From Kratos to the fearsome Rathalos, see the polygonal evolution of 5 iconic PlayStation characters

PlayStation Blog (EU): From God of War to Tekken, developers detail the massive improvements of your favourite game characters between the different console generations.

[Lazyeye79]

It's cool to see how far we've come graphically. Can't wait to see what can be done next generation.

[Wasabi]

@Lazyeye

I agree, comparing games from the PS1 and PS2 era to today's games, the improvement in polycount is huge.

After saying this, I think it's actually quite surprising how well Monster Hunter's Rathalos and Palico's hold up even by today's standard because of the stellar art direction in Capcom's series of games, the same can be said about God of War.

[bouzebbal]

I wish console mascots could make a comeback.. Sonic Mario Crash were the main fanboy topic of discussion in the 90s lol
PS now has way too many contenders, not a single one managed to be on all consoles.

[Wasabi]

I think it's a little bit of a stretch to call Rathalos and the Palicos from Capcom's Monster Hunter series "iconic PlayStation characters".

The Monster Hunter series may have started on PlayStation platforms, but it's since released on Windows, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS. If anything they are iconic Capcom characters.
The same argument could be made about Tekken to a lesser extent.

PlayStation has lots of iconic characters, exclusive to the platform that would have made a better fit for the article, Nathan Drake being a prime example.

[AspiringProGenji]

It was Capcom themselves who posted the picture, so they wanted to share how much their own series has evolved too

[UltraNova]

And it was PS Blog that made the article...

Why take offense in this wasabi?

[Wasabi]

@Genji

I agree 100% buddy, I'm sure Capcom were happy to share the evolution of their artwork, I'm just not sure they'd be happy with the wording of the blog post that suggests that a character design / Intellectual Property owned by them was being credited as a PlayStation character and not a Capcom IP.

Nonetheless, the series has evolved massively from the original incarnation of the game the increased Polygon count on the Rathalos looks amazing, especially in motion! I think it's really interesting just how well the original artwork still holds up today though, I think Capcom's art direction is superb.

[MrVux000]

Kratos face has over 30000 polygons in God Of war (2018). Saying that is impressive, would be an understatement.

[UltraNova]

Indeed!

[ClayRules2012]

I didn’t know that. Sweet niblets, that’s remarkable. No wonder it’s one of the most amazingly detailed faces this console generation haha. SSM have some incredible artists.

[ClayRules2012]

“The Kratos model for the new God of War was created from scratch with the intent of pushing the technology of what we have done before at Santa Monica Studio,” says Rafael Grassetti, art director at Santa Monica Studios. “The geometry was made with a higher density from most of the games because we were going to explore things like muscle deformation systems underneath the skin and we needed enough geometry to drive that information.

“Kratos from God of War 2 (PS2) had 5,700 polygons for his entire body, 1,200 of those for the face and used five textures. Kratos from God of War 3 (PS3) had 64,000 polygons for his entire body, 5,700 for the face, which was already a big improvement. But compared to what we can do with the PS4 system, it is still not enough for what we wanted to accomplish. The Kratos for God of War (PS4) has 80,000 polygons in total, with 32,000 for the face – 30x what we had for the PS2 models”

[CanadianTurtle]

I remember reading somewhere a while back that the polygonal count for Kratos's model in GOW3 had more than 20,000 polygons. The PS2 model had only 5000 polygons. Man, how things change within just a span of a few years.
To this day, GOW3 is one of the best games I've ever played. I would classify it as top 10 best games of last gen.