14 DAY TRIAL // The PlayStation 4's hardware power means easier performance capture which, in turn, leads to more believable emotion in video games, according to Sony, which highlighted the great scenes from Infamous: Second Son earlier this year and promises greater things for The Order: 1886 or Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
The PS4 came out last year and it was quickly shown that the new console from Sony is quite powerful in terms of visuals thanks to gorgeous titles like Killzone: Shadow Fall. After a few months, a new standard was set with Infamous: Second Son, which delivered not just great visuals but also some impressive facial capture for protagonist Delsin Rowe and the other main characters.
This improved type of performance capture on the PS4 means that games for the platform will be capable of delivering more emotions via their characters in an easier way than what was possible on the old PS3, which needed more technical prowess.
"What you can do in terms of performance capture with the facials on characters in this generation, you can bring out emotion and it can be very believable," Sony's Scott Rohde told GamesIndustry. "Of course, it could in the past. I think it was very believable in a game like The Last of Us. But it took a lot more to squeeze that horsepower out."
"It took a lot of TLC to make that happen on the last generation. I think with new performance capture techniques, it will be easier to capture what we're seeing on the motion capture stage and getting that into a believable state the end gamer will appreciate."
Rohde exemplified his statement with Infamous: Second Son and mentioned that the great facial capture of actor Troy Baker, not just his voice, meant that players could see more emotions on his face and in his eyes.
"In previous generations, it was a little tougher when you couldn't quite relate to that character," Rohde said. "It felt a little more like a mannequin, it was more of a generic performance capture or not quite believable because the fidelity wasn't there."
"But if you go back to that specific moment in Second Son and you see genuine fear in his eyes and the expression on his face, that to me is something we know we want to do more and more of going forward in the PS4 generation."
There will be plenty of upcoming PS4 exclusives that should take advantage of the console's power, including The Order: 1886, which is set to debut next February, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, which is rumored to debut in fall of 2015.