[kevingadd]

I disagree. Games like Uncharted 3 have had much more sophisticated water simulations where water is an active part of the environment. Another example would be Hydrophobia. Crysis 3 is pretty much just slapping a heightmap onto a water surface, but it's no surprise that they take the easy route there since water is not an integral part of the experience in anyway. Crysis 3 is about shootin' men and robots that look like men, not about interacting with physically simulated water.

Here are slides from a presentation about Uncharted 3's water:

http://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault/gdc2012/slides/1_Visual...

I believe they've talked elsewhere about the complexity of the water sims they did for areas that involved boats and an ocean you could swim through, but I don't have a link handy.

[sp332]

There's a differenece between physical simulation and visualization. The Crysis water looks awesome, even though its behavior is radically simplified. As those slides you linked show, the water in Uncharted is simulated much more thoroughly, but the visualization is pretty hacky.