A user, GermanStrands, released a screenshot of the future Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, highlighting the extremely brilliant textures of one character’s hair and skin. The post sparked a discussion stretching across a wide range of players and technology lovers about the rendering methods, drawing comparisons to various other games, and even going deep into the technicalities of the contemporary graphics in games. The interaction indicates the players’ sophistication of expectations as a major player in the ongoing technical competition in AAA gaming.
Again, the Internet is at its best. A single shot from a trailer is enough for someone to become a graphics programmer with his/her own really good opinion to share. It is incredible. GermanStrands just revealed this picture of who seems to be the character called Fragile acted by Lea Seydoux, and the hair?? Like, it is unbelievably real-looking. You can see single strands, the light hitting it… it is insane. And, of course, the replies turned into a battleground at the same time.
The very first thing is the most basic thing. There are people just enjoying the visuals, like the user lookyvk who says ‘holy shit that hair looks so realistic’. This is the natural reaction, right? But then… oh my god. Then comes the comparisons. One of the commenters, HNaerg7385, brings up a screenshot from Fort Solis and claims it to be ‘way better done’ while asserting that the Death Stranding 2 girl is ‘lacking emotion.’ Following this, another user, _play_doh, backs up the claim with a shot from Horizon Forbidden West arguing that it is ‘more natural.’ It is like a digital beauty contest where everyone is an expert judge with an advanced degree in shader models.
Next is the tech battle. This is the part that has a lot of technical jargon. User rovensky interferes and begins to criticize the Decima engine (which operates both Death Stranding and Horizon). He contends that the engine relies on ‘lambertian shading,’ which he labels as ‘obsolete,’ and suggests that it should be ‘banned’ because there is the ‘Burley model’ now. I really had to check this out, okay? Don’t hit me up. Nevertheless, it boils down to how the light interacts with the skin-like surfaces. Lambert is the older, simpler option. Burley is the more sophisticated, physically-based model that Disney—with the cartoons—helped develop and it is great at handling all the complexities such as roughness and how light behaves at glancing angles. This is what gives the skin the realistic, non-plastic look.
And then the whole thing getting this extra added twist is that, of course, Twitter had to be involved. That’s how it always is. Actually, rovensky even tags this account called ‘grok’ and says something like, ‘get this chap out, find out why Burley is the one and only, do some research on why he is objectively superior.’ And Grok, being an AI, just drops a textbook paragraph explaining the whole thing. It is so over the top. However, it gets the message through, modern engines, for instance the one used in The Callisto Protocol, are increasingly favoring Burley for that next-level realism without killing your framerate.
But the argument did not come to an end right then! Oh no, someone else raised the question of ray-tracing vs. baked lighting. _play_doh posted a stunning, quiet picture from the first Death Stranding and virtually said, ‘If ray-tracing is so much better, how do we get something like this?’ And then, the AI Grok had to come back for an encore, clarifying that ray-tracing simulates light in real time for dynamic things while baked lighting is done beforehand for static scenes. What the beautiful Death Stranding vista is relying on is the fact that it is a mostly static scene—baked lighting can look great when applied correctly. Ray-tracing is for moving stuff and changing all the time.
It is kind of ironic though, because scattered through all the technical terms, there are just… people being people. One guy, vikingmike91, confesses that he owes his love for Lea Seydoux to Death Stranding and a Russell Crowe Robin Hood movie. Another one, MaxSparky, claims she has been his celebrity crush for the past ten years. MelvinMyndrite just bluntly says ‘Not a videogame,’ which is… a choice. And, naturally, mikehawk773 is the one who asks the real tough question, ‘Yeah cool but what about the gameplay?’ Right on, buddy. We are all busy being amazed by the digital pores, but we still have to deliver parcels and run away from ghost whales, don’t we?
One of the most bizarre aspects of the ongoing debate is how a single screenshot can dominate conversations across PlayStation and Xbox communities.
