Video games don't look realistic to me anymore

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Started by Legend, Dec 06, 2019, 09:22 PM

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Legend

i mean, if the game is attempting to recreate real-life in real-time than yeah,.. games fall massively short.   i don't think it is so much that games look less realistic so much as more games are pretending to be realistic.  more games used to go for the "rachet and clank" kind of style where it was more of a cartoon than reality.

realistic themed games fall very short of reality.  which is all the more disappointing that more don't do more of a cartoon look because hardware is powerful enough now to pull off that look without feeling like something is missing.
You said this not too long ago:

i watched the everwild trailer.  the art direction is nice but for a game that must be launching on the next xbox it also looks really cheap.  such blocky geomerty is fine for an indie developer but for a AAA first party it is lazy.
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.