Epic founder expects photorealistic games within ten years

Developers will be able to achieve photorealistic graphics within the next ten years, says Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney.

Speaking at the Develop in Brighton conference, Sweeney, who also last night received the Development Legend Award with Mark Rein, said that he expected technology to soon enable developers to render environments that are "indistinguishable from reality".

"We’ll be able to render environments that are absolutely photorealistic within the next ten years," he said.

Tech companies and developers have increasingly tried to break the barrier of photorealism and the uncanny valley, with a number of startling tech demos on show this year conveying what could be possible in just a few years.

Earlier this year Activision revealed a new video powered by Nvidia tech to display near life-like facial expressions, which it claimed was taking place in real-time and ran at 180 fps.

Another Nvidia facial capture tech demo for Faceworks also showed off two near-realistic head models of a man and a woman, which you can view here.