Quantum Break will have its own GDC 2016 session titled Advanced Graphics Techniques Tutorial Day: Developing The Northlight Engine: Lessons Learned.
Remedy Entertainment's Graphics Programmer Ville Timonen will explain how the Finnish developer overcame certain performance and efficiency issues while developing the Northlight engine for Quantum Break.
Northlight is Remedy Entertainment's in-house game engine which powers Quantum Break. In this presentation we discuss how various rendering performance and efficiency issues were solved with DirectX, and suggest design guidelines for modern graphics API usage.
Just like Alan Wake, Quantum Break received a series of delays - the game was originally meant to launch in 2014, but it was first moved to 2015 and then to 2016.
It will be interesting to see if this GDC 2016 session will provide any insight on exactly which issues Remedy Games ran into. In the meantime, Remedy Entertainment's Head of PR Thomas Puha addressed in two different posts on the Neogaf board one of the long standing issues that the gaming community raised to Quantum Break's developers: the apparently weak AI. According to him, AI wasn't fully implemented in the gameplay footage showcased so far.
So a lot of the footage you have seen is from summer 2015 for Gamescom. AI really was not done at that point, hence the enemies in the trailers don't seem to give you much fight.
He also added that there will indeed be enemies capable of providing a serious challenge to protagonist Jack Joyce, despite his time controlling powers.
There are enemies like the Strikers who share some Jack's capabilities via Chronon technology, so they can warp around etc...they will give you a challenge. Trust me.
Microsoft and Remedy Entertainment are aiming very high with Quantum Break. The game has been tied heavily into a live action mini series featuring professional actors of the caliber of Aidan Gillen, Courtney Hope, Lance Reddick, Dominic Monaghan and obviously, Shawn Ashmore; choices made in the game will influence both the game and the TV show (which is mainly about the villains, while the game is about the heroes).
There's more, though, as just a couple of days ago it was announced that a novel titled Quantum Break: Zero State will be available on April 5, 2016, just like the game. This novel, written by Cam Rogers and published by Tor Books, "greatly expands on the game story, offering intriguing new timelines and characters to explore" according to the press release.
Quantum Break was easily listed as one of our most anticipated action/adventure games launching in 2016 and it's also the biggest announced Xbox One exclusive. Stay tuned for more coverage as the release date approaches.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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