The First AAA Game in History

"I suddenly realized... we've been chatting away here all day, and it turns out Sega already knew how to play with Flow a long time ago."

Lin Lixin got off the machine.

The "smoothness" they pursued in this project was actually already perfectly presented in "Outrun".

The countdown timer, along with the excellent controls and map design, fills the entire game with the thrill of racing against time.

Every bend, every maneuver, must be done with the consideration of whether we can gain as much time as possible.

Smooth and fluid driving is the foundation of everything.

Furthermore, the more proficient one's skills, the greater the advantage in terms of time.

"It's still a bit different, after all, we're making 3D."

Cerny shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.

He was still with Sega around the time Outrun was created.

Although I didn't work under Yu Suzuki, I still had some contact with this machine that was of great significance to Sega.

In terms of hardware and software development capabilities for consoles, Sega may not be able to compare with others. But in the arcade arena, Sega is truly unrivaled.

"I feel that 'Outrun' is largely a gamble that Mr. Suzuki won."

Cerny continued,

"What he originally wanted was to experience driving Ferrari and taking his girlfriend on a trip."

Speed and fluidity have never actually been his strong suit.

Yu Suzuki's true strength lies in creating a positive user experience.

He always overemphasized the motion-sensing capabilities of the arcade cabinet, even to the point of completely abandoning cost control.

It's hard to say whether this style is good or bad.

While creating numerous excellent projects, Yu Suzuki also created many expensive but ultimately disastrous works.

But Outrun strikes a perfect balance in this regard.

While offering an excellent driving experience, it also highly retains Yu Suzuki's "experience-oriented" style.

That's how a Legend arcade machine was created. "Indeed, Yuji Naka is more suitable for this project, but that doesn't matter, because they'll all come, everyone will come."

Lin Lixin laughed heartily.

Sega is also one of our own, so for such a big project, it's naturally better to have more experts.

Gamenova has worked with Sega for so long that they didn't even need a break-in period.

A group of people can get right to work on the project once they arrive.

While both were Sega's top executives, Yuji Naka was much more agile in comparison.

When it comes to a sense of speed, what work can speak for itself better than Sonic the Hedgehog?

Most of the level designs in Sonic emphasize maintaining speed, or rather, maintaining "momentum".

Players need to maintain their speed as much as possible.

If a mistake is made, all the hard-earned speed will be wasted.

If Sonic can maintain high speed, he will run faster and faster.

This feeling of accumulating speed naturally brings a strong sense of exhilaration. And this idea is also very suitable for this project.

Considering that this was originally an arcade project, Lin Lixin simply brought Sega over as a package deal.

"Enough said, we need to get the substrate sorted out as soon as possible, otherwise the whole project team can't start."

Lin Lixin waved his hand, indicating that these things should be put aside for the time being.

Arcade game development differs from that of other platforms.

It is difficult to begin development work if the final substrate condition cannot be determined.

"A generic one definitely won't work; we need to design a dedicated substrate specifically for it."

Cerny nodded, and the two quickly returned to the hardware department.

The hardware requirements for Mirror's Edge were very clear, which saved them a lot of trouble.

Compared to other platforms.

Although arcade game development is complex, it also has a unique advantage.

That means they can actually design a dedicated hardware system for a single game. They don't need to consider any versatility or compatibility with other titles.

Everything on the entire board is truly designed to serve this game.

This gives them a lot of room to maneuver.

If it's a desktop PC, they might also need to consider installing a new-specification graphics card from the new wafer fab.

But arcade games...

You can do a lot of fancy tricks.

"The core requirement is definitely smoothness; I don't want any lag or stuttering under any circumstances."

Lin Lixin said.

Despite the fact that they made many extreme optimizations at the software level.

However, there are many more radical optimizations that can only be achieved through hardware-based solutions.

For example, in the case of Mortal Kombat, a special ASIC was designed for image encoding and decoding.

The problem is that no matter how much graphics performance is optimized, occasional loading events and rendering stress spikes can still lead to instability in low frame rates.

If this problem cannot be solved, then the so-called smoothness will ultimately only be a makeshift solution.

"Um..."

Lin Lixin pondered, looking at the concept drawing, when suddenly a very green idea came to his mind.

"Pre-baking is fine."

"Isn't it the same old thing? We've already done it."

"No, Cerny, not map pre-baking, I mean... route pre-calculation."

The game map is linear.

This means the route is fixed.

However, some players might choose to climb up on the left, while others might choose to climb up on the right...

The ultimate goal is exactly the same: to get from point A to point B.

In theory... "We exhaustively list as many possible routes as possible, and then let the game automatically correct itself, shifting the player's coordinates to the preset route."

If the number of possible possibilities is large enough, the player can be led by the game without even realizing it.

This kind of motion guidance is almost imperceptible, but it can turn all the things that were originally calculated in real time into table lookups.

That brings us back to the computer's strengths; it can be processed very quickly.

"Ah... it's like Nintendo's Pinball?"

Cerny, being a player skilled in both hardware and software, instantly understood what Lin Lixin wanted to do.

In Nintendo's 8-bit pinball game "Pinball," released on the Famicom (FC), the pinballs would bounce freely around the map.

It can even produce acceleration effects similar to those in physics.

But these are all illusions.

Essentially, this thing is just looking up a table.

Several movement modes are preset, and different speeds are dynamically selected based on the status.

It's a completely fake physics effect, but it performs exceptionally well.

"Yes, but we need to go even further, to the extreme."

Lin Lixin nodded.

"We need to design a dedicated ASIC circuit for this substrate, solely for handling table lookups."

"Then?"

"Then add motion blur and frame blending, also done using a dedicated ASIC."

For the sake of smoothness, low frame rate performance is far more important than the frame rate itself.

As long as the sudden stuttering can be resolved, then even if the game's frame rate is not ideal, it is actually acceptable.

"Most importantly, since we can predict the player's path, we can also predict what will happen in the next frame."

Truly modern design actually involves AI frame interpolation, which means inferring the interpolation of an intermediate frame based on the content of this frame and the next frame.

But trying to make this thing nowadays is simply wishful thinking.

However, since there are pre-defined routes, the next frame can be pre-loaded and predicted. Even if there are deviations, the difference within a few frames is difficult for the player's naked eye to perceive.

All that's needed is a software-level fix.

With the added effect of motion blur, it's absolutely realistic enough to fool anyone.

"If I had nanometer-scale manufacturing processes, I wouldn't need to go through all this trouble at all..."

Lin Lixin rubbed his temples helplessly.

The golden age was an era of constant struggle against hardware limitations.

As the absolute core of the current gamenova camp, they must produce some works that can hold their own.

This means they must constantly try to push their limits under extremely limited hardware conditions.

Even with cheat codes, this is still an extremely mentally taxing process.

Fortunately, everything is now resolved.

The rest is up to time.

As a developer who has a notebook of mistakes, Lin Lixin naturally tried his best to avoid the many pitfalls that the first "Mirror's Edge" encountered in its design.

The most important of these is, of course, the reliance on frame rate (fps).

At that time, DICE, or rather the entire video game industry, was in the midst of an FPS craze.

It's like in any 3D game, the character has to be holding a gun.

If it's not there, it feels like something's missing.

Dice tries to break this template, but doesn't dare to really go all out.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst proves that this IP truly doesn't need guns.

Take the subtraction approach to its fullest extent.

It doesn't need any fancy features, and it doesn't even need a UI.

All you need is a pre-prepared world and a pair of legs that move with exceptional speed.

That's enough.

As a must-see technical masterpiece from Gamenova every year, Lin Lixin has truly gone all out this time. Not to mention the many talented individuals from Gamenova headquarters.

Lucas Arts mobilized almost its entire team this time, with the photography crew and Uncle Long's team frantically collecting tons of data.

The goal was simply to create a complete library of parkour moves in one go.

He even made a special trip to France to seek out several street fighters for cross-training.

Industrial Light & Magic, needless to say, is Gamenova's go-to 3D team, so they naturally went all out this time.

Sega's core development teams, including those working on the AM2, AM8, and AM10, were also sent to Sega North America for reporting. After a short rest, they quickly got back to work.

In addition, there was visual supervision from Saul Bass, the father of motion graphics.

And Hans Zimmer, who is still training apprentices and tinkering with a whole host of instruments.

The recently completed Micro-Nova Semiconductor Phase II project, costing hundreds of millions of dollars; the Nova Arcade inherited from Atari Games; and the Nexus, responsible for the design of the leaderboards and network components...

This is a true galactic warship.

It's so luxurious it's almost exaggerated.

In a sense... this is probably the first AAA game in human history.