the lead graphics engine designer laughs at me for stopping every 30 seconds to just rotate the camera and look at the sights and listen to the sounds of their game world. "Everything in the game is PBR with multiple sources of volumetric lighting. All of the characters in this game are unique. You will never see the same character model more than once." As I am playing I realize how difficult this game is. I play several games competitively multiple genres (Smite,R6,SFV,CoD,BF,League) but I am getting my ass handed to me. I take the lead character out into a hallway and two enemies rush into the room shooting and moving in what appears to be a tactical pattern. "Is this fucking guy shooting at me while the other guy is trying to circle around to flank me?" he laughs again. "Yep, suppressive fire." As the enemy shoots at me I take note of the deformation of the geometry on display, chunks of cement give way revealing the metal pipes underneath that hold the structure together. Everything is based in reality including what happens when you shoot people or get shot. Its beautiful but it aint pretty.
I sit the controller down (I'm about to die again anyways) "The game is definitely running at 60fps" he shakes his head at me "No its running at 90fps locked. native 4k." dumb stare "On which machine?" he smiles "Both of them."
Two hours and several drinks later
When I asked about the performance of both consoles his response was "Both have the same target we will see if either of them hit that target. " I pushed further and asked what the target was and his response was simply."Above 12" That is not for the XseX or the PS5,from what I can gather internally both machines are targeting very high performance which lines up with hearing earlier that the machines would both be $499 with both companies Taking a loss.
Notes
The gdk they are working with is not the final kit for either machine and XseX is currently ahead in terms of sheer power. Sonys tool set is much more complete and refined.
The trailer is all actual game play. Not in engine but game play.
Every developer or engineer I have ever met day drinks.