In a 12-minute demo showcased at E3, Quantic Dream's "The Dark Sorcerer" demonstrated to onlookers the power of PlayStation 4 graphics.
The short movie follows the filming of a scene with a sorcerer and a goblin attempting to call upon dark forces to, of course, threaten humanity. Hilarity ensues when things start to go on wrong on set.
David Cage, the director of Quantic Dream, wrote a blog on PlayStation's website explaining the importance of "The Dark Sorcerer." Cage started the blog with the following questions:
"When we started working on PS4, the question of the next short film arose. What could we do this time? What new field should we explore? Of course we were going to have a new next-gen graphic engine that would significantly improve the graphic quality. Of course we were going to try to push back the limits of performance capture, a technique that we are beginning to master after one year of intensive shooting for Beyond."
With short films for the PS3 like "Kara" pulling at heartstrings, Cage knew he had to test a different kind of emotion for the PS4: Comedy.
"Making people feel fear is actually fairly simple. Creep up behind someone without a sound and suddenly shout, and you'll startle them," Cage said in his blog post. "The problem with comedy is that you need a good story, pacing, and talented actors in order to get even a smile from your audience."
Cage and the Quantic Dream's team accomplished their goal with "The Dark Sorcerer." The demo gives gamers an early glimpse of the realistic expressions capable in the characters eyes and faces.
"I also wanted to test a character that, morphologically, would be not quite human in order to see how facial motion capture would adapt to a different morphology," said Cage in the blog post.
You can watch the short film in the video below.
