Will You Miss Loading Screens?

One of the more exciting reveals on the recent PS5 Wired article is the possibility of almost imperceptible load times through the use of a modded SSD. Loading screens are there as a workaround for limited technology but some devs made it compelling to sit through it and serves as a break from the things happening on screen. For example, the elevator ride in Mass Effect was something I look forward to every now and again for the character building and banter between the crew mates. Another example is the classic Namco loading screen where they load a mini-game parallel to the loading of the main game. In short, it served a function in many games except those which only displays a loading bar.

Do y'all mind loading screens? How much of a game changer is this? Will you miss loading screens when they eventually go away? How will you replace their function if at all?

I don't know that I actually believe they'll be gone with the PS5.

It's been a long time since any game has really used them for more than just showing you tooltips or flavor text that exists elsewhere so I dunno that much will be lost if it does actually happen.

I'd rather have a slick transition than loading screens, if the possibility is on the table. For example, a Star Wars game having screen wipes, or Persona 5 having all the same flashy cuts without having to load in between.

As someone playing metro exodus, no, not at all

Loading screens are pure downtime nobody will miss them, people over the ages where just more creative with them think about Darks Souls item description, mini games in loading screens etc.

I will miss loading screens. For some reason I get more nostalgic at the idea of twisting statues and items around during the painful Skyrim PS3 screens than I do about the game itself. It often reminded me how much more to this world I was yet to see, brought me back to adventures I'd previously been on and honestly seeing ones related to the main quest were what reminded and convinced me to finish the main story quest.

Destiny too, for as frustrating as those loading screen could be, watch your ship bob back and forth on a dull background, I still don't think there's many things that compare to my first raid loading screen. It felt like it went on forever and was mainly filled with kinda nervous chatter of a new fireteam, but I still genuinely love that memory!

While i expect some developers will be able to utilize this to significantly hide or reduce loads, not all of them will or know how.
There's also 3rd party games, and unless those developers are willing to put the extra effort into the PS5 version, they will exhibit the same loads as other platforms.

I definitely wouldn't miss them if they were gone entirely, but don't be fooled. SSD definitely won't make them go away 100%. I've had all my PC games on an SSD for a few months now and it really only shortens load times by half. I get they can make the games take advantage of this, but there will always be that boot up load that takes 60 seconds or whatever. I'm very curious how big the PS5 SSD will be. Even if it's 1TB that's $100 easy. The PS5 may cost $500.

There will be loading screens.

Hell no!

Also I'll believe it when I see it.

yeah maybe 1st party games will have masked loads or brief loads but loading screens are not going anywhere, probably ever.

Ummm, nah, that ain't gonna happen. You will still likely have loads taht take several seconds or just as long as they are today because what SOny and likely Microsoft will do is include fast cashe. The first load of data will still take time, but then subsequent loads will be off the solid state chip.

I've had SSDs in my PC for close to a decade now, so no.

I'm not so sure they'll be gone. The example they used was for Spider-Man, which is from this-gen. So, I can see current-gen titles load very fast, but if games push hardware next-gen, I can see loading still being a thing.

I swear they said load screens were gone like 3 generations ago

Yeah sure sounds great. They also said steady 60 fps was going to be the norm. At the end of the day better tech has always been used to increase fidelity at the sacrifice of performance.

Yeeeaaaah, just the question at face value with more and more stuff being added to games such as ray tracing and the collective want to play them at higher resolutions which require higher resolution textures, I can't say that I'll miss loading screens 'cause they're not going to go away.

I like the loading screens in Skyrim and Fallout, at least they're interesting. The fast travel scenes in Spider-Man were great, and even changed based on the overall story.

But also loading screens are not going away.

While it's not quite the same thing earlier this year I discovered how to drastically reduce the turn timers in Total Warhammer. I went from having put hundreds of hours into the game without ever finishing a campaign to finishing four in about two weeks time. You might not realize it, but excessive loading can really overshadow your overall enjoyment of the experience.

PS5 having no load times is the "PS2 games will look like Toy Story" of the next generation. Calling it now.

I have an irrational fondness for many aspects of gaming past, but I would not miss loading screens AT ALL if they were to go away or at the very least become very short.

we'll still be waiting for people to queue up for a game & connecting to the server i feel. And for gamedevs, visual quality will always be more important than the complete elimination of loadingtimes. Especially when there's no real significant push from the consumer to get rid of loadingtimes neither. Just as the general audience perceives 30 fps as good enough, loadingtimes up to 5-10 seconds will be seen as acceptable.

They are not going to go away entirely, they will simply be faster for a few years.

Before the developers will once again use that newfound capacity to either perform more intensive loads or simply care less about the load time optimization, inflating the load times once again. This has happened with every tech improvement, the increased capacity/capability will simply be filled/used up in due time. Already this current generation has seen massively increased load times across the board as games need to load more and more information, even on PC with an SSD where we have enjoyed fast load times for a while now this increase can be felt too, in several games's cases the SSD is simply used to mitigate these ballooned loads to acceptable levels. (Nevermind edge cases like Anthem where the devs completely failed to do any load optimization even for those using an SSD.)

That said having faster load times for a while is still a massive quality of life "game changer", that has and will impact your enjoyment of any given game. And it's a very welcome and not an insignificant thing Sony is doing. If Microsoft will follow suit (and there is no reason they wont) then the new loading speed standards across the board will make life better for everyone. I am especially more excited about the ability to stream in new parts of the levels faster opening up more wiggle room to work with for the devs.

@ares42: Are you referring to skipping the animations for AI turns? Or is it something else, i'm interested.

Just a little bit, yes. I grew up in the physical manual era, and load screens have sort of replaced the manual art in a lot of respects.

On the other hand, if we get physical manuals back next gen, then I'll be all in on the no load screens thing.

@tennmuerti: I "resolved" a technical issue that was impacting game performance. If you have issues with stuttery main screen and cutscenes it might help resolve that (and have the nice side effect of speeding up the turn timer drastically).

NOPE. There's nothing stopping devs adding minigames, elevator conversations and tips/splash screens if they want but at least they'll never be forced if/when loading is trivialised. I can't wait to see if they pull it off but I have to say I'm skeptical.

If it was up to me, loading screens would have been dragged out back and shot years ago.

I highly doubt loading screens can be eliminated yet. We're just not there yet. We can obfuscate them, but I reckon people will still be able to tell when something is being streamed in.

Count me in the “I WOULDN’T miss them at all, I just don’t buy zero loads on the PS5” camp.

I feel like “no loads” comes up, at least in passing, every generation. It’d be great, but I bet it’s a trade-off that doesn’t make sense for every game.

The loading times they boasted have got me more excited about loads that don't have a loading screen. I'm playing Witcher 3 right now and it takes about 2 seconds to get in and out of menus. Instantly loading into that seems way nice. I'm also ok with no loading screens.

I want 1080p 60 fps on consoles as a baseline. I can take the loading, which will obviously be there no matter how fast of an SSD they claim to have. They can also talk up their 8k game (which I doubt will be utilized by even Sony themselves), I just want the framerate to be smooth.

I would love to be rid of loading entirely.

I also don't think it's possible. Developers don't get space technology like that and go "great, no load screens!" they are more likely to go along the lines of "oh great, we can stuff more shit in the load screen's now because it's so fast, and we can also spend less time optimizing them!". So I assume loading will be more or less what it is now, with the possible benefit of making the dev life easier.