Quantum Break, the new shooter from Remedy with Sci-Fi leanings looks incredible – and it’s one of the games coming in the next few months that we’re pretty excited for. It’s doing something a little different – blending the game play with live action cut-scenes in an episodic way, making them a bit like an episodic TV show. It’s a pretty grad and interesting experiment.
It’ll be quite interesting to see just how that pans out – but it’s not really good news for bandwidth-strapped South Africans. That live-action content won’t be included with the game on a disc. That means that you’ll have to either stream the video, or download it beforehand. The latter option, however, won’t be available to PC users – who can instead stream it in resolutions up to 4K.
For those who’re on metered connections, that makes Quantum Break half an experience. And it’s not just because of the file sizes. Speaking to Game Informer, Remedy’s Greg Louden explained why streaming was the only really viable option.
“We have 40 different variations of the show in total where basically your choices get to make it evolve and change whether it’s from a junction choice or we have these things called ‘Quantum Ripples’ which essentially unlocked sort of deleted scenes from the show,” narrative designer Greg Louden says. “Then combined with that, the show length can change based on your decisions because some episodes are longer as a result and some episodes are shorter. It basically evolves and that’s why we needed to stream it.”
And according to Louden, all that variation makes for a lot of data – making it being on disc unfeasible.
“I can’t give you an exact size, but it is big, so we wanted to create this high quality game experience and use all the disc space to maximize the visual effects qualities of the animations and all that stuff. So for us, it was kind of like a natural choice,” he says. “Also, our desire to really make it change… I think if we only had one show, it probably would have fit, but we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to do this active experience where you negotiate the story and change it, so this was the only real solution to our problem. When we figured out how big the data was, we had to backpedal and think of some good solutions and this made sense.”
I’m still terribly excited – but I’m in a really fortunate position where I don’t have to worry about bandwidth limits. The many of you who do though, are going to have issues. The problem here s that this is really the only solution that makes sense, if Remedy’s grand plans are to be realised.
Last Updated: March 2, 2016
Pieter Kruger
March 2, 2016 at 09:07
Luckily I can stream away! Not being able to watch the TV show (albeit not compulsory), would definitely take away from the whole experience.
Fox1 - Retro
March 2, 2016 at 09:10
The first complaint I here when anyone buys a PS4 or Xbox One is the size of the updates. My only reply is that’s next-gen gaming for you.
Blu-Ray is a good technology but it’s meeting it’s limit and dev’s are starting to move beyond that.
Pieter Kruger
March 2, 2016 at 09:19
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/20/superman-memory-crystal-lets-you-store-360tb-worth-of-data.html
Hammersteyn
March 2, 2016 at 09:32
O_o that’s awesome!
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
March 2, 2016 at 09:34
I wouldn’t like to be the one to get a read error on that little disk though…
Hammersteyn
March 2, 2016 at 09:34
Or forgot where you left it
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
March 2, 2016 at 09:46
HA! That, or mistake it for a contact lens….
Hammersteyn
March 2, 2016 at 09:32
Blu-Ray is something that the master race doesn’t even have yet XD
Fox1 - Retro
March 2, 2016 at 09:35
They don’t wanna be “inserting” discs 😛
Seriously though, do PC games still come on disc?
Hammersteyn
March 2, 2016 at 09:35
Xcom 2 came on four discs apparently
Fox1 - Retro
March 2, 2016 at 09:44
That’s too much of arm work:P
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
March 2, 2016 at 09:47
It’s good exercise for your drinking arm, ok?
Commander Admiral Chief
March 2, 2016 at 10:16
We evolved to bigger hard drives
Hammersteyn
March 2, 2016 at 10:23
If only I can upgrade mine….oh wait 😛
Darren Peach
March 2, 2016 at 13:58
I wonder who would win in a fight between the master race and console guys. They will swing their mice at us like flails and we will just stand out of reach and point and laugh. They will probably break a hip in the process. We Win !
Hammersteyn
March 2, 2016 at 14:03
hahahaha
Alien Emperor Trevor
March 2, 2016 at 14:09
We don’t need to resort to physical activity, just tell you exclusive game X is coming to PC now & they’ll all die of rage-induced heart attacks or strokes.
Darren Peach
March 2, 2016 at 14:15
But………………….Last of Us………Uncharted………Bloodborne……….Gran Turismo……..Shadow of the Colossus……… DROP THE MIC !
Alien Emperor Trevor
March 2, 2016 at 14:34
Yes, but that doesn’t work on me because I don’t know what those are. :/
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
March 2, 2016 at 14:48
Even if you did, would you care?
oVg
March 2, 2016 at 11:13
Like making more memory for less optimising. I bet a third of the code in these 50gig games are duplicated over and over. They needed skill for those DVD9s.
Fox1 - Retro
March 2, 2016 at 09:36
This does put the South African gamer in an odd position though. Most data accounts are uncapped from midnight onwards. Anyone wanna be a midnight gamer?
Commander Admiral Chief
March 2, 2016 at 10:15
CLOUDPOWA
miaau
March 2, 2016 at 10:16
I think that makes sense. It also gives them the option of making new shows, with a streaming method already in place.
Clever. Just, as Geoff said, not so great for us in SA.
RinceThis
March 2, 2016 at 10:28
So you get to spend another R1200 on cap? Winna!
oVg
March 2, 2016 at 11:22
Could be worse… Hold on, has anybody asked if the game can be played when the internet is down?
oVg
March 2, 2016 at 11:11
24h DRM 24h DRM 24h DRM 24h DRM 24h DRM 24h DRM 24h DRM 24h DRM 24h DRM
FAIL
ON-LINE ONLY ON-LINE ONLY ON-LINE ONLY ON-LINE ONLY ON-LINE ONLY ON-LINE ONLY
WIN
oVg
March 2, 2016 at 11:12
SO, another Titanfall for South Africans 😛
oVg
March 2, 2016 at 11:15
Microsofts answer to the Blu-Ray wars. Anybody want to buy my HD DVD drive?
oVg
March 2, 2016 at 11:22
TV TTV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV