You said this not too long ago:yes, i said i liked the art directly but that the geometry looked blocky. i don't think it looks cheap because the art style is not realistic,.. i think it looks cheap because they used about half as many polygons as they should have.
Studios would love to make more stylized games since they can be a lot cheaper but it's a hard balance. Not everyone has the same threshold as you but in general increasing stylization decreases perceived effort. A 5 hour game with GOW graphics just innately feels more expensive than a 10 hour game with Concrete Genie graphics for most people.
Also in a weird sense, realism can actually be cheaper at times. Everyone is working on it so everyone can share the same solutions and workflows. Open up Unreal Engine and you can have a "AAA quality" scene in a matter of minutes. A large game needs lots of custom scenes so the price adds up but smaller ones can more or less slap things together and call it a day.
What i am saying is more like,.. nintendo fans used to argue that mario didn't need high resolution and that this was perfectly fine graphics:
...because HD mario would look like this:
which is fudgy stupid because mario in HD really looks more like this:
it's not the art style that changes with HD it is the crispness and details. yes it takes more time but the presentation is much, much better for it and you can tell at even the most casual of glances how much better it looks.
i really like everwild's art direction. and for a indie company it would be understandable. all i'm saying is everwild,.. which is a first party game launching on next gen hardware should be a showcase piece of what next gen is capable of and thus looks miles better than a early indie ps4 game at a glance. it does not:
