Despite the shaky start, it was worth the wait. Uncharted 4 concluded Sony's E3 show this year with style - an extravaganza of live gameplay that showed Naughty Dog's growing affinity for PlayStation 4 hardware. Compared to the meat and potatoes gameplay shown at the PlayStation Experience event in December, Nathan Drake's E3 showing pushes the game's technological credentials more forcefully, calling on the team's incredible talents in set-piece design. But having seen some accomplished current-gen titles over the past few months, is what we're seeing here the consummate next-gen game we've been waiting for?
Uncharted 4 goes much further than any PS4 or Xbox One game we've seen in its use of physics, and the layering of world detail with shaders. Opening at the gates of a bustling Madagascan marketplace, what unfolds is unlike any major title seen on console to date. Where the December demo focused on wide spaces, foliage systems, and its more flexible AI, the E3 demo goes to town with object physics applied across the world, as flaunted brilliantly with a jeep chase to 'Sam's tower' at the bottom of the city.
Indeed, vehicle control is at last planted fully in the player's hands this time - a choice that means we can carve out a unique route to hill's nadir. It's rare to see such rapid asset streaming go off without a pop-in hitch; for example, games like The Witcher 3 on PS4 operate at equivalent to PC's medium to lower settings, producing some obvious pop-in for shadows and foliage. The console's substantial reserve of fast GDDR5 memory only goes so far in solving this, and the rest comes down to smart control of LODs from the developers.
For Uncharted 4, the sheer speed of the descent shows just how effective Naughty Dog has been in this endeavor. Save for one brief texture flash just as Drake starts moving, no normal maps or geometry suffer from obvious pop-in, and draw distances are impressively broad across the horizon. All of which gives this sequence a surprising level of polish even in this early state, and it's a great example of a PS4 title handling a broad, detailed environment with few streaming issues - even if it does eventually lead to a funneling point.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-uncharted-4-pushes-ps4-tech-to-the-next-level
