Tencent’s NEXT Studios is focused on delivering game experiences that take advantage of the most advanced graphics technology on the market. At GTC CHINA – taking place December 16-19 at Suzhou Jinji Lake International Conference Center – Yuan Xie (Tencent) and Mi Wang (Epic Games) will explain how SYNCED: Off-Planet, NEXT’s upcoming team shooter, will be using RTX and UE4 to deliver bleeding-edge gameplay visuals.
In advance of the GTC presentation, we talked to Tencent’s NEXT Studios about the new project.
NVIDIA: SYNCED: Off Planet is described as a PVPVE game. Can you break down what that means?
NEXT: PvPvE brings a whole new gameplay experience to the player. You face off against both live opponents and swarms of non-player characters.
NVIDIA: So, you’re looking to innovate in a popular genre mechanically. How are you aiming to innovate technologically?
NEXT: We want to offer our players a game with hyper-realistic rendering and stunning next-gen visuals. Partnering with NVIDIA allowed us to fully incorporate RTX technology.
NVIDIA: What is the Mission Statement for NEXT Studios?
NEXT: New Experiences and Technology with Boundless Play.
NVIDIA: How would you define a “Next-Generation” gameplay experience?
NEXT: Next Generation gameplay experiences contain both real world photographical visual rendering and brand-new gameplay. We want to create a worlds and adventures that players have never experienced before.
NVIDIA: Are you building SYNCED: Off Planet principally for a local or a global market?
NEXT: This game is for the global premium market.
NVIDIA: How large is the Synced: Off Planet team?
NEXT: The team is about 70 devs in-house at the moment, with Co-dev partnership with Studio Gobo from UK.
NVIDIA: Is this the first work this team has produced with real-time ray tracing?
NEXT: Yes, indeed it is.
NVIDIA: What convinced you to add ray tracing to Synced: Off Planet?
NEXT: As our mission stated, bring in new experiences and technology.
NVIDIA: How long have you been working on Synced: Off Planet?
NEXT: It’s been 20 months now.
NVIDIA: What development advantages have come with moving to real-time ray tracing?
NEXT: It unlocked a whole new world of rendering highly realistic environments, which we could not do before.
NVIDIA: What tips would you provide to other developers who are adding real-time ray tracing to their pipeline for the first time?
NEXT: Mastering the tools from UE4, and making sure all the art pipelines are designed for RTX technology.
NVIDIA: How is real-time ray tracing changing the gaming industry?
NEXT: It’s setting up the industry standard at the moment, and in the near future every big game should and will have this technology.
NVIDIA: Will all of NEXT’s games use ray tracing moving forward?
NEXT: All the major release for our future games should have RTX as a basic feature.
NVIDIA: What was your biggest learning from working on this project?
NEXT: Embracing new technology is not something that can be easily done, but along the way we are also mastering this future standard and making sure our pipelines and tools are up-to-date with the most advanced tech and quality result.
NVIDIA: When gamers jump into the game for the first time, what would you want to make sure they pay attention to?
NEXT: Check the shadows and reflections RTX brings. Once you see that, it’ll be hard to go back.
To learn more about SYNCED: Off Planet, please consider attending GTC CHINA, or go to Next Studios’ website: https://www.nextstudios.com/sop/#section1
