beta and rocking the Steam charts there, and Sony got in contact with James, who’s the owner of the company and said, ‘Hey what would you think about bringing Warframe over to our next gen console?’

“We had, probably, a 30-second conversation about if we should do it. [Sony] squeezed themselves to send us as many dev kits as possible and three months later we were on the [E3] show floor at PlayStation 4 showing Warframe playable.”

Not that it was too difficult to accommodate the PS4’s requirements. “Warframe supported 64-bit and DirectX 11 for a long time and there’s a lot of commonality in that sort of architecture with what they’re doing on PS4. They’ve got a lot of cores on there, so, I was every surprised how fast we got up and running – I think Sony was as well. When we went to [E3] people said, ‘Holy smokes this is on PlayStation 4? It looks amazing.’”

As of now, Warframe’s PS4 release date is still to be announced.

Unsurprisingly however, it was the Japan-made games that got the most attention. The surveys indicated that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 15, which formerly went by the name Final Fantasy Versus XIII, ranked first. This was followed by Kojima Productions’ Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and the long awaited announcement of Kingdom Hearts 3.

Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS came fourth, while the only non-Japanese title to make the top 5 was Ubisoft’s Watch_Dogs in fifth place.

Much was made about Metal Gear Solid 5 in particular with readers praising its graphics and open world gameplay. One reader stated that, “I felt this game offers something really powerful that only the next gen can produce, not just another case of the visuals getting better.”

The top three, however, are yet to receive release dates.

Via: Polygon.

The reveal is twelve minutes, so go ahead and enjoy the lengthy gameplay demo. Destiny is shaping up to be one of the most biggest games for next year. The game will be launching sometime in 2014 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. PC version is also a possibility according to previous reports from Bungie.

Let us know what you think of Destiny in the comments section below.

Check back on GamingBolt for more news and updates.

When Square Enix posted losses this year, and revealed that several key titles like Hitman Absolution, Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs had failed to meet sales expectations, Yoichi Wada resigned as president and the publisher ultimately invested a huge amount for making changes across the board.

Of course, there was the issue of what would happen to Wada. Turns out he didn’t leave the company at all – he’s actually succeeding in becoming Chairman of the Board for the company.

According to a listing on Square Enix’s site, Wada is now the incumbent Chairman of the Board as of June 2013.

While we haven’t seen an official announcement from Square Enix concerning the same – though honestly, the above is enough confirmation – it will be interesting to see how his appointment affects future policies. Wada wasn’t necessarily seen in the most positive light following delays on titles such as Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster and Final Fantasy Versus XIII (now Final Fantasy XV). However, as of E3 2013, the company appear to be back on track for the time being.