The latest engine upgrade to Santa Monica Studio’s engine, as seen in God of War Laufey, brings real-time visuals closer to the CGI cinematic trailer for the 2018 original.
A comparison between the opening sequence of 2018’s God of War and the upcoming God of War Laufey shows just how far Santa Monica Studio’s engine has come, revealing a major engine upgrade that brings the latter’s visuals closer to the former’s CGI cinematic trailer. Read ahead for further details.
God of War 2018 vs Laufey vs CGI Cinematic Comparison
A screenshot comparison between scenes from God of War (2018), God of War Laufey, and the God of War (2018) CGI Cinematic trailer can be seen below.
God of War (2018)
God of War Laufey
God of War (2018) CGI Cinematic Trailer
The comparison shows a major upgrade to character rendering and lighting in God of War Laufey over the 2018 original. While it doesn’t quite reach the level of fidelity seen in the pre-rendered cinematic, it has certainly got closer.
Going by the gameplay footage revealed at the recent State of Play presentation, God of War Laufey still appears to be relying on rasterization for a majority or all of its graphical features. Unlike footage seen from Marvel’s Wolverine, the game appears to be using standard screen-space reflections (SSR). It’s likely a similar situation for global illumination, shadows, and ambient occlusion. The footage shown was running on a PS5 Pro, so this will likely be the best possible way to play the game until the inevitable PS6 version adds ray-traced graphical features. However, the PS5 version of God of War: Ragnarok did take advantage of ray-tracing to deliver more accurate cubemap fallback reflections for SSR in some cases in its Graphics mode, and the same may be the case for God of War Laufey.
God of War Laufey is set for release exclusively for PlayStation 5.
