Thanks to Bethesda’s RPG, we’ll never look at rain in video games the same way again.
Most of us gamers never notice how they are regularly beaten by developers, who create the illusion of a sense of speed with different tricks, make them believe that they are born to be top players, and make sure that they have a sense of speed. Success even as a beginner. Last summer, in this article, we collected ten frequently used magic tricks, which are sometimes used to our advantage and sometimes to save resources.
This is one trick that Starfield pulled from the cover. It’s about the rain, which doesn’t seem to leave a single square centimeter of the pitch dry, although in fact it only falls in our immediate vicinity. This way, they won’t have to introduce as many raindrops, which could actually be an unnecessary waste of resources if, for example, rain falls during the game where we can’t see it.
The ugliness was revealed when a player tried to use Starfield’s built-in photo mode during heavy rain, but this caused the camera to move further away from the character than any of the optional external views, and only a small area was actually affected. The rain, as if a small cloud was hovering above his head, drenching him just to the skin.
Did you know that Mario 1-1 uses the same image for both clouds and bushes? pic.twitter.com/B8WBLP7n20
– Tom Francis (@TomFrancisVFX) September 26, 2023
The image shared on Reddit surprised players who didn’t know the trick and inspired a number of developers to reveal more. Visual effects artist Tom Francis, lead team leader at Red Hook Games, initially joked that their secret had been exposed, then noted that Bethesda could have avoided the incident by attaching the rainbox to the camera rather than the character. He then pointed out that Mario’s clouds and bushes only differ in their color.
bungee world designer, Colin McGregor But he added that it’s nothing, and players will only be truly shocked when they discover that elevators or pictures on the wall are actually carefully disguised loading screens.
Robin Johnson Meanwhile, the indie game developer noted that in his first interview he only learned that when you turn your back on opponents in a game, they suddenly forget to aim and are more likely to side with you. This realization changed the way he thought about games: the goal of developers is not to simulate the world, but to create an experience.
“Every time a AAA title comes out, they get fired for not mimicking reality perfectly, when the truth is that the best thing about games is that they’re made up of a bunch of surprising gimmicks.”
– Another game developer added, Marika Redmoud.
