Digital Foundry have published a glowing review for the tech behind Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. But, they have a surprising, and counter-intuitive, explanation for why it looks so real.
In their own words:
“Where Hellblade shines is from the art side. The game attempts to simulate the use of an anamorphic lens with the focal effects that go along with it – there’s a realism to it that genuinely gives you this feeling that what you’re seeing has been filmed using a physical camera.
The use of film grain and chromatic aberration also work in tandem to heighten the filmic presentation.”
To explain this a little bit, when the first 3D games of the 32-bit generation on consoles like the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 first came out, no one would have thought of them as photorealistic. 3D modeling could shine in some games (Tekken 3 and Perfect Dark come to mind), but the push and hype for photorealism went into overdrive for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
At that point, every major title, from Call of Duty to F1, action titles like Assassin’s Creed and Dead Space, even sports games like NBA 2K and FIFA, were boasting visuals that could impress as much as a Hollywood movie, or three. We were getting games pushing HD from 720p, then 1080p, at 60 FPS, with increasing LOD (levels of detail) to unbelievable degrees of fidelity and sharpness.
But then, the issue of the uncanny valley came up.
Originally proposed by Masahiro Mori (1970), the uncanny valley is the idea that a robot, or in this case, a computer generated image, looks creepier the more it tries to look human. The valley has been a stumbling block in the progress of video game technology for a very long time. Through the decades, many developers and studios have boasted of conquering the uncanny valley, but we can now say that much of that was hyperbole.
Every preview of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 has had fans questioning if it is some filmed or pre-rendered cutscene, or if it is rendered in real time. Ninja Theory has pulled off their task so effortlessly that players talk about failing to recognize when they are playing through a timed cutsene, and when they get control back.
If you look too closely at the details, you will find some numbers to complain about. Not only does the game run at 30 FPS on Xbox Series X, but the resolution ranges in the 1296p to 1440p range. With 16:9 taken into account, it really only renders at 964p to 1070p. But that is missing the point. Ninja Theory chose to roll back on maximum performance, lowering the framerate and resolution from what they can push the Xbox Series X and PCs from. And that’s the reason the game looks so real.
Without a doubt, a lot of the tech Ninja Theory used in this game wasn’t available in 2007, when they made Heavenly Sword for the PlayStation 3. But they also recognized that creating the illusion of realism isn’t really about making numbers go higher. It’s about combining what we know about how our brains work, how our eyes see, and the psychology of what we find appealing, to make something fake look so convincing. And the technology that they had on offer now, paired with this artistic competence, brought them to where they are today.
One could even say they have redefined the cinematic game, and every other developer making realistic looking games will now have to adjust to them.
If you do want to know more about the technology review Digital Foundry made for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, you can watch their review below.
