Everyone talks about certain games or gaming services being very good for a number of reasons, such as how realistic the game appears, how fun the gameplay is, and how the game breaks new ground in the industry. But few people look into what has made the games so great.
So, today we’re looking into the innovative technology that’s behind some of the biggest and best games of early 2019 as well as some of the tech going into one of 2019’s biggest releases.
RAGE and Euphoria
Source: The Verge, via Twitter
When Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008, their RAGE engine – which stands for Rockstar Advanced Game Engine – was praised across the industry, with the use of the Euphoria engine presenting the incredible animations, as shown by https://www.gamingbolt.com/.
For their latest release, the ever-popular Red Dead Redemption 2, the animations system was overhauled to bring about a much more lifelike feel – for which the highly-rated game has been praised across the board. Rockstar used Euphoria to enhance further the physics-based reactions in the game, which makes the already exciting game even more immersive.
OCR, RNG and the GCU
With over 800 games to play, https://www.winningroom.com/en has become a very popular gaming website. The most popular games are often in the slots section, with the fun animations and big-win potential being very appealing to many gamers. For the slots, it’s all down to the random number generator (RNG) to keep the game fair and completely random for everyone who spins.
One of the biggest trends at online casinos over the last year and coming into 2019 is the rise of live casino games. Using live streaming technology, optical character recognition (OCR), and a game control unit (GCU), the games of roulette, blackjack, and Top Card can be played in real-time with real dealers by players all over the world. As the technology continues to evolve in the innovative sector, even more games are expected to join the live gaming roster.
Ray tracing
Source: Mike Mahardy, via Twitter
To the average gamer, ray tracing may seem like a minor factor within a triple-A game release, but it certainly helps to immerse players in the game’s universe and add another level of realism. The feature of Nvidia’s upcoming GPU line-up, Volta, according to https://www.vg247.com, allows game engines to create real-time reflections, lighting and shadows, creating scenes in games which match that of the CGI used in blockbuster movies.
The power of ray tracing has already been displayed in a tech demo for some early Metro Exodus gameplay. Set for release in the middle of February this year, Metro Exodus could be a defining title of 2019, with the realism in the game, which ray tracing will help to invoke, taking it to the next level.
AWS
One of the biggest, never-ending, positive headlines that stood through the second half of 2018 and through to this year is the dominance of Fortnite: Battle Royale. The free-to-play game smashed its way to $1 billion, created cross-play for all players on any console or device, and has remained a very popular title through regular updates.
But this popularity also puts strains on the game’s developer, Epic, with them needing to deal with the huge volume of players on the game at any one time. Fortnite hasn’t endured many server issues thanks to its use of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Per https://www.wired.co.uk, AWS was the perfect partner for Epic due to its elasticity to provide a greater capacity when the user-count spikes, allowing the game to continue to run smoothly. All of these gaming innovations have brought immense entertainment value to gamers, with Metro Exodus set to join them in early 2019, with the technological