Graphical fidelity/realism means very little to me. I'm the type of person to see the new Resident Evil 4 remake, and the old Resident Evil 4, and like how they both look. What matters the most to me is aesthetics and art direction. This is how games like Silent Hill 3 on the PS2 can still look better than some PS4 games, or how indie games can look more visually pleasing than AAA games.
The focus is shifting from graphics to AI, that will be the next massive leap: NPCs controlled by AI, assets, animations and content generated by AI. Dark Space posted a video recently about this.
Graphics quality is reaching a plateau. I remember hearing a while back that that the maximum quality of graphics that the human eye can discern should be possible by 2026 based on the rate graphics card technology is going. Add in AI making it easier for amateurs to make anything. AI is being added to blender, to visual studio, and even unity. By the 2030s, video games will likely be able to be made at a visual quality better than anything we've yet seen with just a description by a developer. When we reach that plateau, it will be easy for devs to make any kind of game they want. That means experimental and artistic games will be less of a financial risk and less of a time investment for the studio. The cost is likely to get so low that indie devs and AAA studios will effectively be on the same level. We're approaching the new era and it has the potential to be a new golden age for gaming.
I think you're very correct, and to add further hope, optimism and positivity to your comment, the same type of trend is happening to all areas of art. Music, movies, playing an instrument, drawing, painting and so on and so forth are either reaching their peak this decade, or they have already reached it (I'm talking about a peak in technology or raw technical skill). And what's next? A new era of creativity, emotion, groundbreaking storytelling art and authenticity. There is much to look forward to when it comes to art as a whole in the next 10-20 years.
@@justyoutubeaccount2 Music has gotten worse compared to music of the 1500s, 1700s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s etc. Because computerized tools, while sounding easy on paper, are not actually easy IRL. Same with game dev tools. While Unreal blueprints sounds easy on paper, it is actually one of the most difficult game dev tools and harder to use than Unity. Another example is Game Maker Studio 2. While on paper, it is an upgrade from Game Maker Studio 1, overall it feels more difficult to use.
As someone with pretty sensitive senses, I often find games that go for realism overwhelming, all the little details and lighting just turning into visual noise, so I find 2d games or games like BOTW much more appealing. Personally, my absolute favorite game visual-wise gotta be Ender Lilies :)
I have built up a knack for being able to predict which games are going to fail. This video made me realize that more often than not, those predictions included games going for realistic graphics such as Ghostwire and Forspoken. Could just be a correlation but I can see when a game has no soul and maybe developers try to make up for it with realistic graphics.
You only need to look at the Tomb Raider games to see how realistic graphics can lead to little to no thought put into level design. I'm not talking about level design as in building the world from an aesthetic viewpoint but in how the game is played.
True story: When Donkey Kong Country 3 came out on SNES, I remember thinking "How could a game possibly look better than this?!!" So i am not sure the 2D / 3D distinction matters as much as one would think.
A bit unfair of me to mention the Silent Hill series since they actually have amazing art direction but they 100% used the "uncanny valley" thing with facial expressions and faces in general in the FMVs for 2 and, later on, cutscenes for 3. So yeah, this has been done before, just not again from what I know
Great video! You are really underrated and I want you to know you have a community who loves and supports you! I find it funny how all those realistic games are usually full price while more of the stylistic games which require way more creativity are usually a lot cheaper.
The overuse of realism is definitely a symptom of a larger issue and that, imo is the lack of creativity and expression. Everything feels too derivative. Once you start seeing a certain type of style/setting, it no longer feels special and it becomes almost painful to sit through as your brain naturally wants to experience new things. One example is fantasy worlds, most fantasy worlds just copy the high fantasy aesthetic with everything you'd expect to see, dragons, orcs, elves, etc. There's only so many times you can see the same ideas, concepts, style be reused before it no longer feels like a fantasy, you've just seen too much of it. I'd rather play Pizza Tower than yet another generic FPS game or a High Fantasy title with photorealistic textures and models.
I still play Ridge Racer (1993) and Daytona USA (1994) today and find them to be more visual appealing than Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Horizon 5 (And the loss of sense of speed make the game boring as fuck to race for hours on end, no rush nor thrill of going dangerously fast now which makes me sad). Kind of funny because over 10 years ago I would love to see a realistic game but now it's nearly everywhere to the point of seeing the same shit that have no style anymore.
It's funny...I was talking with some friends yesterday about The Last of Us port on PC and how the games have just never interested me and I couldn't fully explain why. I recognize they are good games, even great games but I've never looked at them and had any desire to play them and I think this video nails down why. The realistic look just doesn't interest me. I'm old enough to remember having to choose which games to buy just by looking at the box art in the stores so if your game just lacks any sort of style and just has that samey realistic look, I will probably just pass over it for something else. I've had the same feelings about RDR2 for a long time but I think I may finally give that one a try. Anyway, great discussion here and I really do agree wholeheartedly with this. I look forward to your next video.
Great video. I find I rarely enjoy games that have realistic graphics. Red Dead 2 was one of the few exceptions, and even then, it took me a while to warm up to it.
i think realistic graphics only works when developers know what they're doing exactly. realistic graphics means game doesn't only have to look real, it has to feel real as well. there are so many "pseudo-realistic" games out there that focus entirely on image while everything else sucks. especially when it comes to animations. even if your game looks like a photo, if you have these awkward half-baked animations as if your characters are logs that move their limbs with great effort, it means nothing. it breaks the immersion entirely, and A LOT of modern games suffer from it. realistic graphics is both the hardest and the laziest type of graphics, depending on how it's handled.
This is exactly how I feel about "pseudo realism." The contrast between how the game looks and how it feels in motion is very jarring and breaks immersion instantly. Animations and physics haven't caught up with the graphical fidelity in a lot of photorealistic looking games.
This problem came to a head when Monster Hunter Rise came out, and all the people who had played world first started whining that the game looked worse. In reality, while rise had less graphic fidelity, it looked much more like monster hunter. Rise has better more cohesive art direction, but sadly many gamers are so obsessed with fidelity at all costs they don't seem to understand what aesthetics are.
I think now. Because we can actually achieve realism. IE rdr 2, cod, etc. graphics > are now perceived more than the game themselves. There was a time. Not too long ago. During the ps3 era. Where “realism” was not possible. And because of this it sort of forced people to create what we saw. By a happy accident of not having the tech to achieve it we were able to see what people could make when “realism” was off the table. I hope for a day when this fad of “realism” ends and people start looking back at those older games and analyze them and their aesthetics to see why they were so consuming even though they weren’t “real”. Hopefully. I hope this obsession with realism is just a fad and wears off because of how new it all is and we can go back to making games that connect more conceptually than just realistically
I think you're completely wrong about Land of the Lustruous. By all accounts it is amazingly animated, not janky in the slightest. Neither dId it utilize the aspects of 3D animation that were holding back the anime industry from being able to use 3D like North American and European studios did, but instead they just forced the principles and understanding that they had about 2D animation into 3D, quite unnaturally. There were a lot of loopholes and hacks created specifically for it to look the way it did, like lowering the frame rate to have it resemble 2D more closely. They actively tried to make it look less like 3D animation and more like 2D animation. I believe the biggest reason that it was made in 3D at all was to utilize shaders to render all of the characters' slightly translucent gem-hair.
Tbh its the same with the gameplay (well for me imo)they play it way too safe thats why most of the gameplay doesnt feel next gen yes graphics and story have evolved but gameplay has to as well
I do like this realistic graphics but with an additional art syte. For example, I consider the last of us remastered looks better than the last of us part 1 for me although the second one is more realistic than the other the shadows and colours give it an unique art style maintaining the realism they look forward.
This is why I don't play red dead 2 anymore because of the realistic graphics and realistic gameplay game companies need to focus on 3D graphics and good gameplay
I agree with you, but for me, one of the main selling points of realistic graphics in games is the ability to see and do impossible things while seeing it like "in real life".
Call of Honour Medal of Duty Gears of Thor League of Fortnite World of Witchcraft Legend of Halo Kingdom of Skyrim Lord of War... It's all the same generic, mediocre crap. As for graphics, I fucking hate UE5. The colours are always so dull and muted. It all blends together into this depressing grey-yellow-brown blob. It's bad enough every movie and TV show looks like this, but now every game is like it too. It makes me feel ill. Why would anyone choose this opaque, matte look? It's like the ugly log footage you get from a digital camera. I don't know whether bloom is inherent to Lumen, but it looks terrible. I prefer conventional lighting. Gaming was better 20 years ago. To hell with these underworked, overpaid hacks. They can cram their derivative, overpriced virgin fodder up their acne-pocked arses.
For me realistic graphics tend to age poorly while games that go for style tend to age better
Agreed. This is why I prefer Nintendo over Sony and Microsoft.
Graphical fidelity/realism means very little to me. I'm the type of person to see the new Resident Evil 4 remake, and the old Resident Evil 4, and like how they both look. What matters the most to me is aesthetics and art direction. This is how games like Silent Hill 3 on the PS2 can still look better than some PS4 games, or how indie games can look more visually pleasing than AAA games.
The focus is shifting from graphics to AI, that will be the next massive leap: NPCs controlled by AI, assets, animations and content generated by AI.
Dark Space posted a video recently about this.
nah. assets and content should NEVER be made by AI. AI generated imagery looks soulless. NPC AI however i think is the future
Definitely agree. Love games with art styles that stick in my mind. Luck for us the indie space is overflowing with stylized graphics. :)
When will developers understand.
Realism ISN'T an artstyle. It's just real life.
Graphics quality is reaching a plateau. I remember hearing a while back that that the maximum quality of graphics that the human eye can discern should be possible by 2026 based on the rate graphics card technology is going. Add in AI making it easier for amateurs to make anything. AI is being added to blender, to visual studio, and even unity. By the 2030s, video games will likely be able to be made at a visual quality better than anything we've yet seen with just a description by a developer.
When we reach that plateau, it will be easy for devs to make any kind of game they want. That means experimental and artistic games will be less of a financial risk and less of a time investment for the studio. The cost is likely to get so low that indie devs and AAA studios will effectively be on the same level. We're approaching the new era and it has the potential to be a new golden age for gaming.
I think you're very correct, and to add further hope, optimism and positivity to your comment, the same type of trend is happening to all areas of art. Music, movies, playing an instrument, drawing, painting and so on and so forth are either reaching their peak this decade, or they have already reached it (I'm talking about a peak in technology or raw technical skill). And what's next? A new era of creativity, emotion, groundbreaking storytelling art and authenticity. There is much to look forward to when it comes to art as a whole in the next 10-20 years.
@@justyoutubeaccount2 Music has gotten worse compared to music of the 1500s, 1700s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s etc. Because computerized tools, while sounding easy on paper, are not actually easy IRL. Same with game dev tools. While Unreal blueprints sounds easy on paper, it is actually one of the most difficult game dev tools and harder to use than Unity. Another example is Game Maker Studio 2. While on paper, it is an upgrade from Game Maker Studio 1, overall it feels more difficult to use.
As someone with pretty sensitive senses, I often find games that go for realism overwhelming, all the little details and lighting just turning into visual noise, so I find 2d games or games like BOTW much more appealing.
Personally, my absolute favorite game visual-wise gotta be Ender Lilies :)
As a adhd person they tiny details matter a lot to me honestly battlefield and red dead is just satisfaction
Great taste. Ender Lilies is one of the biggest surprises I've had in recent years. Such an amazing experience, albeit a little bit depressing haha.
I have built up a knack for being able to predict which games are going to fail. This video made me realize that more often than not, those predictions included games going for realistic graphics such as Ghostwire and Forspoken. Could just be a correlation but I can see when a game has no soul and maybe developers try to make up for it with realistic graphics.
I agree. I rarely enjoy games with realistic graphics. They spend a ton on artists, but forget why games are fun; the gameplay.
You only need to look at the Tomb Raider games to see how realistic graphics can lead to little to no thought put into level design. I'm not talking about level design as in building the world from an aesthetic viewpoint but in how the game is played.
tomb raider is one of the few AAA game that i consider having a good art direction. but their games are so boring lol
True story: When Donkey Kong Country 3 came out on SNES, I remember thinking "How could a game possibly look better than this?!!" So i am not sure the 2D / 3D distinction matters as much as one would think.
Style >>> realism
Agreed.
A bit unfair of me to mention the Silent Hill series since they actually have amazing art direction but they 100% used the "uncanny valley" thing with facial expressions and faces in general in the FMVs for 2 and, later on, cutscenes for 3. So yeah, this has been done before, just not again from what I know
Great video! You are really underrated and I want you to know you have a community who loves and supports you! I find it funny how all those realistic games are usually full price while more of the stylistic games which require way more creativity are usually a lot cheaper.
thanks, that's such a nice comment :)
The overuse of realism is definitely a symptom of a larger issue and that, imo is the lack of creativity and expression. Everything feels too derivative. Once you start seeing a certain type of style/setting, it no longer feels special and it becomes almost painful to sit through as your brain naturally wants to experience new things. One example is fantasy worlds, most fantasy worlds just copy the high fantasy aesthetic with everything you'd expect to see, dragons, orcs, elves, etc. There's only so many times you can see the same ideas, concepts, style be reused before it no longer feels like a fantasy, you've just seen too much of it.
I'd rather play Pizza Tower than yet another generic FPS game or a High Fantasy title with photorealistic textures and models.
I still play Ridge Racer (1993) and Daytona USA (1994) today and find them to be more visual appealing than Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Horizon 5 (And the loss of sense of speed make the game boring as fuck to race for hours on end, no rush nor thrill of going dangerously fast now which makes me sad). Kind of funny because over 10 years ago I would love to see a realistic game but now it's nearly everywhere to the point of seeing the same shit that have no style anymore.
It's funny...I was talking with some friends yesterday about The Last of Us port on PC and how the games have just never interested me and I couldn't fully explain why. I recognize they are good games, even great games but I've never looked at them and had any desire to play them and I think this video nails down why. The realistic look just doesn't interest me. I'm old enough to remember having to choose which games to buy just by looking at the box art in the stores so if your game just lacks any sort of style and just has that samey realistic look, I will probably just pass over it for something else. I've had the same feelings about RDR2 for a long time but I think I may finally give that one a try. Anyway, great discussion here and I really do agree wholeheartedly with this. I look forward to your next video.
Red dead redemption has an artstyle (cowboy movie) that happens to also partly be realism.
Great video. I find I rarely enjoy games that have realistic graphics. Red Dead 2 was one of the few exceptions, and even then, it took me a while to warm up to it.
i think realistic graphics only works when developers know what they're doing exactly. realistic graphics means game doesn't only have to look real, it has to feel real as well. there are so many "pseudo-realistic" games out there that focus entirely on image while everything else sucks. especially when it comes to animations. even if your game looks like a photo, if you have these awkward half-baked animations as if your characters are logs that move their limbs with great effort, it means nothing. it breaks the immersion entirely, and A LOT of modern games suffer from it. realistic graphics is both the hardest and the laziest type of graphics, depending on how it's handled.
This is exactly how I feel about "pseudo realism." The contrast between how the game looks and how it feels in motion is very jarring and breaks immersion instantly. Animations and physics haven't caught up with the graphical fidelity in a lot of photorealistic looking games.
I miss when video games just looked like video games
This problem came to a head when Monster Hunter Rise came out, and all the people who had played world first started whining that the game looked worse. In reality, while rise had less graphic fidelity, it looked much more like monster hunter. Rise has better more cohesive art direction, but sadly many gamers are so obsessed with fidelity at all costs they don't seem to understand what aesthetics are.
Great video! What's the ambient track called that starts at 03:48?
thanks! i made that track to use for my videos and i don't have it uploaded anywhere at the moment, sorry!
I think now. Because we can actually achieve realism. IE rdr 2, cod, etc. graphics > are now perceived more than the game themselves.
There was a time. Not too long ago. During the ps3 era. Where “realism” was not possible. And because of this it sort of forced people to create what we saw. By a happy accident of not having the tech to achieve it we were able to see what people could make when “realism” was off the table.
I hope for a day when this fad of “realism” ends and people start looking back at those older games and analyze them and their aesthetics to see why they were so consuming even though they weren’t “real”.
Hopefully. I hope this obsession with realism is just a fad and wears off because of how new it all is and we can go back to making games that connect more conceptually than just realistically
It's weird how in the attempt to make games look hyper realistic in games character model lose all ability to make proper facial expressions
And that's why Nintendo is KING of gaming.
I think you're completely wrong about Land of the Lustruous. By all accounts it is amazingly animated, not janky in the slightest. Neither dId it utilize the aspects of 3D animation that were holding back the anime industry from being able to use 3D like North American and European studios did, but instead they just forced the principles and understanding that they had about 2D animation into 3D, quite unnaturally. There were a lot of loopholes and hacks created specifically for it to look the way it did, like lowering the frame rate to have it resemble 2D more closely. They actively tried to make it look less like 3D animation and more like 2D animation. I believe the biggest reason that it was made in 3D at all was to utilize shaders to render all of the characters' slightly translucent gem-hair.
Tbh its the same with the gameplay (well for me imo)they play it way too safe thats why most of the gameplay doesnt feel next gen yes graphics and story have evolved but gameplay has to as well
Exactly. So many games these days are just beautiful and boring. Many devs forget that gameplay is what makes it fun.
I do like this realistic graphics but with an additional art syte. For example, I consider the last of us remastered looks better than the last of us part 1 for me although the second one is more realistic than the other the shadows and colours give it an unique art style maintaining the realism they look forward.
12:34 Resident Evil 7
This is why I don't play red dead 2 anymore because of the realistic graphics and realistic gameplay game companies need to focus on 3D graphics and good gameplay
The sea of imagination dies if its too realistic. Where is the art??
Really nice video!
5:22... Incels complained that characters are not longer Male or Female, but Body type A and Body Type B
Cope incel.
This video was great!
Good video, as usual.
well its also cus youre finnish and are in the forest all the time anyway so realistic forest in games is boring
Rdr2 for life
I agree with you, but for me, one of the main selling points of realistic graphics in games is the ability to see and do impossible things while seeing it like "in real life".
Killer7 is a better looking game than TLOU 2
Modern gaming in a nutshell: Beautiful world, ugly as hell characters, subpar gameplay.
I wish that wasn't so spot on. Luckily, I've been able to still find lots of gems in all the mess.
Call of Honour Medal of Duty Gears of Thor League of Fortnite World of Witchcraft Legend of Halo Kingdom of Skyrim Lord of War...
It's all the same generic, mediocre crap. As for graphics, I fucking hate UE5. The colours are always so dull and muted. It all blends together into this depressing grey-yellow-brown blob. It's bad enough every movie and TV show looks like this, but now every game is like it too. It makes me feel ill. Why would anyone choose this opaque, matte look? It's like the ugly log footage you get from a digital camera. I don't know whether bloom is inherent to Lumen, but it looks terrible. I prefer conventional lighting.
Gaming was better 20 years ago. To hell with these underworked, overpaid hacks. They can cram their derivative, overpriced virgin fodder up their acne-pocked arses.