I called out The Evil Within for its blazing lanterns, but that lens flare is part of a package of deliberately obfuscatory visual devices-including that stringent letterboxing-which makes it a gritty and difficult place to be. Isolation's chromatic aberration is even sort-of acceptable, as a continuation of the game's low-fi '70s sci-fi vibe, though Amanda Ripley should see a doctor about those bionic eyes. In Alien: Isolation, the depth of field effect that happens when you bring your scanner into view is used to intentionally create a risk/reward trade-off-though I did spend a lot of time looking at blurry corridors as a result. Used thoughtfully, these camera tricks can work when used subtly to create a certain mood, or enforce a game's rules. Prev of 8 Next Prev of 8 NextĪs much as I'd like to fire all of these effects into the sun (while being blinded by its horrifying bloomy lensflare), it would be wrong. I wonder how much time and effort was wasted animating detailed vehicle and character models in this hangar, which you have no chance of seeing properly thanks to all that cursed DOF. You'll find another crazy example of forced depth of field in the intro to Battlefield 4's Singapore mission, which lets you look around your dinghy, but only keeps the dinghy itself in focus. It denies you the basic freedom to focus on things you want to look at, and with some implementations you'll take a performance hit for the privilege. Rocksteady have created an absurdly detailed open world for you to bat around in, and then added an effect that blurs most of it out the moment the Bat takes a close look at something.ĭepth of field looks nice in a trailer, but in practice it audaciously tries to do your eyes' job for you. Prev of 8 Next Prev of 8 NextĬheck out the recent Batman: Arkham Knight trailer for an attack of depth of field (and loads of motion blur on the Batmobile sequences). We can avoid the situation in the screenshot of Battlefield 4 at the top here, which uses vignetting, motion blur, bloom and orange eyeball speckling to completely hide what's happening. Yes, because it would be mad to demand that the production company films without lenses, but in video games, you can! We have the freedom to do away with the flaws of modern film equipment. "Ah, but you're okay with a bit of lens flare in Game of Thrones, aren't you?" says my sly evil-universe self. These effects even turn up in fantasy games where cameras haven't been invented.
These effects give you no information about the game world, harm your ability to see anything, and frequently undermine the integrity of the fantasy the game is trying to sell. Eyeballs don't register coronas of searing lens flare around light sources. Eyeballs don't collect a fine layer of dust as a camera might. The pursuit of "cinematic" experiences has encouraged designers to simulate the foibles of film equipment, but when you're playing an FPS, the fantasy casts you as a person, not a camera.
You'll see these specks everywhere nowadays, refracting light and muddying up the view. This isn't about dust particles you see hanging in sun rays-quite a neat effect that gives texture to empty space-this is the fine layer of gritty sparkling gunk smeared over your avatar's eyeballs. For the last couple of years we've been watching our games through a fine layer of dust.
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