By now, you've probably seen the trailer for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra. It shows Captain🅷 America and Black Panther in the midst of the Second World War, as uneasy allies united by a common enemy but with deep differences between the pair. It looks incredible, and that's probably why you've seen it. People can scarcely believe the trailer is even a video game - it looks indistinguishable from real life. We've been 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:saying that for a while in gaming (see - every instalment and remaster of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us), but this time we really mean it. Rise of Hydra looks fantastic. But in another way, maybe it doesn't.
This is not just contrarian clickbait. It takes a lot to amaze me when it comes to video game graphics, but Rise of Hydra is bona fide mindblowing. The first clip I saw, I thought it was a live-action commercial, not in-engine footage. Technically, this game is a marvel, with a lowercase 'm'. But 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:as my colleague 𓆉Tessa Kaur wrote about recently, it's just a little hard to care sometimes. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon's Dogma 2 uses live-action FMVs for its cooking rather than rendering a real steak (although I guess the chef did render it - wordplay), because that's much cheaper. As games get indistinguishable from reality, why not just use reality? It saved Capcom a lot of money, became 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a positive viral talking point, and player experience is not impacted.
Photorealism Has Never Been So Close
So let's go back to Rise of Hydra. Obviously you can't just 'use reality' for a video game as easily as you can a sizzling steak, and we need to put a pin in the fact we haven't seen any Rise of Hydra gameplay yet, just cinematics. Once you get over the fact it looks like real life, it doesn't feel like it looks like much of anything. The costumes just look like MCU versions with little flair elsewhere, and the game doesn't have much in the way of tone either. A lot of the scenes are at night, which gives them a slice of atmosphere, but once you get over the photorealism, there's little to be impressed by.
If your aim is to make things look as real as possible, then it's hard to be deliberate in your artistic presentation. Things just look like how they look like. This doesn't mean I think Rise of Hydra looks, or will be, bad. I just feel nothing. It's impressive, but in the same way a cat being able to balance ten dice on its paw is impressive (that's a real world record, by the way). Pointlessly impressive. Let me put it this way - if 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel's Avengers looked this good, would that make you like it more? 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Suicide Squad: Kill the J🎃ustice League gets pretty close to this level even during gameplay, but that can't save it.
Real Is Not The Same As Good
When I think of 'best looking' video games, I don't usually consider how 'realistic' they are. A bold visual identity, like that found in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Wind Waker, The Artful Escape, Okami, or Persona, is usually far more effective. An aesthetic with a purpose, even if a litt🐠le janky, is more interesting that the perfection of a bland photograph.
Realism doesn't mean you can't have an artstyle - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Deathloop specifically evokes a '70s coolness to highlight the aesthetics of its gadgets and gizmos, while 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ghost of Tsushima leans into Asian cinema (including its heavy-handed Kurosawa mode) despite being one of the best examples of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PS4's capabilities. And as this technology gets cheaper and easier to deaꦛl wit🐟h, we might see more realism more often, blended with a specific visual language aimed at channelling a theme.
We see this in the MCU too - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Werewolf at Midnight both use unique visual approaches, while The Winter Soldier uses lighting and cinematography to channel Cold War political thrillers. Most others, vibrant and explosive as they may be, all look kind of the same. They're expensive and impressive, but they're a cat with dice on its paw. I hope Rise of Hydra is more than that.
I don't mean to rain on the parade. This game looks excellent, and that's an achievement that should not be minimised. But I hope this is not as gaming gets. Though less technically impressive, we've had games that looked 'as good' as this for 20 years, just not as real. I hope we keep picking good over real, even when real is closer than ever before.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra
- Released
- 2025
- ESRB
- t
- Developer(s)
- ♐ Skydance New Media
- Publisher(s)
- ♈ ꧅ Skydance New Media
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Franchise
- Marvel
Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra is a 2025 action-adventure game from Amy Hennig and the team at Skydance New Media. Set in the height of World War 2, you'll play as four characters, including Captain America.
