In a recent interview with GameSpot, Kim Libreri, chief technical officer of epic Games, spoke about the relationship between films and video games and how the latter, with the advent of the next-gen and the new possibilities offered byU, may increasingly thin the boundary that separates them from the cinema. These are his words:
Almost everything we've done that allows Hollywood to create better pixels is also used by game developers. But what's really interesting is that we're now seeing a crossover in the way people think about the two industries. Facial animation technology is pretty much the same in both areas. If you play Red Dead Redemption or Horizon Zero Dawn, these games have great facial animations. They may not have the same fidelity as cinema today on this generation, but they will have it on the next. The two industries are helping each other.
I think there will be a continuum between the two worlds [movies and video games]. I think the content creators working to create CG assets, whether it's making a car or making a chair or whatever, will be the same for both industries. We will see a massive intertwining between these two worlds. Does this mean that games and movies will be better? Yes, but I think we will also see new types of entertainment.
See for example how we are thinning the boundaries in Fortnite, we are organizing concerts that involve millions of people. And I think entertainment will move towards this fantastic mutation over the next five years, which will blur the line.
The next few years will therefore certainly be interesting in this sense, as we will be able to see the effects that the new graphics engines will bring to the graphic representation in video games. Epic Games had talked about this even not many days ago, stating that the Unreal Engine 5 will bring games even closer to photorealism and simulation of reality.
