Yearly, the Digital Foundry crew share their notes about essentially the most technologically spectacular video games of the 12 months – and in a wide-ranging 108-minute dialogue, John Linneman, Alex Battaglia and Oliver Mackenzie share their honorable mentions and a prime ten checklist of titles that caught their consideration. Nonetheless, identical to final 12 months, it is the highest three video games that really stand aside and as soon as once more, deciding which recreation takes champion standing was the topic of intense debate.
The place there may be unanimous settlement is within the inserting of Star Wars Outlaws within the quantity three place. The sport is lauded for bringing the ‘lived in’ Star Wars aesthetic to gaming in a merely good method, powered by Ubisoft Large’s state-of-the-art Snowdrop engine. From a technological standpoint, the usage of RT reflections, diffuse international illumination and RT shadows is a exceptional achievement allowing for the comparatively restricted ray tracing {hardware} accessible on consoles. The truth that the PC model additionally has a path tracing various (RTXDI) for higher-end {hardware} is the cherry on prime.
It is a gorgeous achievement total, let down solely by its cutscenes the place animation really appears to look sub-par in comparison with in-game animation.
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:58 Honourable mentions: STALKER 2, Persona 3 Reload, Metaphor ReFantazio, Nightdive Studios, Tiny Glade, FF7 Rebirth, Energy Rangers
0:20:46 Dragon’s Dogma 2
0:26:35 Riven
0:30:32 Dragon Age: The Veilguard
0:37:24 Silent Hill 2
0:48:50 Astro Bot
0:54:32 Penny’s Huge Breakaway
0:58:05 Black Fantasy: Wukong
1:08:49 Star Wars Outlaws vs Hellblade 2 vs Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle
The place opinion is split is within the inserting of the highest two video games: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle. Clearly, from a gameplay perspective, MachinesGames’ epic is a transparent winner – however that is clearly not the main target of a Digital Foundry ‘Finest Graphics of 2024’ dialogue. Hellblade 2 was lauded for its astonishing character work and digital digicam, to the purpose the place some environments look virtually indistinguishable from real-life footage.
The scope is way extra restricted than Indiana Jones however it additionally makes for a decent, commendable stage of constant high quality throughout the expertise. It is a heavy recreation, but in addition surprisingly scalable – Hellblade 2 can run on Steam Deck, whereas the 30fps restrict on consoles is well surpassed on extra succesful PCs.
The crew in the end agreed that Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle ought to take the coveted ‘graphics of the 12 months’ accolade. The sheer high quality and amount of its objects, environments are exceptional, whereas the utilisation of excellent high quality RT international illumination on all console variations – and at a excessive decision on Xbox Sequence X – cannot be ignored.
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The truth that the sport is successfully locked at an ideal 60fps is one other feather within the cap for MachineGames’ epic, whereas the PC model working unlocked is a remarkably constant expertise with no stutter. We had been additionally impressed by how far the PC model scales past the console variations due to the inclusion of path tracing – and that is in the end why the panel gave the nod to Indy: whereas Hellblade 2 barely places a pixel fallacious in what Ninja Principle got down to obtain, there are onerous limits there – no help for hardware-accelerated RT, for instance. Indiana Jones gives that in spectacular model, whereas taking it to the following stage with the ‘full RT’ improve… and whereas that’s computationally costly, it’s nonetheless accessible even to {hardware} like an RTX 4070.
In fact, because the chapter checklist above strongly suggests, there’s much more to this dialogue than simply the highest three alone, so you probably have some spare time, do take a look at the total video (or podcast) the place the crew focus on an excellent many video games!
