The PlayStation 4 architecture might be analogous to modern PCs, but that doesn’t mean that developing a game on the Sony platform is a walk in the park. The tools and degree of freedom are big assets for Killzone: Shadow Fall studio Guerrilla Games, yet lead designer Eric Boltjes admitted that it takes four times more effort to produce a project on this new generation.
“The architecture is really cool because it’s easier to develop for. You get more memory; you get more hard drive space; you get more processing power, so the architecture is easier,” he told VG247.
“It’s also a lot more demanding, because the production effort needed just to make a next-gen title now is not doubled; it’s quadrupled. That’s because everything needs to look that much better. It takes a lot more people, and that takes a lot more communication. So it does it make things a lot easier from a technical standpoint, but from a professional standpoint it makes things a lot harder.”
When looking at the gameplay for products like Shadow Fall and Battlefield 4, that statement starts to make sense. The new level of graphical fidelity is beyond anything else we’re currently dealing with, so it should be an interesting challenge for smaller studios to tackle. With its major budget and sizable staff, though, Guerrilla is more than well equipped to launch its major first-person shooter when the PS4 hits Nov. 15.
