Bethesda's post-Apocalyptic role-playing shooter Fallout 4 is just around the corner - you can't swing a proverbial cat on social media with it hitting the hype train - and the team behind the game have just released the launch (and presumably final) gameplay trailer. Thankfully it doesn't spoil a great deal, only mentioning a few factions and instead concentrating on the vistas and gameplay features, but it's a sweet taste of things to come. Find it below:
Meanwhile Bethesda have also revealed some of the in-engine features you can expect in the latest Fallout title, all designed to make the world visually compelling without neutering performance on a wide variety of systems. This non-extensive list includes:
- Tiled Deferred Lighting
- Temporal Anti-Aliasing
- Screen Space Reflections
- Bokeh Depth of Field
- Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
- Height Fog
- Motion Blur
- Filmic Tonemapping
- Custom Skin and Hair Shading
- Dynamic Dismemberment using Hardware Tessellation
- Volumetric Lighting
- Gamma Correct Physically Based Shading
- Temporal Anti-Aliasing
- Screen Space Reflections
- Bokeh Depth of Field
- Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
- Height Fog
- Motion Blur
- Filmic Tonemapping
- Custom Skin and Hair Shading
- Dynamic Dismemberment using Hardware Tessellation
- Volumetric Lighting
- Gamma Correct Physically Based Shading
Fallout 4 shares the Creation Engine with Bethesda's previous RPG blockbuster Skyrim, which is perhaps most noteworthy for baking in modding tools that enthusiasts will be able to take advantage of when the game launches. These tools ballooned Skyrim's popularity, birthed highly creative mods, and kept it one of the most played games on Steam long past what one might expect.
The developers also mention that in augmenting the Creation Engine for Fallout 4 they enlisted the aid of NVIDIA:
"As always, our world features fully dynamic time of day and weather. To create that volumetric light spilling across the scene (sometimes called “god rays”) we worked with our friends at NVIDIA, who’ve we worked with dating back to Morrowind’s cutting-edge water. It’s beautiful in motion, and it adds atmospheric depth to the irradiated air of the Wasteland."
An example of 'God Rays' in Fallout 4
It's currently not known if NVIDIA GameWorks technology has been substantially integrated into the Creation Engine for Fallout 4. Leaked screenshots of the options menu make no mention of GameWorks, but three of the above features are known to have GameWorks implementations. Furthermore discussion of extensive tessellation has tended to put AMD users on edge since Crysis 2, not helped by sub-optimal use of the tool in Far Cry 4 and Witcher 3. However Bethesda did reiterate that:
Like all the other features here, we’ve made [god rays] work great regardless of your platform.
Fallout 4 is due for release on November 10th for PC, XBOX One and PS4. It's currently available from Steam for £39.99, but you might want to hold off on purchasing until you see performance benchmarks. Current minimum specs. call for an NVIDIA GTX 550Ti or AMD HD7870 GPU.
