La prossima generazione di videogame

In attesa di provare sul campo le potenzialità della Xbox One e della PlayStation 4, The Verge illustra gli obiettivi della prossima generazione di videogame presentati alla E3 2013.

We're just scratching the surfaces of what the next generation has to offer, assuming we're even seeing true next-gen games at all. As some developers from EA and Ubisoft admitted, we're really still in a transitional period between the console generations. Many of the games we're seeing here at E3 2013 were conceived before PS4 and Xbox One specs were even finalized, to say nothing of working with the actual controllers and development kits. Many of the games we did manage to see are far from complete, and most developers guided us through carefully scripted demos rather than allowing us to play.

Though many games looked great and felt advanced since the last console generation, that doesn't mean we've reached anything near perfection yet. For example, as beautiful as the next generation of virtual cars look, their tires still don't realistically cling to the track.

Character animation still leaves a lot to be desired: despite the amount of motion capture video game studios are doing these days, video game characters still look much better standing still than when they're talking or moving. We haven't really seen what's possible with motion gaming here at E3. And if the best we can offer today in the way of freedom is the freedom to hack or kill whoever you choose and (a la The Witcher) experience a limited number of branching story paths, we've got a long way to go yet.

The next generation of consoles won't magically make games more compelling than they were before. It's a step forward, for certain. Now it's up to developers to build experiences worthy of the "next-gen" moniker.