Is the Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 teaser truly a taste of next-gen power?

We've seen snippets of Halo Infinite over the last couple of years, but the recent reveal of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 was explicitly trailed as our first taste of what the next generation in console hardware will deliver from a visual perspective. However, confusion surrounds the nature of the content, which has been described as running in real-time and also as in-engine - two terms that are not exactly compatible with one another. Assuming this is much more than the standard CG trailer or the discredited notion of the 'target render', what does the reveal tell us about Microsoft's vision for the next generation of console gaming? It looks great, but can the advances actually be quantified and qualified in any way?

The use of the phrase 'in-engine' is a catch-all term that can mean just about anything, but based on established precedents, it indicates that we're looking at something closer to the real game than a CG teaser and in turn, it also suggests that we're getting a first look at what Unreal Engine 4 may be capable of delivering on the next wave of consoles. And while we're not exactly convinced it is running in real-time as such, there are imperfections in the presentation that seemingly rule out a pure CG asset.

For example, the depth of field effect in the trailer has standard problems we find in current-gen implementations of the effect, such as halos around certain objects. Similarly, tiny strands of Senua's hair pop and fizzle around the depth of field - something that wouldn't happen with super-sampling or a pure CG render. That said, these minor blemishes are literally all we could find in what is otherwise a nigh-on flawless presentation. Stacked up against Hellblade 1 on PC running maxed on an RTX 2080 Ti at native 4K, it's a night and day improvement in terms of image quality.

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