this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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[Playstation Lifestyle] The Witcher 4 Might Just Be a PS6 Game (www.playstationlifestyle.net)
submitted 6 days ago by ZippyBot to c/playstation
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

It sounds like they don't want a repeat of the Cyberpunk 2077 scenario, where it would barely run on base PS4 and Xbox One hardware.

To me it sounds like Xbox Series X owners are going to be left out of a game they should be able to run, because MS won't let them release a game that won't run on the Series S.

PS5 should be fine, and with the popularity of it they'd be crazy to skip it. Although it depends when they actually release it. If it's not coming out until PS6 has been out a few years, they may well do. I can't see it taking that long though.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The Switch 2 will likely be a major platform, so a PS5 release should be easy. Maybe even PS4.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

IDK why you think switch 2 existing means they have to support it.

It's very probably going to have an extremely underpowered CPU again, and supporting it would massively limit what they can do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

CD Projekt RED has said that although it wants The Witcher 4 on all major platforms, it can’t go into any specifics yet

It's literally the beginning of the article. The Switch is the most popular console around, therefore the next one is most likely a 'major platform'.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Nintendo is not and never will be referred to as a "major platform" by someone making a moderately demanding game. They refuse to offer the performance required to qualify.

Expecting them to mean Switch is as nonsensical as expecting them to mean it's going to launch day one on Android and iOS (except that an iPhone will probably be more powerful than the switch 2).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I don't think it is nonsensical. After all Witcher 3 is not only available on the Switch, it does run quite well on there. You can hate on the hardware all you want, some developers did prove time and time again how much the console is capable of if you optimize your game.

Both Witcher 3 and the Switch originally released within 2 years of each other. The same could be true for Witcher 4 and Switch 2.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

It absolutely does not run well on the switch. It's an unplayable stuttery mess at terrible resolution. The fact that they took money for that junk was incredibly disrespectful.

Last gen launched with CPUs that would have been outright bad many years before. AMD pre-Ryzen was a disaster, and games with meaningful CPU demand weren't possible. That's the only reason a dogshit version of Witcher 3 could kind of run on switch.

Current gen has actual functional CPUs. The switch 2 won't be vaguely in their neighborhood and backporting to it won't be possible unless they severely compromise the design away from resembling cutting edge in any way.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I honestly think you overestimate how much your average consumer cares about being cutting edge in this day and age. I'm playing Witcher 3 right now on Switch despite having a PS4 sitting right next to it. I do think it plays just fine. And yes, a PS4, because almost everything still releases on last gen and without a side by side comparison games look the same to me on both PS4 and PS5.

I believe the next gen will have a slow adoption rate, just like current gen consoles, even if they won't run into supply issues. Therefore it would be stupid to exclusively target them anyway.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

That's not the point. The point is what the Witcher specifically, is intended to be. It's a AAA open world game.

Graphics are always entirely irrelevant. You can scale those basically at will. Mechanics are what matter, and making mechanics work on whatever shitty arm chip Nintendo will put on the switch 2 would be an obscene compromise.

Supporting PS5 is not an issue at all. It has an actual CPU. Even having a discussion where Nintendo is a possibility? That's a massive issue, because a game that can run on their hardware is not a AAA caliber game, regardless of how much you spend.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Mechanics alone don't need as much power as you claim. The most mechanically complex open world game I've seen is a Switch-exclusive: Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. The most beloved mechanically interesting Assassins Creed is on the Switch too: Black Flag. If you want complex fighting mechanics instead, there's Monster Hunter and Bayonetta too.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yes, they do, especially in an appropriately populated open world.

Zelda is empty with obscenely basic combat and movement that would have been unimpressive on GameCube. If you think it's what mechanics mean, we can end this here, because it's a joke. It's an incredibly low fidelity, entirely surface level facsimile of complexity. Any interaction can be entirely mastered in 5 minutes, because there's not the tiniest shred of the tiniest hint of depth.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I'm not talking about movement or combat here. Once again, there are Monster Hunter and Bayonetta for that, both running great on the switch.

Zelda on the other hand got the most impressive amount of systems running in the background. We've got a dynamic lighting system, a day-night-cycle, a weather system, the most impressive physics engine I've ever seen, elemental interactions - just literal tons of shit you can interact with in many different ways. Most open world games aren't even close to that level of interactability with the world.

Having more movement options, combos and whatnot don't actually require much more hardware power. That was an intentional choice, not a limitation in the case of both Zelda games. (On top of that, did you even play the game? You have an obscene amount of combat and movement options if you try building interesting constructions.)

And, getting back to the actual topic: Neither Witcher game had complex movement or combat and a lot less systems running in the background. Witcher 4 won't play drastically different either, I'm quite sure. It's all about prepping the right buffs, not about having deep combat.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There is no part of Zelda that resembles complexity in any way. It can run on a potato because every system it has is multiple tiers below potato level. It's a criminally simplistic game by every reasonable standard.

Yes, I have played it. I had hoped they'd moved from the tech demo botw was into an actual game, and it was a crazy letdown. It doesn't even have much complexity by the indie standards Nintendo generally targets.

Having high precision movement and move sets in 3D absolutely does require a lot of math. Witcher 3 was still shallower than it should have been, just not compared to the absurdly low bar set by Nintendo. If they dumbed the Witcher down to Nintendo levels, it would be a crime to sell it for $5.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There is no part of Zelda that resembles complexity in any way. It can run on a potato because every system it has is multiple tiers below potato level.

It's fine if you don't like them, but calling the most popular and genre-defining open world games in recent memory bad on the very thing they are praised for is simply a bad faith argument.

Zelda BotW and TotK are the literal poster childs for 'systemic games'.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They objectively do not have anything resembling complexity in any way. That is not a matter of taste. The math they do is simplistic because the hardware is not capable of running anything resembling a system with a hint of complexity.

Calling them complex is like calling 30 year old Madden as complex as modern Madden because the surface level is the same sport.

The actual 3D physics are a joke. They're empty, simple sandboxes. Popularity isn't complexity.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If you think there is no complex math behind your ability to freely build 3D machines with different propulsion methods, buoyancy, air resistance, light, particle emission and movable parts at any angle, then you know nothing about math in games.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Like everything else, you can do it in terrible quality with trivial math, or you can do it for real with heavier math.

Nintendos version is two steps down from trivial.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Name a single game that does it better. If it's both trivial and popular, there must be many examples!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Kerbal space program.

Except it's actually good.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

That's a great game, I agree! Anyway, the developers themselves thought it could run on a Wii U - there's even an official trailer for it. While it was cancelled in the end, that happened to many other games too since the console itself was a monumental failure and the team had already much on their plate with every other port at the time being buggy as hell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Control came to Switch in streaming form.

I can only assume it didn't do very well otherwise we'd have seen more of that.

Still with internet connections getting better all the time it's only a matter of time before they try again. I tried Timesplitters 3 streaming on PSN the other day (I didn't want to wait an hour for it to download) and found it actually very playable.