Agni's Philosophy: Square's Final Graphics Fantasy 

There's a very good chance this will prove to be entirely irrelevant in time, given this is a blog about Spectrum Amiga board foot-to-ball PC gaming, but I post it as an honest point of curiosity as well as due to the potential that a Square-Enix internal studio might use it for something like a Deus Ex or Hitman or Thief or Sleeping Dogs or something further down the line. Real-time tech demo Agni's Philosophy is intended to demonstrate Squeenix's next-generation engine, which will most likely be used for a hiss, spit Final Fantasy game for whatever the next round of consoleboxes turns out to be. It's impressive stuff for sure, even if it's transparently impossible that a properly interactive game with hours of content cannot possibly look anywhere near as strong and detailed as this regardless of what graphicsability future-consoles and PCs might have. The idea that we might get anywhere near it is enticing though, most especially because the hair rendering could mean some incredibly convincing beards. Beards are what PC gaming is all about, after all.

So, yeah. Very pretty. As I understand it, it was rendered on a PC, but like I say, may never actually wind up on PC (though as all the big pubs seem to be taking this platform a bit more seriously even if they won't acknowledge it in the cheese'n'blood orgasms that are their E3 conferences, it's not as impossible as once was that future Final Fantasies drag their over-written, achingly earnest frames this way) but if nothing else it's good to know what a big publisher believes is possible from current/near-future graphics hardware.

More pics here.