I've Gotten Bored of Realism in Graphics

Who is Ray and why does he keep tracing so many things, is he okay?

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[lehashura]

The sentence "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding"
Lives rent free in my head and a lot of people's head nowardays and there's a reason why

[nahumgardner]

It's not just the graphics, there's a lack of variety in the AAA space as well.

[shadex]

A lot of companies have lost sight of the fact that video games are fantasy. It's okay to be grounded in reality to some degree, but ultimately I want an experience, especially visually, that I can't have in real life. And I also don't want to sit through 10+ minutes of cinematics to get there.

[josepass]

Doesn't help that these realistic looking games absolutely kill my storage too 😭

[psychicjellyfish]

Oh good, I thought I was the only one!

Like, not to knock any of these games, but nowadays, it feels like titles all blend together at presentations like State of Play, where most games go for hyper-realism.

[Bowser_Plush]

I think the biggest issue, is that more than anything, by making things super realistic you lose the artistic ability to show details that are not realistic. Of course I won’t blame the artist or designer as I have no doubt this is mostly a higher up demanding games look like this.

[pockystyx]

I'm still sad we didn't go down the big budget celshaded timeline

[gamebit]

Nintendo figured this out many moons ago and thats why they are so successful!

[mepose]

This is why I only really like Nintendo and Capcom because not only do their games that try to look real look great, but they have so many games that go under so many different art styles as well.

[cg_spiritedensemble]

For me it's less realism in games, & more the oversaturation of a specific genre or style in the general public eye. I'd be feeling tired if it was cell-shading that was oversaturated in the public eye, & so on. What AAA gaming seems to be missing a lot of is the variety of genres & styles. This is why indie gaming has taken off as much as it has.

[Lorkynn]

Ironically, I have been annoyed with the realism since the PS4/XB1 generation. While it's been great to see where it goes, I think we've gone too far with it.

[artsyomni]

I think the unfortunate reality is that the silent majority of people in the west DO prefer realism. The west has just been trained to associate stylization with younger demographics. Just look at how live action marvel movies like Spider-Man make more money than the animated spiderverse movies even when the spiderverse movies are just much better stories with more emotional resonance and artistic appeal.

[awakenedcrowl]

I've gotten bored of Realism in Graphics ages ago. I'm a hobby character designer (and hopefully eventually animator) and I always go for Cel Shading, because I just love the look of it. Any game that uses Cel Shading automatically has like a 30% higher chance to appeal to my brain

[unlinkingduck]

It’s so nice to see someone completely get it, this is exactly how I’ve felt about the industry at large recently. I can barely remember most titles from the Game Awards or the State of Play, they just feel so the same, so unique titles like Astro Bot stick out all the more, hope to see more games take that chance

[TaliesinMyrddin]

First time I remember being bored of realism was back when Twilight Princess came out and I realised Wind Waker's artstyle would age a lot better

[XperimentorEES]

Realism has always been a fool's errand when it comes to visual media; not only because of the technical limitation per system combined with reproducibility of said system, but also because there's a threshold of how much we can noticeably observe and anything beyond it is flatout wasted. Not to mention the chase for realism always dates the games as technology advances, while stylized ones don't because they don't rely on such a flimsy suspension of disbelief.

[bendito]

I’m glad you posted this on Summer Game Fest day cause oh boy are we gonna experience more realism-fatigue at that event today.
Edit: Glad to say I was wrong!

[N-Squared]

Just a reminder, Hifi rush was not a small game, and in general, artstyles are not the be all and end all of how much time and effort games take to make. Cartoony games can take years and realistic games can be made... well not super quickly but still. Sadly, I am pretty sure that depending on the size of the game (length not storage) Astro Bot may be one of those "Looks cartoony but took years to make" games.

[CasualChris]

im glad more and more people are realizing graphics are not that important

[TreasureBoxReviews]

It’s such a shame, and this chase for higher and higher production values is the reason we haven’t seen a new Naughty Dog or Sucker Punch game and are already half way through the generation. Major studios we got trilogies from on ps3 are now lucky to release one game a generation.