My favorite thing about Unity is how much they put into the creation of Paris, and the fact that when Notre Dame had that fire they actually used data from Unity for helping in the restoration. Which is pretty dang cool imo
Arkham Knight has also best "blocking" in any video game. Blocking is used in film making, to describe moving of actors and camera in a scene. This makes Batman Arkham Knight so cinematic.
I think the main takeaway here is to never underestimate the importance of fantastic and motivated art direction. Big budget titles today are immense undertakings, but what makes a game timeless in its aesthetic is strong artistic direction. It’s sometimes based on this aspect alone why some titles with less than stellar gameplay can endure or even earn cult status.
Realistic graphics are never going to stop improving, but I do feel that it's much more important to get art style right first and foremost when it comes to a games visuals. From a personal standpoint, I don't care about how much fancy stuff is going on under the hood if it doesn't all amount to some kind of actual visual benefit. If it doesn't, it all just amounts to more reasons why somewhat older hardware won't be able to run it and older games that do run on the same hardware can actually look more appealing. I don't want the industry to be obsessed with high end (high spec) visuals. I want something of a renaissance for art direction. Realism has peaked. Graphics could simply just not get any more realistic looking than the can get right now and I would be completely fine with that. I would much rather that there be a larger focus on innovations regarding performance optimization and the removal of art style limitations. I want the games I play to (often) look like something that can't exist in reality, and I want those framerates smooth during the experience.
Money and technology aren't a replacement for skilled and talented humans that are able to bring a distinct perspective to their work. you would think people in the business of making art would have figured it out by now.
Nah, I think game industry is just starting to get filled with people without passion for the games. Those Diablo 4 map developers playing the game is quite good example about this.
@@ShevchenkocssNo it doesn't typical Unity fanboy. The parkour is all style but no substance it favours style more than functionality. Ac3 had the best parkour
It's for reasons like these that I firmly believe developers need to seriously consider how they make their game's graphics. New technology is being pushed so fast that many tried-and-true techniques are getting left behind, when really, many modern games could benefit from a simpler approach. Not every game needs real-time, dynamic lighting in every scenario, or insanely dense meshes to portray realism. There are certainly use-cases for that stuff, but it doesn't HAVE to be the go-to for every scenario.
It's a bit tangential but Tim Cain mentioned something similar about programming in a recentish video. Back in the past every bit of code, art, sound, had to be optimized to work on older hardware. Now there's so much computing power and hard drive space that people don't feel the need to do it anymore. You could have hundreds of pointless calls that bloat the file size because nobody feels the need to think about it.
Exactly, specially for more linear single payer games. Sandboxes and mmorpgs, sure it makes sense to have more dynamic changes. And not every game needs to be realistic. We don't need realistic magic/fantasy.
Man, assassin's creed unity looks absolutely magnificent. It's just looks so much more than any modern games not just forspoken. The lighting, the densities of small details and accuracy of those details is just chefs kiss. Great video as always👍
@@itspartan117and yet those games look better than most games released at the time. AC3, resident evil 6, and farcry 3 were graphical powerhouses at the time but games like dishonored and Borderlands 2 have definitely aged better, both graphically and gameplay wise
It honestly really all comes down to art direction. No matter how many particles or lighting effects are shoved into one's face or how high the resolution for texture fidelity can go, what matters the most is prioritizing the look, feel, and atmosphere you want from the game you're making. Developers that prioritized the former often end up with soulless entries, while others that actually take the latter as the main goal in the visual department often end up making timeless games in terms of aesthetic.
Comparing Shadow of Mordor to Gollum is like comparing ice-cream to the ice in the socks that your cell-mate is using to beat you unconscious. Just end it. I'm ready.
Many players including me once complained that Arkham Knight is too small. But now I understand why they made it small. It impossible to make bigger map with the same detail they has. Just like how it happened to Gotham Knight.
as a coincidence, I finished AC Unity today, and honestly it is the best looking AC game until this day. What draws me to assassins creed is the real locations and it does a great job of making you feel in Paris during french revolution. Really loved this game, it was my first thought when I saw the title of this video and I'm glad it was the first one I saw :)
Good art direction > better technical graphics. That is something I have noticed more now that owning a steam deck has opened my mind towards indie titles.
Along these same lines, I’d love to see a video that compares launch titles from console generations vs. what devs were squeezing out of some of these platforms by the end. I haven’t played Silent Hill 3 but that footage looked amazing for a PS2 game! It came out just 3 years into the PS2’s lifespan.
nintendo is the king of squeezing every last drop out of their consoles in the waning years. for example, Twilight Princess on GameCube and Breath of the Wild on Wii U. Both were released almost 5 years after the consoles came out and looked just as good as the next gen versions.
Sonic Unleashed still holds up as one of my Top-5 Sonic games of all time! Which Sonic Frontiers is included in! But both games definitely offer their own charm, as well as their own flaws. And yes, I say this as someone who actually likes the Werehog/Nighttime sections in Unleashed. But that mainly comes from how long it takes to do them at first. And then getting those stats upgraded, these stages can just be torn through in like half the time! And it's SO satisfying! Tho the daytime stages are obviously where the best part of the package is, no question! Part of that due to the visuals alone. While Frontiers doesn't have that same visual flair, when it comes to the environments (which the pop-in doesn't help). I do feel it makes up for it in almost every other aspect. Combat & traversal is satisfying, the story's one of the best in a very long time (tho I should wait until we see what update 3 does, before saying anything definite at this point), same for the Super Sonic fights. Etc. Etc. Still, I'd take both over Sonic Forces any day of the week.
When they had to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the fire, they literally turned to the develops of Assasin's Creed Unity because they had developed such a massively detailed and accurate accumulation of data about the cathedral that it helped the accurately rebuild it.
@@Hugh_Jannis the only doctor in the artic research team a couple years ago had to treat her own breast cancer because of how difficult it was to fly her out to another doctor. Imagine having to cut out a tumor from yourself.
@@Hugh_Jannis Seriously, dude - don't be an ass. The developers behind Assassin's Creed usually get so deep into modeling the landmarks accurately that they recreate the blueprints for them. They don't screw around when it comes to the world in AC.
@@garyballard179I heard about this. Video game worlds mirroring the real world might become future historic records as they are so accurate and well modelled. Kinda cool.
Such a great comparison. Some of these older games looked simply incredible. There’s no reason at all for games that came out a decade ago to look better than games that came out this year.
The thing about SH3, Team Silent was a peerless artists troupe, they understood things like subsurface scattering before it became a marketing term, you could see all the work gone into normals when unpacking the textures in a PC, all PS2 Silent Hill games are masterclass in art
Technological leaps usually only happen about once a decade. Arkham Knights was a 1st gen Unreal 4 game so with its graphical setting all set to ultra high it can run smoothly on current gen PCs and look amazing. Since polycounts are now almost irrelevant its texture resolution and lighting that will define graphic fidelity. As real time GI rendering becomes the norm even older games will look amazing if you have a powerful graphics card.
To be fair to Gotham Knights, the interiors are beautiful, especially maxed out on PC. It's the exteriors that lets it down. At the same time what they were able to do with Unreal Engine 3 with Arkham Knight is still impressive and still holds up in today's era of UE5 titles.
@@ISirSmoke I guess you don't remember how Arkham Knight launched on PC. They had to remove the game from Steam for months and issue an insane amount of refunds because the optimization was so bad.
@@felixdesrochers9940 I have bought the entire Arkham Game series on Steam for PC recently, and Knight looks ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS now. It actually LOOKS and FEELS like a brand-new next-gen batman game. So they must have done some MAJOR improvements between then and now.
I love that how when the Notre Dame cathedral was damaged by fire a few years ago the people at Ubisoft who worked on the game offered up their specifications for repairs from in the game because it was that detailed and to scale
It’s clear Gamefreak doesn’t know how to make games on bigger consoles. To be fair they weren’t given enough time. But flip side Pokémon company is the most profitable gaming franchise of all time and can afford delays and bringing in experts to take Pokémon to the next level. They hide behind the excuse of not wanting to change the core experience.
I think graphically speaking RDR2 is the most technically well made game ever made. The game art I loved the most at the time was the witcher 3, no game had come close to its art, sound, story and quality of its lore. The biggest disappointments for me is probably BF4, Cyberpunk and the recent starfield.
Very fair comparisons. One thingI noticed in the newer titles is the flatter/duller look but I think it can be pulled off tastefully - you're completely right in that it's strong art direction that's missing in the newer ones.
I was surprised you guys included some fighting games on your list this time. I've been watching Gameranx for years and I don't recall you guys putting a lot of fighting games in your list videos. Only ever see before you buys for fighting games. Would be cool to see more FG ideas for future vids!
This is just a credit to excellent work. If you do something so amazing like some of these, they don't have expiration dates. You'll be dead and gone and ppl will still be amazed by what you did.
i still don’t know what happened with the Assassin’s Creed graphics engine when Origins released, that game still looks good but you can’t deny the face animations, textures, foliage quality all took a hit compared to Unity and Syndicate
Shadow of Mordor is one of two game, i played twice. It has such a great "social" engine. Not just Nemesis. Just listening and watching Orcs can be fun.
Shadow of War steps it up times ten. It's amusing to hear these orcs talk sh!t, but when in the middle of them talking a puny grunt cuts the captain or warchief off and finishes the sh!t talking off is priceless.
I don't understand why real time lighting is so focused on. I would take baked lighting over it all day, other than games like GTA or Zelda where time actually matters. For most games changing day time everytime to sleep and having baked in lighting is just amazing
It's cheaper on a budget, both in terms of time and money. Baked in lighting requires a team of environmental/lighting artists to go through and specifically add and tweak different light sources all over the world to get the effect they're looking for. And when they talk about it being "baked in," the engine actually has to take those additions/modifications and process every little change, so you might be waiting anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours every time you rebake to see the results. Furthermore, every time the environment changes post-lighting, you have to rebake again. Which means, yet again, waiting around for it to do so. Add even another tree to the world? Time to rebake. This is even worse for open world games. With real-time, they can pretty well dedicate a couple technical artists to it and have lighting more or less done in a matter of months, maybe even weeks, and it doesn't matter if you change something.
Hmm so money and time over quality, got it. I always thought it was to just have a realtime day night gimmick but it's about straight up making a worse game. Crazy@@ledumpsterfire6474
Baked lighting is cheaper but it requires significantly more time and a team because lighting needs to adjusted and tweaked manually. Real time lightning makes it easier for developers to focus on other aspects rather than spending time on lighting. Think before you talk next time
AC Unity's Paris is my favourite open world. Not just Lighing, but animations, freedom of movement and crowds make it stand out from other open world games.
I recently played the Stalker Franchise and those game are still really good even the first one with its borderlands like graphics. The first game and Call of Pripyat are really good and Anomaly mod is so damn good.
The Arkham Knight vs Gotham Knights comparison is embarrassing. The fact that the weather, art style, and city looks drastically better for Arkham Knight is really something
I think the forspoken devs were trying to make it more realistic by making the lighting more monotone, which works in horror games but not really in a fantasy game. I guess as far as world lighting goes elden ring is pretty monotone too but it actually fits the style.
It doesn't bother me. Fantasy can be drab/monotone, whether it's a game or not. Considering the plot of Forspoken, I'd say that the lighting fit with what was happening within Athia.
Guilty Gear Xrd utterly blew me away when I first played it. The second you start playing it, you know that the devs nailed it spot on. I think sound and animation might be more important to me than being a fighting game when it comes to this series (and they are awesome fighting games, I wouldn't touch them if they weren't). So getting those aspects right here are something I am far more critical of than elsewhere.
Kinda odd that Falcon didn't mention the linear stage portions from Frontiers when comparing it to Unleashed. Both Unleashed and Frontiers had open areas and linear stages. Comparing those respective parts would have been fairer.
A bit of a different topic of discussion, but I'd like to give a special shoutout to how good some older pixel art games still look today. Mega Man 8, the original Sonic games on the Genesis/Mega Drive (especially when viewed on an actual CRT monitor), countless old arcade games, etc. I feel like the larger devs in the industry don't appreciate pixel art as much as they probably should, with even re-releases of old pixel art games often having no care put into how the games should look and just leaving old things like dithering untouched, and newer releases generally never actually being pixel art unless they're released by indie devs. I get that it's actually more expensive to make 2D pixel art games than it is to make them with 3D assets, but there's really no arguing that pixel art games can sometimes actually even look visually more appealing than 3D ones and certainly look good even without comparing them to anything.
A note about Forespoken and AC Unity's lighting, they're both considered 'real-time', the words you should use to describe the different lighting methods are, Dynamic = what you consider real-time, able to change lighting in-game. Static = baked lighting, does not change dynamically in-game.
@@joesmith3590 to be fair, considering how bad the game is performance wise (for the people that don't know, when people say performance, they mean FPS in relation to hardware, resolution and settings etc), if the textures were better then the game probably wouldn't even be able to boot💀💀💀. The game is fun though
Glad to see Sonic Unleashed get some love. While Frontier delivers more of a consistent experience, the highs of Unleashed are simply peak modern Sonic imo. Still hoping for a PC port 🤞
Love the list! This is like car construction of the past vs. cars made today. Sure, old car designs aren't as "good looking" by today's standard, but there was no skimming of durability and quality. Now it's all cheap product and faster sales...just like game development. It's as if most aren't even trying anymore.
Video Games used to be an art form, now it's all just a cash grab for most. The objective these days seems to be: Release it as quickly as possible and squeeze as much money from people as we can.
A very good driving instructor. You read his body language perfectly well and you were right to rearrange the lessons without charging the students. I agree with your assessment of how much they would have got from the lessons. You are very right about the safety aspect.
being away from all games for a large break, this gave me something to think about getting, some old games are NEW to me, and your brutal rebuke of the truly mediocre is fun, you got a good brain, for a brid,
I think that it's good in a way that the Nintendo switch is pretty weak because it requires the developers to be more creative with the visuals and stuff and i think that is why most nintendo games look so unique
Would also have gone with Prey / Deathloop. Deathloop does look great but it has the advantage of next gen, but Prey does the same on previous gen systems. Also The Order 1883 / anything. That still looks phenomenal.
Def agree with Assassin's Creed Unity. I got into it very late when Odyssey came out. Only encountered 1 bug throughout the whole game. Stunning looking. 👍
Arkham Knight's insane visuals are a combination of unreal engine black magic anfd fantastic art direction. It could release today and it would feel fresh! In fact, AK, Dishonored 2, Dead Space and SH3 are prime examples that art direction is more important than visual fidelity.
That old pokemon wound still hurts... it was really upsetting hearing people say "Of course it looks bad, is a Switch game" "Game Freak is doing all they can with the hardware" meanwhile the same systems keeps getting games like Red Dead Redemption and Xenoblade 3 or Dying Light running without problems
Hey Falcon! Love seeing what you bring to the table. The only disagreement I had was sonic unleashed. That game I could say was not the visually appealing. However I do agree with the flat terrains of sonic frontier. They only had one region that was not monotonous to traverse.
Rocksteady nailed it with that dark drab artwork and detail. I'm tired of studios taking a light pg13 approach to superheros who have a natural dark side.
Say what you will about ubisoft but they know how to put a world together. Far cry 4 still holds up and AC odyssey has one of the most beautiful open worlds I’ve ever experienced.
What a coincidence, I am currently playing AC unity, and its on the list.😊 By the way this is my first time playing an Assassin's Creed game and the graphics look very good at ultra settings preset.
Completely agree that ArcSystem Works raised the bar when it came to transitioning a 2D fighter to 3D visuals, so much that other companies hired them to make games such as Dragonball Fighterz, DNF Duel and even the League of Legends fighting game is mimicking the look. Historically speaking SNK was never good with 3D, they had a good leap of visual quality from KoF XIV to Samurai Shodown and KoF 15 but they've got an uphill battle when it comes to other fighting games, SF6 was inspired with their art style, MK1 and Tekken 8 are looking amazing too. I really hope SNK can step up, I love their games but they're still a bit behind, I hope they can make the new Fatal Fury look amazing.
6:34 i would argue that simply outputting the original Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii in 1080p with no further mods looks better than Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. That game looks WAY better than the 480p Wii was capable of showing, and they did that 13 years ago on 2 Gamecubes duct-taped together =P
Switch 2 will be the savior of the Pokemon games (Performance & Graphic wise). Because even though how bad the game looks in today's standard, people will buy them
Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) versus almost anything. The insane detail to make fictional planets feel as real as life almost made up for the extremely limited single player content. Almost. It will always be my favorite game purely on graphics, as I can't think of anything that can blow me away more. That game looks like it came out in 2025.
Great list and I'll agree not sure if Pokemon ran out of time with all new characters and Pokemon so they couldn't polish the graphics but Luigi's Mansion on the Gamecube which is much older looks much better. So yes there is really isn't a good excuse at times for new games no looking as good as they. Especially when these companies to ny knowledge don't go through crazy rewrites and scene changes like Hollywood films do.
This was great. What this video highlights is that games do not need to look realistic, they need to look good. Looking realistic is a bonus and deserves respect, but will earn nothing on its own. It's kinda similar to what I experience with VR. Immersion is what makes VR great, not realism. And I want the same for non-VR games: immersive worlds that I want to get lost in and that I can have fun in.
FYI: Arkham Knight had nvidia PhysX-based SMOKE, it was real smoke that moved as you moved through it, as you drove or flew, or a fan was pointed at it. The smoke was a 3D physics object, essentially, and behaved as such, like pooling on the floor.
![10 Video Game Scenes You Weren't Supposed To LAUGH AT [2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lbx602nMb5M/mqdefault.jpg)
Arkham Knight genuinely looked like a next gen game at the time. It looked amazing with some wonderful use of lighting.
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Batman Arkham Knight would be a 10/10 for me if it's wasn't for the Tank level, Deathstroke final mission and riddler trophies.
@@khigley117that tank mission took me forever 😭
@@khigley117 fr, loved the game but hated those aspects
@@khigley117The Riddler trophies are awesome, but I do agree with the tank levels
My favorite thing about Unity is how much they put into the creation of Paris, and the fact that when Notre Dame had that fire they actually used data from Unity for helping in the restoration. Which is pretty dang cool imo
And the game went free to own at the time, such a boss move.
AC games are nothing if not extremely historically accurate.
@@patmalloy3569 Especially Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. Spot on.
@@PalaceDude that's how I got it, hehe
Arkham Knight has also best "blocking" in any video game. Blocking is used in film making, to describe moving of actors and camera in a scene. This makes Batman Arkham Knight so cinematic.
They got very creative with the Joker hallucinations.
Ive been playing Alien: Isolation. For an almost 10 year old game it looks pretty damn good, ahead of its time with a lot of mechanics too
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Came here to say this exact thing.
@@gameranxTV👍🏼
We'll be lucky if we ever see that level of atmosphere in another alien game,
I loved that game !!
Falcon knew what he was doing with the thumbnail lol
Batass
He knows his audience 😂
IYKWIM😏
Bumnail
Hey, it worked, I’m here aren’t I
I think the main takeaway here is to never underestimate the importance of fantastic and motivated art direction. Big budget titles today are immense undertakings, but what makes a game timeless in its aesthetic is strong artistic direction. It’s sometimes based on this aspect alone why some titles with less than stellar gameplay can endure or even earn cult status.
I think I just posted the same without reading your comment first. I think you probably said it better.
Realistic graphics are never going to stop improving, but I do feel that it's much more important to get art style right first and foremost when it comes to a games visuals. From a personal standpoint, I don't care about how much fancy stuff is going on under the hood if it doesn't all amount to some kind of actual visual benefit. If it doesn't, it all just amounts to more reasons why somewhat older hardware won't be able to run it and older games that do run on the same hardware can actually look more appealing.
I don't want the industry to be obsessed with high end (high spec) visuals. I want something of a renaissance for art direction. Realism has peaked. Graphics could simply just not get any more realistic looking than the can get right now and I would be completely fine with that. I would much rather that there be a larger focus on innovations regarding performance optimization and the removal of art style limitations. I want the games I play to (often) look like something that can't exist in reality, and I want those framerates smooth during the experience.
Meh.
Money and technology aren't a replacement for skilled and talented humans that are able to bring a distinct perspective to their work. you would think people in the business of making art would have figured it out by now.
Nah, I think game industry is just starting to get filled with people without passion for the games. Those Diablo 4 map developers playing the game is quite good example about this.
Arkham has a very special place in my heart... Anyone who hasn't played the series reeeally missed out 🙌🏻
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@@gameranxTV👍
@@gameranxTV 👍
@@gameranxTV👍🏼
@@gameranxTV👍
Assassin's Creed Unity surprisingly holds up today, the enormous amount of NPCs spawned and interact still impressive
The game it is today is not what it was 8 years ago…
Also its has the best parkour let's not forget ..
Good graphics but the game is boring
@@oliverwilliam6931 Unity is more of an assassin's creed game than the recent trilogy.
@@ShevchenkocssNo it doesn't typical Unity fanboy. The parkour is all style but no substance it favours style more than functionality. Ac3 had the best parkour
It's for reasons like these that I firmly believe developers need to seriously consider how they make their game's graphics. New technology is being pushed so fast that many tried-and-true techniques are getting left behind, when really, many modern games could benefit from a simpler approach. Not every game needs real-time, dynamic lighting in every scenario, or insanely dense meshes to portray realism. There are certainly use-cases for that stuff, but it doesn't HAVE to be the go-to for every scenario.
It's a bit tangential but Tim Cain mentioned something similar about programming in a recentish video. Back in the past every bit of code, art, sound, had to be optimized to work on older hardware. Now there's so much computing power and hard drive space that people don't feel the need to do it anymore. You could have hundreds of pointless calls that bloat the file size because nobody feels the need to think about it.
Exactly, specially for more linear single payer games. Sandboxes and mmorpgs, sure it makes sense to have more dynamic changes. And not every game needs to be realistic. We don't need realistic magic/fantasy.
Man, assassin's creed unity looks absolutely magnificent. It's just looks so much more than any modern games not just forspoken. The lighting, the densities of small details and accuracy of those details is just chefs kiss. Great video as always👍
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every time i wanna play it i quit when i go in sewers because the controls are so bad shame it looks really good
@@gameranxTV👍
@@gameranxTV 👍
@@gameranxTVDo you only thumbs up, lmao?
Love the art direction of Dishonored 2 - painterly is a great way to describe it.
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i know everyone has his own test, but it hurt people judge Dishonored 1&2 because it graphic or characters design
@@gameranxTV👍🏼
@@itspartan117and yet those games look better than most games released at the time. AC3, resident evil 6, and farcry 3 were graphical powerhouses at the time but games like dishonored and Borderlands 2 have definitely aged better, both graphically and gameplay wise
@@Patricswiftthat's why having a dedicated artstyle is better than having more realistic graphics
It honestly really all comes down to art direction. No matter how many particles or lighting effects are shoved into one's face or how high the resolution for texture fidelity can go, what matters the most is prioritizing the look, feel, and atmosphere you want from the game you're making. Developers that prioritized the former often end up with soulless entries, while others that actually take the latter as the main goal in the visual department often end up making timeless games in terms of aesthetic.
Comparing Shadow of Mordor to Gollum is like comparing ice-cream to the ice in the socks that your cell-mate is using to beat you unconscious. Just end it. I'm ready.
Ice in the socks...
Works pretty well when you've not get any door knobs.
I hope this comment gets endless upvotes
XDDDD best comment ever
r/oddlyspecific
Bioshock infinite really blew me away! That opening scene still gives me chills. Hell the 1st one was amazing too.
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@@gameranxTV 👍
Many players including me once complained that Arkham Knight is too small.
But now I understand why they made it small.
It impossible to make bigger map with the same detail they has.
Just like how it happened to Gotham Knight.
bf1 to bf2042... its crazy how bf1 feels more like a 2023 game than bf2024 even though bf1 came out back in 2016
as a coincidence, I finished AC Unity today, and honestly it is the best looking AC game until this day. What draws me to assassins creed is the real locations and it does a great job of making you feel in Paris during french revolution. Really loved this game, it was my first thought when I saw the title of this video and I'm glad it was the first one I saw :)
Good art direction > better technical graphics. That is something I have noticed more now that owning a steam deck has opened my mind towards indie titles.
Conclusion is that graphics is not about hardware its about artists and how they can use what hardware gives
Up to a point yes.
So glad you guys didn't forget about Xenoblades Chronicles X, game was truly a hidden gem💯
Even Monolith Soft finally remembered it in Future Redeemed
@@TheRealBOBlibob true
It was perfect. It even played great just using the shit wii upad.
Monolith Soft does such a great job. It's funny they actually mention Tears of the kingdom when Monolith helped develop it.
Along these same lines, I’d love to see a video that compares launch titles from console generations vs. what devs were squeezing out of some of these platforms by the end. I haven’t played Silent Hill 3 but that footage looked amazing for a PS2 game! It came out just 3 years into the PS2’s lifespan.
nintendo is the king of squeezing every last drop out of their consoles in the waning years. for example, Twilight Princess on GameCube and Breath of the Wild on Wii U. Both were released almost 5 years after the consoles came out and looked just as good as the next gen versions.
Max Payne 2 and 3 are 9 years apart but are still amazing to look and play. Looking forward to the Remedy Remakes.
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+1
@@gameranxTV 👍
Sonic Unleashed still holds up as one of my Top-5 Sonic games of all time! Which Sonic Frontiers is included in! But both games definitely offer their own charm, as well as their own flaws.
And yes, I say this as someone who actually likes the Werehog/Nighttime sections in Unleashed. But that mainly comes from how long it takes to do them at first. And then getting those stats upgraded, these stages can just be torn through in like half the time! And it's SO satisfying! Tho the daytime stages are obviously where the best part of the package is, no question! Part of that due to the visuals alone.
While Frontiers doesn't have that same visual flair, when it comes to the environments (which the pop-in doesn't help). I do feel it makes up for it in almost every other aspect. Combat & traversal is satisfying, the story's one of the best in a very long time (tho I should wait until we see what update 3 does, before saying anything definite at this point), same for the Super Sonic fights. Etc. Etc.
Still, I'd take both over Sonic Forces any day of the week.
i love warehog too, i dont get the hate at all, and even the graphics look great
The interactive rain smoke and fog in arkham knight was so ahead of it's time even AAA games today dont have these details
Maybe a part 2 of this list ? I would like to see other games that look insane for its time compared to some games of these days
I got one NBA 2K14 vs NBA 2k23
When they had to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the fire, they literally turned to the develops of Assasin's Creed Unity because they had developed such a massively detailed and accurate accumulation of data about the cathedral that it helped the accurately rebuild it.
When my mother had a brain tumor, she turned to my cousin because he had put 120 hours into Surgeon Simulator and gotten the platinum trophy
@@Hugh_Jannis the only doctor in the artic research team a couple years ago had to treat her own breast cancer because of how difficult it was to fly her out to another doctor. Imagine having to cut out a tumor from yourself.
@@Hugh_Jannis
Seriously, dude - don't be an ass.
The developers behind Assassin's Creed usually get so deep into modeling the landmarks accurately that they recreate the blueprints for them. They don't screw around when it comes to the world in AC.
....I'm now Batman...
@@garyballard179I heard about this. Video game worlds mirroring the real world might become future historic records as they are so accurate and well modelled. Kinda cool.
Such a great comparison. Some of these older games looked simply incredible. There’s no reason at all for games that came out a decade ago to look better than games that came out this year.
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Man 2014 and 2015 gave us some of best games in the last 10 years.
If there's a part 2, the graphical quality of driveclub vs any new racing games would be one to look forward to
Drive Club is great. Vr is awesome.
Hey Falcon, you absolutely nailed it with this list! The differences in graphics is blaringly different between these games. It's sad really 😢
The thing about SH3, Team Silent was a peerless artists troupe, they understood things like subsurface scattering before it became a marketing term, you could see all the work gone into normals when unpacking the textures in a PC, all PS2 Silent Hill games are masterclass in art
Fatal Frame is a close second. 2 and 3 were shockingly good-looking games, IMO.
I would argue REmake was so much better.
Unity honestly could have been the best AC game. Beautiful graphics, the best parkour in the entire series, good story and protagonist too.
I might agree
I disliked the story and protagonist but overall a solid game.
The story was terrible, the parkour is all style but no substance. The story was cliche and basically Arno simping for Elise
Technological leaps usually only happen about once a decade. Arkham Knights was a 1st gen Unreal 4 game so with its graphical setting all set to ultra high it can run smoothly on current gen PCs and look amazing. Since polycounts are now almost irrelevant its texture resolution and lighting that will define graphic fidelity. As real time GI rendering becomes the norm even older games will look amazing if you have a powerful graphics card.
“Barbara got cake.” Was the only thing I could think of the entire game. 😭
This list really shows that well done lighting goes a long way in making your game look good.
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@@gameranxTV 👍
To be fair to Gotham Knights, the interiors are beautiful, especially maxed out on PC. It's the exteriors that lets it down. At the same time what they were able to do with Unreal Engine 3 with Arkham Knight is still impressive and still holds up in today's era of UE5 titles.
but the performance and optimization is so much worse. to me arkham knight is a PC game, gotham knights is a console game
@@ISirSmokeyou sound goofy as hell lol. Gotham knight’s literally looks amazing on PC
@@ISirSmoke I guess you don't remember how Arkham Knight launched on PC. They had to remove the game from Steam for months and issue an insane amount of refunds because the optimization was so bad.
only for nvidia cards tho it worked great on amd @@felixdesrochers9940
@@felixdesrochers9940 I have bought the entire Arkham Game series on Steam for PC recently, and Knight looks ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS now. It actually LOOKS and FEELS like a brand-new next-gen batman game. So they must have done some MAJOR improvements between then and now.
Good work Gameranx!
Arkham knight will forever be one of the greatest video games ever made
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It's amazing how advancements in technology has somehow only made games longer and more difficult to make.
I love that how when the Notre Dame cathedral was damaged by fire a few years ago the people at Ubisoft who worked on the game offered up their specifications for repairs from in the game because it was that detailed and to scale
It’s clear Gamefreak doesn’t know how to make games on bigger consoles. To be fair they weren’t given enough time. But flip side Pokémon company is the most profitable gaming franchise of all time and can afford delays and bringing in experts to take Pokémon to the next level.
They hide behind the excuse of not wanting to change the core experience.
I bought Gotham knights on sale thinking it wouldn’t be as bad as everyone said, but the combat truly felt soooooooo JANKY. I couldn’t finish it.
it feel like they create big city with activity & vibe of small town
I think graphically speaking RDR2 is the most technically well made game ever made. The game art I loved the most at the time was the witcher 3, no game had come close to its art, sound, story and quality of its lore. The biggest disappointments for me is probably BF4, Cyberpunk and the recent starfield.
Good morning Falcon! Happy to see you guys again, hope you've all been well!
Very fair comparisons. One thingI noticed in the newer titles is the flatter/duller look but I think it can be pulled off tastefully - you're completely right in that it's strong art direction that's missing in the newer ones.
How does gameranx upload great vids every day?😭
I was surprised you guys included some fighting games on your list this time. I've been watching Gameranx for years and I don't recall you guys putting a lot of fighting games in your list videos. Only ever see before you buys for fighting games. Would be cool to see more FG ideas for future vids!
Ahhh, always love it when it's a Falcon video, just such a soothing voice
Wow, thank you!
what can we say, he is a calm and happy bird
@@gameranxTV 👍
Sonic unleashed cut scenes were crazy
This is just a credit to excellent work. If you do something so amazing like some of these, they don't have expiration dates. You'll be dead and gone and ppl will still be amazed by what you did.
One of the best gameranx videos in years. Great topic.
Clean and optimistic are the antithesis of what Gotham City should feel and look like.
i still don’t know what happened with the Assassin’s Creed graphics engine when Origins released, that game still looks good but you can’t deny the face animations, textures, foliage quality all took a hit compared to Unity and Syndicate
Shadow of Mordor is one of two game, i played twice. It has such a great "social" engine. Not just Nemesis. Just listening and watching Orcs can be fun.
Shadow of War steps it up times ten. It's amusing to hear these orcs talk sh!t, but when in the middle of them talking a puny grunt cuts the captain or warchief off and finishes the sh!t talking off is priceless.
Batman Arkham knight and shadow of Mordor are still looks🔥
I don't understand why real time lighting is so focused on. I would take baked lighting over it all day, other than games like GTA or Zelda where time actually matters. For most games changing day time everytime to sleep and having baked in lighting is just amazing
It's cheaper on a budget, both in terms of time and money.
Baked in lighting requires a team of environmental/lighting artists to go through and specifically add and tweak different light sources all over the world to get the effect they're looking for.
And when they talk about it being "baked in," the engine actually has to take those additions/modifications and process every little change, so you might be waiting anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours every time you rebake to see the results.
Furthermore, every time the environment changes post-lighting, you have to rebake again. Which means, yet again, waiting around for it to do so. Add even another tree to the world? Time to rebake.
This is even worse for open world games.
With real-time, they can pretty well dedicate a couple technical artists to it and have lighting more or less done in a matter of months, maybe even weeks, and it doesn't matter if you change something.
Hmm so money and time over quality, got it. I always thought it was to just have a realtime day night gimmick but it's about straight up making a worse game. Crazy@@ledumpsterfire6474
Baked lighting is cheaper but it requires significantly more time and a team because lighting needs to adjusted and tweaked manually. Real time lightning makes it easier for developers to focus on other aspects rather than spending time on lighting. Think before you talk next time
AC Unity's Paris is my favourite open world. Not just Lighing, but animations, freedom of movement and crowds make it stand out from other open world games.
I recently played the Stalker Franchise and those game are still really good even the first one with its borderlands like graphics. The first game and Call of Pripyat are really good and Anomaly mod is so damn good.
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true and they are amazing games
The Arkham Knight vs Gotham Knights comparison is embarrassing. The fact that the weather, art style, and city looks drastically better for Arkham Knight is really something
I think the forspoken devs were trying to make it more realistic by making the lighting more monotone, which works in horror games but not really in a fantasy game. I guess as far as world lighting goes elden ring is pretty monotone too but it actually fits the style.
Dumb forspoken devs 😂😂
It doesn't bother me. Fantasy can be drab/monotone, whether it's a game or not. Considering the plot of Forspoken, I'd say that the lighting fit with what was happening within Athia.
Maybe the Forspoken devs need to go touch some grass if they think monotone lighting is more realistic.
I'm surprised you guys didn't mention one of the most beautiful game on the PS3... MetalGearSolid4 !
Still looks better than some games from today
Guilty Gear Xrd utterly blew me away when I first played it. The second you start playing it, you know that the devs nailed it spot on.
I think sound and animation might be more important to me than being a fighting game when it comes to this series (and they are awesome fighting games, I wouldn't touch them if they weren't). So getting those aspects right here are something I am far more critical of than elsewhere.
You also need a RTX 4090 OC edition to hit stable 60 fps on these newer games.
Kinda odd that Falcon didn't mention the linear stage portions from Frontiers when comparing it to Unleashed. Both Unleashed and Frontiers had open areas and linear stages. Comparing those respective parts would have been fairer.
A bit of a different topic of discussion, but I'd like to give a special shoutout to how good some older pixel art games still look today. Mega Man 8, the original Sonic games on the Genesis/Mega Drive (especially when viewed on an actual CRT monitor), countless old arcade games, etc. I feel like the larger devs in the industry don't appreciate pixel art as much as they probably should, with even re-releases of old pixel art games often having no care put into how the games should look and just leaving old things like dithering untouched, and newer releases generally never actually being pixel art unless they're released by indie devs. I get that it's actually more expensive to make 2D pixel art games than it is to make them with 3D assets, but there's really no arguing that pixel art games can sometimes actually even look visually more appealing than 3D ones and certainly look good even without comparing them to anything.
Still waiting for top 10 game's that turns you on
A note about Forespoken and AC Unity's lighting, they're both considered 'real-time', the words you should use to describe the different lighting methods are,
Dynamic = what you consider real-time, able to change lighting in-game.
Static = baked lighting, does not change dynamically in-game.
Add starfiled to the list, incredible 2013 textures
This is why I assume they made it but didn’t want the drama.
@@joesmith3590 to be fair, considering how bad the game is performance wise (for the people that don't know, when people say performance, they mean FPS in relation to hardware, resolution and settings etc), if the textures were better then the game probably wouldn't even be able to boot💀💀💀. The game is fun though
@@yourlocalhuman3526 no it isn’t fun bad story bad mechanics it is simply content. If you busy you wouldn’t play it lol
@@joesmith3590 story is slow to get into for sure, I can understand your POV
@@joesmith3590 go touch grass and stop getting mad over a game lol
New frame plus does a great breakdown of how guilty gear pulls off it's 3d transition
Glad to see Sonic Unleashed get some love. While Frontier delivers more of a consistent experience, the highs of Unleashed are simply peak modern Sonic imo. Still hoping for a PC port 🤞
Love the list! This is like car construction of the past vs. cars made today. Sure, old car designs aren't as "good looking" by today's standard, but there was no skimming of durability and quality. Now it's all cheap product and faster sales...just like game development. It's as if most aren't even trying anymore.
Old devs really were more passionate in making incredible games than newer ones.
They hired for skill not diversity.
Video Games used to be an art form, now it's all just a cash grab for most. The objective these days seems to be: Release it as quickly as possible and squeeze as much money from people as we can.
A very good driving instructor. You read his body language perfectly well and you were right to rearrange the lessons without charging the students. I agree with your assessment of how much they would have got from the lessons. You are very right about the safety aspect.
being away from all games for a large break, this gave me something to think about getting, some old games are NEW to me,
and your brutal rebuke of the truly mediocre is fun,
you got a good brain,
for a brid,
Killzone : Shadow Fall (a PS4 launch title from 2013) still looks better than Halo: Infinite .
I think that it's good in a way that the Nintendo switch is pretty weak because it requires the developers to be more creative with the visuals and stuff and i think that is why most nintendo games look so unique
I started Assassins Creed Unity but I never got back to it. Gameranx keeps showing how good the game is and looks, maybe i should get back to it.
Would also have gone with Prey / Deathloop. Deathloop does look great but it has the advantage of next gen, but Prey does the same on previous gen systems.
Also The Order 1883 / anything. That still looks phenomenal.
Def agree with Assassin's Creed Unity. I got into it very late when Odyssey came out. Only encountered 1 bug throughout the whole game. Stunning looking. 👍
Arkham Knight's insane visuals are a combination of unreal engine black magic anfd fantastic art direction. It could release today and it would feel fresh!
In fact, AK, Dishonored 2, Dead Space and SH3 are prime examples that art direction is more important than visual fidelity.
Another banger video from gameranx... what a shock!
That old pokemon wound still hurts... it was really upsetting hearing people say "Of course it looks bad, is a Switch game" "Game Freak is doing all they can with the hardware" meanwhile the same systems keeps getting games like Red Dead Redemption and Xenoblade 3 or Dying Light running without problems
Hey Falcon! Love seeing what you bring to the table. The only disagreement I had was sonic unleashed. That game I could say was not the visually appealing. However I do agree with the flat terrains of sonic frontier. They only had one region that was not monotonous to traverse.
Arkham knight is beautiful. I load up just to walk around at times
Rocksteady nailed it with that dark drab artwork and detail. I'm tired of studios taking a light pg13 approach to superheros who have a natural dark side.
stay hydrated gameranx!!
Say what you will about ubisoft but they know how to put a world together. Far cry 4 still holds up and AC odyssey has one of the most beautiful open worlds I’ve ever experienced.
Assassins creed Valhalla was awesome looking.
Mario Sunshine holds up compared to any Pokémon game.
What a coincidence, I am currently playing AC unity, and its on the list.😊
By the way this is my first time playing an Assassin's Creed game and the graphics look very good at ultra settings preset.
Hope you enjoy it!
@@gameranxTV 👍
Guilty Gear Xrd still looks brand new, to this very day
Oh, didn't expect GG Xrd on the list, i love the artwork and the 2,5D style (also the 3D 'theatre' mode + finishers)
Completely agree that ArcSystem Works raised the bar when it came to transitioning a 2D fighter to 3D visuals, so much that other companies hired them to make games such as Dragonball Fighterz, DNF Duel and even the League of Legends fighting game is mimicking the look.
Historically speaking SNK was never good with 3D, they had a good leap of visual quality from KoF XIV to Samurai Shodown and KoF 15 but they've got an uphill battle when it comes to other fighting games, SF6 was inspired with their art style, MK1 and Tekken 8 are looking amazing too.
I really hope SNK can step up, I love their games but they're still a bit behind, I hope they can make the new Fatal Fury look amazing.
6:34 i would argue that simply outputting the original Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii in 1080p with no further mods looks better than Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.
That game looks WAY better than the 480p Wii was capable of showing, and they did that 13 years ago on 2 Gamecubes duct-taped together =P
Switch 2 will be the savior of the Pokemon games (Performance & Graphic wise). Because even though how bad the game looks in today's standard, people will buy them
Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) versus almost anything. The insane detail to make fictional planets feel as real as life almost made up for the extremely limited single player content. Almost. It will always be my favorite game purely on graphics, as I can't think of anything that can blow me away more. That game looks like it came out in 2025.
Great list and I'll agree not sure if Pokemon ran out of time with all new characters and Pokemon so they couldn't polish the graphics but Luigi's Mansion on the Gamecube which is much older looks much better. So yes there is really isn't a good excuse at times for new games no looking as good as they. Especially when these companies to ny knowledge don't go through crazy rewrites and scene changes like Hollywood films do.
The people at Gameranx who have to play some of these terrible games in order to get the footage for these videos need a raise.
This was great. What this video highlights is that games do not need to look realistic, they need to look good. Looking realistic is a bonus and deserves respect, but will earn nothing on its own. It's kinda similar to what I experience with VR. Immersion is what makes VR great, not realism. And I want the same for non-VR games: immersive worlds that I want to get lost in and that I can have fun in.
I completely forgot about Gotham Knights 😅
FYI: Arkham Knight had nvidia PhysX-based SMOKE, it was real smoke that moved as you moved through it, as you drove or flew, or a fan was pointed at it. The smoke was a 3D physics object, essentially, and behaved as such, like pooling on the floor.