cjmelendez_
When I finally had a chance to play DmC at this year’s New York Comic Con, I immediately noticed that there was something strange about Dante’s animations; they sorta looked as if they were at a higher framerate than the game’s controversial 30FPS. Some time ago, Capcom and Ninja Theory promised that the game will still be fluid and fast despite a drop in framerate from the series’ past games. Based on my own experience, it seems that they were right.
In a recent interview with Eurogamer, DmC‘s director Hideaki Itsuno spoke of how the team behind DmC found a way to make the game and combat feel like it was running at the highly fan-coveted 60FPS.
“During the course of the development of Dragon’s Dogma we did a lot of experimentation and happened upon some techniques for working with Unreal Engine, some fairly elaborate techniques, that allow for a controller responsiveness that gives the player the feel of 60 frames per second,” Itsuno told Eurogamer. When asked why Capcom and Ninja Theory opted for 30FPS from the beginning of development, Itsuno explained that the framerate cap was instituted so that Ninja Theory could create “the best visual style they were looking for”.
Itsuno also mentions that Capcom learned how to create a simulated 60FPS feel by their experience with the Unreal Engine when developing Dragon’s Dogma.
“60 frames per second is a speed the brain and the eye can catch up with and understand,” the director said. “But at 30 frames per second there’s a technique where you take advantage of the brain’s ability to fill in the blanks”. Itsuno then described the technique’s effect on players. “So even though you have it running at 30 frames per second, you create the motions and the poses in such a way that the brain will naturally fill in what would have been the extra frames,”
While many fans want the true 60 FPS experience that is limited to the PC version of the game, I think Itsuno and Ninja Theory successfully emulated the visual smoothness that twice the framerate provides. Whether this visual trick will satisfy hardcore Devil May Cry fans remains to be seen. I guess we’ll find out once the game releases.
