
As part of the latest Gamasutra podcast on next-gen development, Bethesda Software's Todd Howard (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) has commented on the trials of next-gen game development, noting that next-gen games must "pick their battles" when it comes to feature implementation.
Howard, who has just finished executive producing critically acclaimed Xbox 360 and PC titles Oblivion, commented in the podcast: "Now that you can see one game do amazing grass, or another game do amazing facial animation, consumers are savvy enough to to know that the hardware does all of this... You kind of feel obligated to do all of that, and so the time it takes to really detail out all of these elements goes up exponentially."
The Bethesda exec also added: "I think what we are sort of seeing is that you need to pick your battles. Meaning that the games overall might start doing less, but those elements are much, much more realized."

Push Square: "Echoes of Aincrad: Sword Art Online will see the long-standing franchise return to PS5 this summer, and based on what we saw at a recent Bandai Namco press event, it's set to be a fairly fresh take on the property."
Publisher Bandai Namco and developer Game Studio have announced action RPG Echoes of Aincrad: Sword Art Online for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC (Steam). It will launch on July 9 in Japan and July 10 worldwide. Pre-orders are available now.
The trailer is a bit underwhelming, but the graphics are great! I will wait for more gameplay videos.

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