The developers behind Ride 4 have explained how that recent viral clip of a rainy race looks so realistic, saying that it passes a "reality detection threshold".
Earlier in the week, a gameplay video of Ride 4 went viral because of how photorealistic it looked, amassing over 1.5 million views in a couple of days. The gameplay video simply shows a race from Ride 4 in first-person, but the combination of head movements and overcast weather had some comparing it to actual GoPro footage.
An interview between the developers at Milestone and GamesRadar+ has explained how the clip looks so realistic. Executive producer Michele Caletti first discussed the clip going viral, saying, "Because it's the game we've been doing, and now playing for many months, so we knew it was of great quality, but it's always fascinating to see when someone unaware discovers it. It happened years ago with the first Ride, people were arguing if it was real. Now it's happening again with even some famous people from the industry commenting, praising it, and it's just beautiful."
Caletti went on to explain that the clip looks so realistic because it's using a particular camera mode in the replay editor. According to GamesRadar+, "it replicates the view you'd get from a camera mounted on the rider's helmet, and while it's too shaky and unstable to be used while actively playing, it makes it feel much more like a real video".
According to Caletti, the realism is a mixture of that camera mode and the specific weather conditions and lighting. He said, "Add the lighting, with that beautifully rainy weather, add the realistic environment, and that's it. Remove one ingredient from the recipe and it wouldn't work". It's because of all of these elements that Ride 4 manages to pass what Caletti calls the "reality detection threshold".
Whatever a "reality detection threshold" may be, Caletti also confirmed that Ride 4 has seen a "significant increase in sales" since the clip went viral.