Back when the PS4 and Xbox One were announced, “next-gen” meant a lot of things to a lot of people. Smarter games, bigger games, different games, more ways to play with your friends. But it also meant that games would look a whole lot better.
It could sometimes be hard to tell just what that meant. We’ve learned not to entirely trust the screenshots sent to the public by publishers, as they’re often scrubbed-up “bullshots” designed to make a game look smoother and prettier than it ever actually looks as you play it.
That’s not the case with the PS4 game Infamous: Second Son. Fire the game up for the first time and it’s clear: It is beautiful. And, thanks to the recently-added Photo Mode, players have begun to take the time to capture and celebrate just how good-looking it all is.
I’ve been following a couple of Internet spots that have become hubs of Second Son screenshot-activity — there’s the #SSPhoto tag on Twitter, as well as a really cool screenshot contest going on over at the gaming forum NeoGAF. Here are some of the best shots I’ve seen.
The following images are all fan-made, authentic PS4 screenshots that look as good as we all expected next-gen to look. Hell, most of them look better than any of the Sony-approved promotional screenshots we in the press got during the buildup to the game’s release.
Most of these shots were posted without titles, so I made some up. Also, heads up that a couple of these could be considered minor spoilers for the game — one shows a character from the Paper Trail DLC and another shows a boss from the main story.
As usual, click “expand” to get the full effect:
Chain Reaction by R8TEDM3.
Shell Ejection by xenogenesis.
Birds of Choice by Scott.
Fireflies by Famassu.
Selfie Photobomb by Imran Zikri
Papercraft by Dane Brown.
Oh Hey It’s Actual Seattle by Hedge.
Raindrops by Dr. Guido.
Wind Sprint by Talal.
Rock Boss by Bishop89.
Leaky ATM also by Hedge.
Sly & Friends by Mitchell Bennett.
Oh, Snap by Tokyo Slim.
Neon Leap by Jan Harald.
Hot Chain by R8TEDM3.
Sailors Take Warning by Me.
Warm Reception by Terry Estep.
Noir Blur by Zomba13.
Katie’s Pub via Josh Rife.
Great Outdoors by KiraXD.
Chain Link by Jack Lucas.
Rainy Day by M.Steiner.
Sunset Workout by Man-is-Obsolete.
Superfriends by Thabet Yusuf.
And my personal favourite, by NeoGAF poster Kane1345:
There are many more out there, so if you’ve seen more amazing shots, I hope you’ll share them below.
Comments
13 responses to “Real PS4 Screenshots Justify All That ‘Next-Gen’ Hype”
Wow, there is no question of the visuals in Second Son.
But for me the game felt empty overall. A very detailed coat of paint on some very old problems.
Saying that though I plan to head back on soon to finish the paper trail missions and have a play with the photo mode.
I just hope this isn’t a warning of what’s to come
Go back and play the first gen ps3 and 360 games. Most of them had the same feel to them, shiny coat of paint, last gen gameplay feel. It was only 2 – 3 years into the cycle that games got ‘different’ with games like Gears of War, Little Big Planet, GTA IV etc offering up a different style of game that actually took advantage of the console.
Oh I get that.
But in this case it felt like the game play went backward and we aren’t talking about a new company with a new IP. They were also one of the companies who commented on how easy the PS4 was to develop for.
The pure sexy this game showed visually was a clear indication they weren’t stumbling around trying to find their feet, they put looks over the story and content and it showed. A little more effort in fleshing out the story and side content would have gone a long way
My guess is Sony was on them to release the game in a timely fashion with Xbox one and Titanfall recently released.
I replied to you but my comment posted at the bottom, my main point was that I think the game seems emptier because it is missing the narration by the character and is lacking variety in the side missions (Probably due to time constraints).
The gameplay is far improved and the whole game is ‘complete’ be it a little simple. IE: A good launch title, at least it’s not a half baked one with performance issues.
Pretty pixels are nice. But once again I really hope they just don’t just use all of the extra computational power to pump prettier pixels.
I want to see smarter, more immersive environments that go to a much higer level of complexity. Larger number of AI with more lifelike behavious, higher number of objects to interact with. I have no problem with current gen visuals if they can add more complexity.
Problem is, and always has been, marketing. You can’t make a poster or billboard which advertises complexity and deep character interaction. They want pretty pixels.
We’re yet to get that with PC games, yet alone console games. When we actually start seeing AI start pushing boundaries on PC games, maybe then it’ll start filtering down to consoles.
I think Dead Rising 3 did a good job with increasing the amount of NPCs in the world, but unfortunately flashy graphics are the “lowest common denominator” when it comes to selling games so that’ll keep getting pushed instead. But yeah, smart citizens walking around on the street would be nice. eg avoiding situations like in the original inFamous people would come up to you cheering you on while you’re getting shot at by enemies so they died and it wasn’t your fault 😐
I’m still disappointed that The Paper Trail wasn’t a Read or Die game announcement…
Is Ps4 the best console ever?
The thing that stands out to me about this game is that seeing it in action (the local EB has an in-store playable display) it’s the first “next gen” game that manages to make games on my 360 look old.
That’s significant because 360 games do not look shabby at all in fact a lot of them look photo-realistic so to see something that’s a cut above is quite pleasing – I didn’t think this generation would produce something so soon with a discernible improvement in graphics so kudos to Sucker Punch
I don’t know. I think that the gameplay was massively improved. I went back and re-played the first one… MAAAAN it’s frustrating. Also, the story (IMO) was simple but very well told and the characters were nice and as usual there was a nice amount of backstory that would normally be associated with ‘dead drops’ in the other Infamous games.
I will say that I felt that the content was lacking (Which occasionally made the game feel emptier than it’s predecessors. Although TBH I think a lot of the empty feeling is due to the fact that they dropped the strong narrative by the main character, which I quite enjoyed from the previous games but each to their own, making it feel far simpler because all we are given is face value, not their inner thoughts that gave the previous games their comicbook-like weight and told a lot of the narrative. When you think of it like that then I think the first two would also have felt so empty without it, again IMO.)
Back to the point: I would have like extra side mission types/ variety. I believe the lack is due to the game being an ‘early next-gen’ title. It’s pretty normal for games like this to come out. It’s sad and I think time constraints probably brought it down, being a new engine etc. At least the game was ‘finished’ even if it was short and simple. Theres nothing worse than a game that is half baked and I don’t think this one was, it’s solid, it’s all there, but only JUST all there.
Infamous was solid but could have been more (Just like Killzone, Forza, Assassins Creed IV) but at least they shipped a solid package this early in the gen…. Cough BF4. So I’m looking forward too what SP do next because their story telling and development skills are blatantly better with every release.
I also like how they describe the photos will have “minor spoilers”… then show the end game boss…
As for the photos, there is some ridiculously great shots in there and still amazed they are all in game and user generated, some of them really look like lest gen bullshots.
Just finnished Infamous Second Son and had a fun time. Its a light game mechanics wise espeially coming off Dark Souls II but that made it a refreshing change of pace. I followed the advice from a Kotarku article and played it on Expert. I am glad as I sense normal would of been too easy while expert forced you to use variety of skills and made upgrading vital.
Plot wise unlike many I think its pretty good and I was pleasantly surprised that Fetch was not your stereo typical blond with big boobs wearing f**k all crap. Augustines story was the one I had the most problems with as the contradictions between her motivations and actions just didn’t make sense to me. The papertrail is terrific, if you haven’t watched the OVA and anime series R.O.D. (Read or Die) it’s a must especially the movie.