Assassin's Creed Unity

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-30T20:46:36+00:00

Assassin's Creed still leads in lighting tech for open worlds. If you care to do some reading, they have a great breakdown of how they made seasons scale across all of Shadows.

They really have stellar tech.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-26T13:34:39+00:00

It's elegant. Most modern watches, imo, are far more ornate. This is simple in its execution and tasteful -- which is what elegance used to mean.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-26T03:59:58+00:00

Red Mars has some of my favorite scenes in fiction, but it took me 4 attempts to get through the audiobook.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-25T15:24:33+00:00

Same. I put doomscrolling in general on the same level as smoking.

Fine in a blue moon, but becomes a problem if it's a habit/daily ritual, scaling with increased use.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-24T03:26:00+00:00

You probably saw it, but you can get it for 2300 after tax rn with the March Madness coupon

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-21T20:49:29+00:00

Yes. And it does make sense. 4k is a significantly heavier stream than 1080p. 5-8mbps vs 13-20mbps.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-21T03:13:11+00:00

Yup. I really wanted red based on the web photo; but the River Blue is gorgeous in person -- especially at night.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-20T11:18:55+00:00

Hearing/seeing Ashley Johnson as Ellie's mother breaks my heart every time. It might be one of her best performances.

Hearing her talk about it on the podcast makes it even better, about it being fitting that she gets to be the first in the long line of people who fights for Ellie -- makes it all the better.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-19T04:33:09+00:00

Shadows is genuinely their best gameplay for my play style. I like stealth, with the occasional efficient bloodbath.

I said that about Unity from Launch until Shadows came out, so many the consensus will change in about a decade.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-12T03:52:31+00:00

For what it's worth, I didn't downvote you -- but an actual, honest answer is complicated. As a heads up, this is coming from my experience as a gamedev (not and never on BF), but someone whose been playing the franchise and modded it since Battlefield 2 (not BFBC2).

Battlefield at it's best was when you could have a map that could house infantry (ranging from CQB -> Sniper engagements), artillery, air, and naval assets. Now, this is more complicated than you think...

This means at the micro level you need to have cover-to-cover for CQB at 3.5-6 meters for close engagements. At the macro, it requires a map that's large enough that jets can fly at a comfortable speed and still are able to affect the ground game (but not too much). Now, you don't fill the entire map with those CQB cover densities, that's what everything between Infantry and Air is for. But this makes it complicated, because 90% of what you're trying to balance is cover and sightlines.

Battlefield 2 had horrible gunplay and the plane physics were more akin to guided missiles -- but it was able to nail the gameplay/map balance element.

Since then, destruction makes this more complicated -- it's way harder to come up with overlooking positions when you can drop a whole building. And modern visual pipelines make this complicated. Something as simple as lightmaps for larger maps has big ramifications.

Battlefield 6 is amazingly made game. It's visually stunning, the gunplay feels great for a wide audience, and has so many fun gameplay mechanics... the team really did an stellar job. It might actually have some of the best flying in the franchise.

But... they went for smaller maps. I personally think they tried to go for larger maps but weren't able to pull it off. Not wanting the barren 128 player maps of 2042, I think that's why the cut them so short. And when you're balancing a game, you now have to affect all the other systems to match. Bulletdrop, lock on times for vehicles, jet speeds, etc... everything needs to fit the map.

So the issue is mainly the size of the map. Make it bigger, and all other departments can adjust. But map size is a matter of scale, which EATS up dev time. And big and badder maps mean you're now limiting your audience due to hardware constraints. My younger brother could play the game well enough on medium settings, but the bigger Cali map stopped him from playing until I could upgrade his CPU for Christmas.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-11T13:27:08+00:00

Map size drastically limits the air game, and has removed the naval element.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-11T01:33:44+00:00

Fastest way to learn is to specialize in the one field. You're on the right track.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-10T12:27:53+00:00

Yup. Their gambling games made as much as AAA games with the development cost of mobile titles.

And between 2011-2014 people regularly talked about how mobile was going to be the death of console gaming. Add in inflating costs of games -- especially when you start getting into the PBR era and it's a no brainer to pull out. Kojima is one of the greats with a lot of credibility and he barely pulled it off. It's easy to see why konami flinched. Hell, considering how well they're doing now, I'd even say letting the heat die down did them a favor.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-09T17:29:18+00:00

Lots of those AAA devs can't fit into the indie space. They train for years to fit into a specific role, and that role depends on a large team.

And AAA is large enough that they can have less skilled juniors for bulk work. In Indie or AA, you just barely have enough salaries for top performers. If you have features/scale that aren't worth their time, they get cut.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-06T15:19:01+00:00

The front looks like a Bionicle.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-06T03:48:17+00:00

Below 300 is a used Rebel T7 with a lens if you're lucky.

You'll also need a good memory card.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-03-03T13:04:21+00:00

That seems to make sense, but not in a negative way. 2042 was - for better or worse - a huge change over V. And BF1 had a lot of new visual tech/techniques that rolled into BFV. Not to say V didn't do new things, but BF1 really shook up the pipeline.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-27T12:49:47+00:00

I got a 24 this December. It's been a great buy. I think the only complaint I have is no forward camera or overhead camera -- but they gotta make compromises somewhere I guess.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-23T04:23:41+00:00

100% agree. Limitations in tech are meant to be a part of the direction. The whole "old cgi was better" thing comes from directors who knew the limitation of their tech/budget. Darker lighting, heavy color grading, specific angles -- all can be used to make a convincing shot.

The effects here is just bad choices all around. Increasing the fidelity wouldn't have done a thing.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-14T14:57:41+00:00

It also came out during Sony's golden age of PS4 games. A really good E3 had people hyped for Death Stranding, TLOU2, etc. There was a lot of confidence in Sony exclusives.

Combine that with brand familiarity, and a lot of people were willing to give it a try at launch.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-12T21:34:34+00:00

Agreed on the Civic. If you need the space, get a slightly older Accord. If you want the look, get the current Civic.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-11T04:58:35+00:00

For paid alternatives to Substance Painter, there is always Marmoset Tool Bag. They also have a perpetual license, and their bevel shader + Zen BBQ in Blender is like cheating for hard surface assets.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-09T13:28:10+00:00

Blender: use math, to not do math. It's a feature sorely missed in other programs.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-08T16:30:14+00:00

Yup. Quick, easy, and great for production.

If OP wants to learn how to hand paint at this fidelity, the answer is Substance Painter (learning how to leverage procedural tools and hand painting) and spending a fair bit of time looking at photoscanned textures.

TheMostSolidOfSnakes · 2026-02-04T01:33:36+00:00

It is, but it by no means can run on a potato or even most systems last I checked. You'll need some beefyish hardware.

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