Mark Cerny spoke to The Washington Post recently about all things PlayStation. Chiming in is also Gavin Moore, the Creative Director at Bluepoint Games working on Demon’s Souls.
Cerny spoke about the overall design mantra behind working on PlayStation 5, how studio visits every two years helped enable him to design the PlayStation 5, the needs of developers and how swapping out an HDD for a custom SSD has made development less about parlour tricks to get mask loading and more about getting players into the game. It’s a great read that helps understand design philosophies over at PlayStation.
“So much of design today has to do with data management. Situations where literally — I’m not making these kinds of stories up — literally, the creative director will say, let’s put the entrance to the secret lair here. And the lead programmer will say, ‘It won’t fit in memory,’ or ‘okay, we’ll need a 30-second load screen that’ll kill the momentum of the gameplay,’ or ‘How do you feel about a long elevator ride down to the lair?’” says Mark Cerny.
On PlayStation 4, data had to be stored in chunks on the disc, this effectively made loading much more bloated than it needed to be. With an SSD, loading large amounts of data now takes seconds.
Gavin Moore is a supporter of the new DualSense thanks to all the technology packed into the new controller. Previously, many games used a rumble feature that shook your controller. With DualSense and haptic, the process and feeling are much different.
“You can feel arrows rush past your head in this game. It’s quite disturbing,” says Gavin Moore about Demon’s Souls. “I play the game and I instantly move my head sometimes.”
Load times have been significantly reduced in the game, too. Previously, and from my memory, I do remember there being long load times on PlayStation 3. Now, anything in the game is intentional and those elevator rides are still there to build tension for the player.
Moore goes on to mention how you can “feel metal strike metal,” which adds a new layer of immersion for players. “You can feel it in your hands when you make a perfect parry to give you the counterattack. You can feel the block was correct. I hit home. I felt it hit home. I know I gave that boss damage, and I can get out there, move back and wait for their attack to come in. So it actually makes the gameplay better and it makes the game feel a little bit easier.”
And that’s not all you’ll be able to do when the game launches next week. Players can use PlayStation 5’s Activities UI, which is in place to offer tips and tricks to those who want help. Moore states that there are over 180 videos to help players get over any particularily difficult section.
