Reducing game start-up times (Eurogamer / Killzone SF)

[Icemage]

There's an interesting revelation about Killzone: Shadowfall in this Eurogamer interview with Guerilla Games' Michiel van der Leeuw:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...used-to-be-290

Whether played from hard disc or Blu-ray, van der Leeuw is particularly proud of how fast and seamlessly the game loads; it's been a pet project for the tech director, who hates how slow modern games have become to operate. Guerrilla has completely eliminated in-game load times after an initial 30 seconds, and removed all logos and splash screens from the game's start-up routine. It may take a while to download Killzone Shadow Fall, but once you have it, the game comes to you very quickly indeed.

"To me, that's still something that fills my heart with joy when I see it. You insert the disc and go straight to menu," he says. "People here worked very hard... We had to ask legal and Dolby, the epilepsy warning stuff, the logos from Havok - we had to negotiate with them that we could put it in the credits and not the title screen... All the rules are built around the previous generation. I'm really happy that we're one of the first ones in, and I hope it's an example that people are going to follow.

"I get as annoyed by all these screens as you do. I'm 36, I don't have a lot of time to game, when I do I don't want be distracted by things that have nothing to do with playing the game... We came from a day and age with a cartridge, you stuck it in and like, 'bleep!', and you were playing the game. And slowly that has degenerated into experiences which are more beautiful and big and prestigious, but they feel... heavy. To me, it's about feeling. The feeling of something that, you say play and it starts to play - it feels qualitatively beautiful."

Van der Leeuw talks animatedly at the best of times, but it's when talking about the "immediacy" of loading Shadow Fall - not its stunning new lighting techniques or 1080p display resolution - that he is most passionate by far. If next-gen gaming means huge file sizes but never seeing an in-game loading screen again, then I'm with him - it's a price worth paying.

Now THIS is innovation I can get behind. Less waiting to start games, stop wasting my time staring at the same logo I've seen for years.

I hope every single game takes a cue from KZ:SF and tosses those company logos where they belong: in the credits!