Like sands through an hourglass: Conan Exiles gets real-time simulated sand
It appears that Conan Exiles wants to make sand the new HairWorks/SpeedTree/wet pavement/god rays/water effects. Conan Exiles is in a parched land. It makes sense that sand has to be the driving force behind environmental immersion.
These sand effects are a symptom of what also drives developer Funcom: graphical powerhousing. When the Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures MMO came out in 2008, it brought a lot of PCs to a screeching halt. Upgrading gaming rigs became the pre-launch topic of discussion. I don't know if they're pushing that hard in Conan Exiles' open-world survival sandscape, but with the lovely Black Desert Online turning heads, graphically, it's easy to speculate that Funcom would like that crown back, please and thank you.
In a press release, Funcom CEO Rui Casais says, "Funcom and NVIDIA have been working together for years creating cutting-edge graphics experiences. Eight years ago we worked on Age of Conan and delivered some of the most advanced graphics ever seen in massively multiplayer online games, and now we are working with their engineers to achieve the same for the open-world survival genre."
Which leads us to the announcement that Funcom and NVIDIA are crafting Conan Exiles together. Looks like there's still some mileage left in NVIDIA's "The Way It's Meant to Be Played" program.
Conan Exiles is in development for PC. No announced launch date. Definitely don't expect it this year. It'll be deep into 2017 or even 2018, I'm guessing.
Funcom and NVIDIA engineers unleash cutting-edge graphics for Conan Exiles, Funcom's upcoming open-world survival game
Oslo, Norway – June 8th, 2016 – Funcom, the independent developer and publisher of computer and console games, today announced it is working with NVIDIA to bring cutting-edge graphics—including advanced graphical features such as real-time simulated sand that is impacted by everything falling into and moving through it to Funcom's upcoming open-world survival game Conan Exiles.
"Funcom and NVIDIA have been working together for years creating cutting-edge graphics experiences," said Funcom CEO Rui Casais. "Eight years ago we worked on Age of Conan and delivered some of the most advanced graphics ever seen in the massively multiplayer online games, and now we are working with their engineers to achieve the same for the open-world survival genre."
Funcom and NVIDIA will also be working on co-promotional opportunities for Conan Exiles, entering it into NVIDIA's "The Way It's Meant to be Played" program. Funcom recently announced that the company will be releasing the first trailer featuring gameplay footage this week, and the countdown to the big event has already started in Conan Exiles community channels.
Conan Exiles is an open-world survival game where players are cast into a barbaric wasteland where the weak are crushed and the strong survive. Here they must survive, build, and dominate on their own or in multiplayer on public and private servers. Players will get to explore a vast, seamless world full of dangers and rewards, and they must harvest resources to craft weapons, tools, and even buildings and entire settlements. The game features bloody, visceral combat and will see players clash in epic fights for domination of the barbaric lands. The game is set to enter Early Access during late summer 2016, with a full release on PC and consoles to follow.
"Funcom is renowned for pushing the visual and artistic quality of its games to the limit," stated Keita Iida, senior director, global content management at NVIDIA. "With help from our GameWorks game development tools and our world-class visual computing engineers, Funcom is set to deliver an amazing, reimagined world of Conan."
