Ontwikkelaar The Division: PS4 en Xbox One-generatie draait om vrijheid

David Polfeldt, managing director van Tom Clancy’s The Division, vindt dat de nieuwe generatie niet zo zeer om de PlayStation 4 en Xbox One zelf gaat, maar meer om de vrijheid die ze ontwikkelaars bieden. Volgens Polfeldt stellen de next-gen consoles ontwikkelaars in staat om slimmer en groter te ontwikkelen, waarbij de hardware veel meer vrijheid met zich meebrengt:

It’s a difficult question to answer. I might not say it’s because of the machines, per se, so much as the maturity of the engines and the simplicity and ease of developing for next-gen. That allows you to think more about things like narrative.

Before, no matter what we wanted to do, it was hard to do. You’d come to work with a great idea and we’d say, “That’s cool, but we have to be pragmatic. What are we really able to do?” We had to compromise to get things done. With this generation, you have a crazy idea in the morning and we could see it up and running the next day. That puts people in a different mindset. They start thinking, “How do we tell stories in games? Does it have to go gameplay-gameplay-cutscene, or can we do it a different way?”

It’s not so much the technology as the liberty the technology gives you, the freedom to think more openly about how to solve different issues. The same goes for audio. It’s easy to do advanced things with audio. All you need now is a very creative audio director who takes advantage of the fact that it’s a very open landscape of opportunities.

Denk jij ook dat ontwikkelaars dankzij de nieuwe generatie hun werk groter (en slimmer) kunnen aanpakken? Zijn de mogelijkheden van de next-gen platformen zo enorm? Laat het ons weten!