The Witcher 3 Exterminates Loading Screens

[deathbydeath]

Loading screen-less games have been around for a while. Three examples that come to mind are Beyond Good and Evil, Darksiders, and Singularity. Also BG&E came out in 2003, a decade ago. Congrats CD Projekt RED, you guys are innovative as shit.

EDIT: Also, I believe Far Cry 2 did that as well, but I haven't played it.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I can deal with loading screens, as long as the game comes on one disc. But due to the recent trend in gaming, that probably won't happen.

 

[Jodan]

Thank god this was the reason i gave up and uninstalled the first one maybe ill give this one a try... maybe

 

[deathbydeath]

Loading screen-less games have been around for a while. Three examples that come to mind are Beyond Good and Evil, Darksiders, and Singularity. Also BG&E came out in 2003, a decade ago. Congrats CD Projekt RED, you guys are innovative as shit.

EDIT: Also, I believe Far Cry 2 did that as well, but I haven't played it.

It's an improvement over their previous games, and it's a big improvement on the status quo of RPGs in general. Nobody called it an "innovation".

I was mostly irked at a few of the comments in this thread. I'm phoning this comment in, so i can't pick them out, but they're still there, I hope.

 

[Fireprufe15]

"The "powerful hardware" in
question likely refers to the processing
capabilities of the PlayStation 4"

What? The PS4 has a pretty dang average processor, nothing of brilliance. My 3 year old computer has an equivelant processor in. And the RAM? 8 gigs of GDDR5? It kinda bothers me that the RAM is shared, graphics RAM usually isn't optimised very well for processy functions.

 

[pearcinator]

Bring back cartridges! Loading problem solved!

Viva la N64!

 

[Trivun]

I don't see why everyone is so skeptical here, Assassin's Creed managed it perfectly well even with The Frontier and Rome and Constantinople being pretty large. For a game of The Witcher 3's size, or Skyrim's size, you just have to scale that up. The Assassin's Creed team did it by splitting the game into area chunks and having adjacent chunks automatically load whenever you were inside one, so the loading actually happened before you ever got to an area as an anticipatory thing. The only issue here I can see would be with the processing power required due to the graphical detail in the new Witcher game, and that's easily remedied by having smaller chunks to load or by the player having higher RAM, which is much more common in this day and age anyway.

See? No problem and anyone complaining about it should actually take the time to do their research before commenting.

 

[Strazdas]

whole map as one huge clustered area where background loading happens as you go along little by little.
you know, something that Minecraft, or even Morrowind back in 2003 managed to do. and they didnt need "very powerful consoles".

EDIT: Also, I believe Far Cry 2 did that as well, but I haven't played it.

nope, there were plenty of loading in far cry 2. in fact, the loading screen background art was the best part of that game. i still use some as my desktop backgrounds and i hated the game. some each time my pc turns on i see a "loading" text in top corner hehe.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

The firstly appearances of no loading screen (of games that do load in level data after start
and do not keep the whole game in RAM) I can remember were all on the PSX:
Final Fantasy VII, Aliens Resurrection and Legacy of Cain: Soul Reaver

 

[Kingjackl]

How wonderful, doesn't it take you back to the good old PS2 days.

Incidentally, I love how this is titled: "The Witcher 3 'exterminates' loading screens". Not removes, or reduces or anything like that. I want more game articles like to follow in this one's footsteps.

Next week, Bioshock Infinite destroys texture pop-in! The Last of Us eviscerates low frame-rates! Grand Theft Auto V disembowels latency issues!

 

[Quellist]

Ah man, I haven't seen this kind of technical innovation since the Jak and Daxter series!

Since Dungeon Siege ONE! Holy cow!

I'll see your Dungeon Siege and raise you Soul Reaver! thats 14 years ago...

 

[Quellist]

Ah man, I haven't seen this kind of technical innovation since the Jak and Daxter series!

Since Dungeon Siege ONE! Holy cow!

I'll see your Dungeon Siege and raise you Soul Reaver! thats 14 years ago...

You wish for a game of facts dear sir?

Nintendo 64 release date: 1996

Have at you!

Ok this is going to get Silly so i'll counter with the first console i ever owned

Acetronic MPU 1000! 1979 and not a loading screen in sight, HA!