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[Draugoth]

Talking to IGN, Yoko Taro, the creator of Nier Automata, commented on the subject. When asked if there was anything in the Korean game Stellar Blade that Japanese developers couldn't do, the developer said that they can no longer keep up with the West when it comes to technology.

Yoko: I wouldn’t say that we’re not able to come up with it, but we can’t keep up with the level of technology anymore. Stellar Blade is of a really high technological level, to the extent that I’m looking forward to seeing how Western gamers will react to it. NieR: Automata’s camera was from a pretty far-off angle and it wasn’t of the same standard as high-profile Western games. In that regard, I think that Stellar Blade has crossed a big barrier. The quality of not just the characters but also the environments is also on par with Western games. I’m honored to hear that you were inspired by NieR: Automata when creating Stellar Blade, but I hope that in the future we can see Western games inspired by Stellar Blade.

For Yoko Taro, Chinese and Korean studios have found it much easier to adapt to Western tools, such as the Unreal Engine, which has allowed them to make a greater leap in technology:

Yoko: Japan found success with not just games, but also anime and manga early on. After being exported to the West and other Asian countries, games, manga and anime have evolved in their own ways in each region respectively. As for games, it has proven difficult for Japanese companies to implement Western systems. Japan has a long history with companies developing their own engines, and it was hard to move away from that. We were very late with incorporating rendering tools and middleware from the West. Even to this day, many schools don’t teach this to new developers. I think that Japanese people are not good at adapting technology from overseas. Chinese and South Korean games were much faster to use engines like Unreal for games with a Japanese aesthetic.”

 

[MagnesD3]

Good focus on making fun within limitations.

 

[GymWolf]

No longer? It has been a while now

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Sounds more like self created problems.

Fighting with tech side of things when you should be focusing on game design.

 

[Shin-Ra]

I dunno. The Stellar Blade demo had some of those lower-than-low quality environment textures UE4 seems to facilitate even with 13GB of RAM and SSD.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Neither can westerns really

 

[Punished Miku]

Unreal 5 is definitely going to widen the gap.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

that has been very obvious since the 360 era

 

[Big Baller]

Platinum sucks with their engine. Most Japanese devs have used the Unreal engine since the PS3/360 days. Look at what Square and Namco are pumping out. Capcom is the only one with a good inhouse engine. Konami fucked it up. Kojima is making better looking games with Decima than GG.

 

[Fbh]

And thank god for that, the hyper focus on production values is what is killing western AAA games.
Also the comment overall still seems weird when we do have Japanese games that at least graphically look as good or better than Stellar Blade.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

And to that I say the West can keep their tech because it doesn't seem to affect Japan's creativity and ability to make superior games despite it.

 

[GrayChild]

And Western devs can no longer keep up with the Japanese game design, character design, writing, innovation etc.

 

[00_Zer0]

I am all for pretty bells and whistles of modern game engines, and technologies, but I am satisfied with technology that may be behind the curve if the gameplay is there and it runs smooth. I prefer Japanese developed games, as well as Indie games, so AAA graphics are not a priority to me buying a game.

UE4 and UE5 should in theory make it easier to develop games on, given the support that's in place for multiple languages, but it comes down to how well developers can wield this technology. UE4 and especially UE5 are known to be a jittery stuttery mess with wild frame times depending on the game and the developer. So far there have been very few UE5 games that perform like they should on PC. I think Stellar Blade was fortunately developed on the UE4 engine which is a good thing for current consoles and PC's. I would hate to think what performance the game would have using the UE5 engine.

 

[winjer]

We still have Bethesda and the creation engine to even things out.

 

[Spukc]

Looking at all the bloat unfinished sheit in final fantasy 7 remake 2

Yes

 

[Shake Your Rump]

That's fine. I'll take PS4 level graphics if it means that the games are actually fun. Techincal masterpieces like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Horizon Forbidden West look fantastic, but are incredibly boring.

 

[AV]

The country where Switch is the only real platform?

The Japanese are too focused on making good games to care about teraflops.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

And Western devs can no longer keep up with the Japanese game design, character design, writing, innovation etc.

Most of which feel dated.

Not saying Japanese games are bad in any way, but they're dated.

 

[Punished Miku]

I think Lies of P and Stella Blade were both Unreal Engine 4.

Marvel 1943 is Unreal 5.

 

[Kurotri]

I hope that in the future we can see Western games inspired by Stellar Blade.

Oh don't we all..

 

[Peroroncino]

As long as you don't keep up with DEI, I'm more than happy to buy your games regardless of the technology

 

[64bitmodels]

Most of which feel dated.

Not saying Japanese games are bad in any way, but they're dated.

I thought you guys preferred gaming back then, what's the problem with feeling dated?

 

[Shits_McGiggles]

Most of which feel dated.

Not saying Japanese games are bad in any way, but they're dated.

As opposed to what?

 

[64bitmodels]

Either way we can gloat on about how America can't match Japan's game and character design and how Japan can't match the America's graphical prowess.

But really we should be talking about how the boys in Europe seem to have found the healthy balance. Cyberpunk and Baldurs Gate 3 seem to prove that, great gameplay and visuals

 

[Punished Miku]

I thought you guys preferred gaming back then, what's the problem with feeling dated?

This isn't criticizing the game design. It's just pointing out that a lot of the game engines aren't keeping up with what's coming. Korean devs don't have amazing proprietary engines either, they just seem to be pretty good at using Unreal. Seems the main ones pushing into NextGen are Unreal 5, Decima. I assume Naughty Dog's engine as well when we finally see their next game, Rockstar's engine, Snowdrop (Ubisoft).

Not really seeing the big game engine demo stuff we used to from Japan like Luminous, Crystal Engine, Fox Engine. Capcom's RE engine is pretty solid but seems to buckle a bit with open world, and probably can't compete with Metahuman stuff, but they are going for a more stylized look.

Tecmo's Engine, FromSoft's engine are both falling behind.

 

[hinch7]

Not necessarilya bad thing. Japan has been pumping out bangers for the last few years. Meanwhile Western devs that focus more on the tech side of things can barely get games out in time.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

It's a good thing Eastern Devs aren't chasing the tech like Sony 1st party and some other studios.

As we're seeing so far this gen a lot of Western Devs new release output has tanked.

Then with skyrocketing dev costs they're playing it ultra safe with super hero junk or worn out licenced IPs like Star Wars. Which is boring as fk!

Not necessarilya bad thing. Japan has been pumping out bangers for the last few years. Meanwhile Western devs that focus more on the tech side of things can barely get games out in time.

This 100%

 

[tkscz]

The country where Switch is the only real platform?

The Japanese are too focused on making good games to care about teraflops.

Funny enough Nintendo incorporated UE4 back at the Switch's launch with Yoshi's Crafted World, then used it again with Pikmin 4 which is honestly the best looking/running UE4 game on the Switch. Wonder if they'll continue this with the Switch successor and UE5.

Honest I see Japan wanting to use their own engines as a good thing. Sure they are not as advanced with shaders and lighting but they still look good and so much more is put towards optimizing. I've noticed that triple A western games try to brute force games now adays, causing us to even need a mid-gen upgrade rather than just optimizing the games better. Can't remember which studio it was, think it was members of Naughty Dog, that were dumb-founded by Tears of the Kingdom running on Switch and as someone who programs, it just sounds like new devs depend heavily on middleware and engines to brute force the work for them and not coding to metal even a little to get better results out of the hardware that's there.

 

[SHA]

They're their worst enemy themselves, if they can't make the elder scrolls 7, fallout 6, GTA vii which is eventually the case then they will shoot themselves on the foot, yeah, it's not what you think, money can't solve real world class problems at the scale of video games unfortunately.

 

[Danjin44]

Issue comes with high tech graphics when go to that route your next game has to have better graphics and next game even better meanwhile the cost will go up and the focus become less on game itself and more about graphics.

In my eye they better off without graphic contest, I rather they focus on things matters most in games.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I honestly think we need more collaborations.

FromSoftware working with Bluepoint would probably make some fantastic games. Capcom working with Insomniac could make the best Mega Man game of all time. Can you imagine a Mega Man Legends game built around the Rift Apart engine? Same thing with Santa Monica and Konami on a Castlevania game.

 

[TGO]

But Stellar Blade isn't a western game...
Anyway this seems like a odd comment.
Especially when I consider the games in my collection that are Japanese to have better graphics.
but that probably because when they scan an actor or model into the a game it actually looks like them and they have better art design too.

 

[Punished Miku]

But Stellar Blade isn't a western game...

It's built in Unreal Engine.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Utter crap om so many levels. Capcom are right up there and even my beloved SEGA aren't that far behind anymore

 

[TGO]

It's built in Unreal Engine.

Oh they talking about the engines....does that really matter when the developers are the ones that made it.
It's not like Unreal is a service when you tell it what you want and it sends it to some American or European Devs to do for them.
They're the ones creating the game and are doing the graphics and getting the results.
And like Team Andromeda said
The RE engine is fantastic and has as many flaw as UE does before people point them out.

 

[Boss Mog]

Yeah great graphics are nice, but they don't determine if I buy a game or not.

 

[Punished Miku]

Oh they talking about the engines....does that really matter when the developers are the ones that made it.
It's not like Unreal is a service when you tell it what you want and it sends it to some American or European Devs to do for them.
They're the ones creating the game and are doing the graphics and getting the results.
And like Team Andromeda said
The RE engine is fantastic and has as many flaw as UE does before people point them out.

The context of the quote is that he felt Korean devs were doing a great job of getting familiar with Unreal Engine, and Japanese devs were falling behind in that area. It's the 2nd quote in the OP.

 

[TGO]

The context of the quote is that he felt Korean devs were doing a great job of getting familiar with Unreal Engine, and Japanese devs were falling behind in that area. It's the 2nd quote in the OP.

You know why, the Japanese Devs tried to adapt to western styles and lost their way
Korea is like a time capsule from the 2000's, and they operate like Japan did back then too.
they are where Japan would have been if they didn't fuck around trying to adapt to American audiences that wasn't needed to begin with because they was superior anyways.
Western Devs has always pushed graphics more, they've just finally catched up on the gameplay with their games.

 

[Black_Stride]

I like the tech in RE Engine, MT Framework and FFXVI....hell even the Fox Engine was impressive.

But I'm not against Japanese devs settling with Unreal or Unity.
As long as the aesthetics and mechanics are still there I'm not terribly terribly fussed.

I really enjoyed my time with Nier Automata even if it was by no means a graphical showcase.

A few mods and the game is still gorgeous today.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Don't worry, we're going to use that tech to make women ugly, turn hair blue, and add a nose ring.

 

[daclynk]

Funny enough Nintendo incorporated UE4 back at the Switch's launch with Yoshi's Crafted World, then used it again with Pikmin 4 which is honestly the best looking/running UE4 game on the Switch. Wonder if they'll continue this with the Switch successor and UE5.

Honest I see Japan wanting to use their own engines as a good thing. Sure they are not as advanced with shaders and lighting but they still look good and so much more is put towards optimizing. I've noticed that triple A western games try to brute force games now adays, causing us to even need a mid-gen upgrade rather than just optimizing the games better. Can't remember which studio it was, think it was members of Naughty Dog, that were dumb-founded by Tears of the Kingdom running on Switch and as someone who programs, it just sounds like new devs depend heavily on middleware and engines to brute force the work for them and not coding to metal even a little to get better results out of the hardware that's there.

well said

 

[Woopah]

The country where Switch is the only real platform?

The Japanese are too focused on making good games to care about teraflops.

It's still possible to get some some software sales across Playstation and PC. Plus Switch isn't the reason most Japanese publishers use their own engines.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

It's a good thing Eastern Devs aren't chasing the tech like Sony 1st party and some other studios.

As we're saying so far this gen a lot of Western Devs new release output has tanked.

Then with skyrocketing dev costs they're playing it ultra safe with super hero junk or worn out licenced IPs like Star Wars. Which is boring as fk!



This 100%

To be honest, this part from the lengthy IGN interview with Kim and Yoko has me a bit shook. It reminded me of the Insomniac leaks where an exec, I think, pointed out that they were investing significantly more money in SM2 development, but the overall fidelity wasn't increasing proportionally. They were questioning if most gamers would even notice a substantial difference in visual fidelity from the first SM. Just fucking stop this highly regarded chase for top level visuals, it's doing more harm than good to the industry.

examined some of the documents released as a part of a malicious ransomware attack on Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac Games. The documents reveal that Insomniac spent $300 million on the game’s development, roughly $30 million over budget, and that the game needs to sell 7 million copies at full price to break even.

Among the leaked presentations, one slide asks if gamers even noticed the 3x budget increase between Spider-Man 1 and 2.

 

[Neilg]

Unreal 5 is definitely going to widen the gap.

He's saying now they're catching up, but in the past it was very hard for them to adopt things.
It's actually going to shrink the gap... part of the reason those devs took a long time to adopt western middleware is simply down to training material available in alternate languages. it's more nuanced than that, but the language barrier is a huge factor.
The 3d software I use every day has a huge foreign market where bi-lingual users of it can make some pretty hefty side income translating and re-recording basic training material that's provided free in english, and it's the biggest 3d software on the planet. I know a ton of 3d artists who 10-15 years ago learned English specifically to be able to follow training material, so they could pursue this career path and be competitive.

 

[Punished Miku]

He's saying now they're catching up, but in the past it was very hard for them to adopt things.
It's actually going to shrink the gap... part of the reason those devs took a long time to adopt western middleware is simply down to training material available in alternate languages. it's more nuanced than that, but the language barrier is a huge factor.
The 3d software I use every day has a huge foreign market where bi-lingual users of it can make some pretty hefty side income translating and re-recording basic training material that's provided free in english, and it's the biggest 3d software on the planet. I know a ton of 3d artists who 10-15 years ago learned English specifically to be able to follow training material, so they could pursue this career path and be competitive.

Sure, I agree with that. Widen or shrink depends on how you look at it. Widen in terms of the origin of the tech and engine, since more will move to middleware vs custom in house engines. Shrink in terms of the look of the games and the output, like you see with Stellar Blade.

 

[DeaconOfTheDank]

To be honest, this part from this lengthy interview with Kim and Yoko has me a bit shook. It reminded me of the Insomniac leaks where an exec, I think, pointed out that they were investing significantly more money in SM2 development, but the overall fidelity wasn't increasing proportionally. They were questioning if most gamers would even notice a substantial difference in visual fidelity from the first SM. Just fucking stop this highly regarded chase for top level visuals, it's doing more harm than good to the industry.

Yup, it's leading diminishing returns at this point and isn't scalable with the current approach.

Anyhow, I focus more on art direction and gameplay, which is exactly what Japanese studios prioritize. Sure, I wouldn't mind some better cutscene direction here and there, but it's definitely not a dealbreaker for me.

 

[Fess]

Well, there is not one single western game that can for real compete with Elden Ring on gameplay, art and world design. And western character design is so far behind, everyone is aiming for realism but they choose boring models or make them less interesting to please noisy activists.

 

[Loomy]

Good focus on making fun within limitations.

I don't think I would call it good. The Japanese gaming industry is shrinking for anything except mobile games. Very few studios are making games with wide appeal outside of Japan these days.

 

[mckmas8808]

I honestly think we need more collaborations.

FromSoftware working with Bluepoint would probably make some fantastic games. Capcom working with Insomniac could make the best Mega Man game of all time. Can you imagine a Mega Man Legends game built around the Rift Apart engine? Same thing with Santa Monica and Konami on a Castlevania game.

WHOA!!!! Now this would be AWESOME!!!

 

[Neilg]

Sure, I agree with that. Widen or shrink depends on how you look at it. Widen in terms of the origin of the tech and engine, since more will move to middleware vs custom in house engines. Shrink in terms of the look of the games and the output, like you see with Stellar Blade.

Fair, yeah I assumed you meant one way without thinking you could have meant the other.
I don't believe the look of games will be that homogenous once it's more mature though - while UE can have a 'look', a real AAA developer will not settle for that. I feel it's safe to say if someone falls short and cant invest in their game looking unique, that without an engine like UE they probably wouldn't have been able to make it at all.