Outerra Anteworld Demo

Note: The Alpha version of the game can be purchased using the in-game wizard. Although technology has come a long way in the last couple of years when it comes to graphics and general gameplay mechanics, it’s still not there yet in regards to realism and photorealism. Unreal Engine 4 and CRYENGINE seem to be pushing the boundaries, but our home computers cannot handle too much at once yet, so that’s another limitation.

Outerra Anteworld is a tech demo that aims to show you just what’s possible with current technology in regards to terrain generation and handling large chunks of data at once. Hence, this game basically allows you to walk, drive or fly the entire planet Earth, which is as big as the real thing. It may sound too good to be true, but there are some limitations as well.

The first and most important of them is that only the geography is rendered, not actual cities or any man-made structures. Even so, the terrain scans are 90x90m, so you shouldn’t expect too much precision either. On the other hand, it’s enough to get the point across, and you have to remember that you are free to go anywhere on the planet, which is much more important.

As you might expect, the engine cuts some corners to fit all that information on the screen at the same time. To put it simply, it actually doesn’t, since everything is generated and displayed on the go, while everything else simply doesn’t exist until you look at it. Even the terrain data is downloaded on the go, so you do not have to store on your computer parts of the world you’ve never been to.

Speaking of which, the graphics are not bad at all, but there can be quite a few glitches and errors to watch out for. Some of them can even require a game restart in order to go away, which is obviously annoying. However, the actual graphics quality is more than decent, especially if you activate the experimental Oculus Rift support and immerse yourself in the atmosphere.

When it’s all said and done, Outerra Anteworld is certainly a great product, especially if you enjoy exploration. The fact that it only features terrain data may be a problem for some and a blessing for others, but it’s quite clear that there’s more content on the way.