Welcome to the first in a series of editorials that will address the ways in which video games mimic (or attempt to mimic) reality. Realism is often high on the list of requirements for those purchasing a game, so I believe the current status and its potential future should be discussed. Thus, I will begin with the most prominent and obvious facet of realism: graphics.

Satoru Iwata is known to have stated during the final stages of the PS2/Xbox/GameCube era that graphics technology has reached its "saturation point," or, in other words, that photorealism has already been achieved and that there is little room for improvement. Frankly, I believe Mr. Iwata is not only mistaken, but I would go so far as to say he’s dead wrong. Of course, many people shared Iwata’s sentiment that graphics should take a backseat to gameplay, but I’ll leave that for another article.

To give an illustration of how far technology has to go, I’ll paint a picture of what should eventually be expected of a game engine. Take this simple scenario: after walking along a dirt path, the player character glances over to a small box floating on the surface of a small pond and proceeds to pick it up. Simple enough, right? In order to make this scene look real, several things must happen. While walking along the path, particles of dust must kick up as the character takes each step. Any stones in the way of his foot must be pushed forward as he walks. If he steps on one, his shoe must warp around it. As he approaches the grass, it must blow in the direction of the wind according to its physical structure, and must flatten temporarily as he steps on it. Upon reaching the water, depending on its pollution and the objects on its surface, it must reflect the environment dynamically. It must react to the wind, the creatures moving underwater, and the motion the floating box makes as it is picked up. Furthermore, a bit of excess water must drip from the lowest corner of the box until it is sufficiently dry.

At present, to put it bluntly, there is no way in hell or on Earth that the Xbox 360 or PS3 could render such realism in real-time. Strides have been made toward this end, but even these days problems with graphical clipping (polygonal overlap, which I thought was a relic of our PSX and N64 past) are present. Techniques to create mind-blowing effects are always being developed, but often times there is no affordable hardware that is able to calculate them. Even if hardware is available, newer methods can cause a lowered framerate, jagged polygons, and, in worse cases, system failure.

For a moment, let’s assume that we’re thirty years in the future. Game consoles now produce visuals that are all but indistinguishable from reality. By this time, physics engines have supposedly reached their peak, as well. Just like now, there are those who believe that there is nothing more to be done in this area, and they’d prefer to shift focus toward game design. But I don’t think, even in thirty years’ time, that we’ll have reached a point where every object a character comes in contact with will be affected in some visible or subtle way. But is this really necessary? Should we take it down to the molecular level, producing virtual worlds that function almost precisely like their real-world counterparts? Only time will tell if we’ll ever be satisfied enough to stop pushing forward. For now, there’s a lot of work to be done.