Topic: Are videogame visuals at an all time high?

First off: not sure where a thread like this goes so if a mod would move it to a better place that would be great. Now. Obviously videogame visuals are great right now, but is this just because it’s the best in our current time? I. E. Were, say, nes graphics “stunning” so to speak only because there was just nothing better, or because we thought there was nothing better? I’m young and wasn’t alive back then, and I’m super curious. So, do you think that videogame graphics are only really good because we’ve seen nothing better, or do you think that graphics are at an all time peak that probably can’t be improved much more? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I'd say they're always constantly at their all-time-high.

Since they tend to go up, not down.

I remember seeing Snes graphics for the first time and thinking wow how could games look better than this! Then with every generation I'm proven wrong again. Now todays best looking games definitely give me the sense that We've hit the point where looks aren't really going to matter much anymore. I mean everything basically looks the same now nomatter the platform. It's all HD, cinematic and shiny! What's next? Games literally looking like a movie you control? How much more impressed do people need to be?

This is why when PS5 launches unless it's got mind blowing visuals i never thought possible I'll pass. If a game comes along that interests me because of the content or quality I'll consider it but visuals don't sell me systems anymore. It's the games.

There's always room for improvements, @J-Plap .... But the differences between graphics has been much less noticeable So, there'll still be some step-up in graphics next gen but it might be barely noticeable

@StephanDLW
There may be room for improvement, there always will be, but the impact of that improvement is always shrinking. For example this is what what would become Pixar was doing in 1985, when the NES was "impressive" to bring it back to the OP's post...

Back then there was a huge gap between the visual effects you'd see in movies and what could be done in games. Even right up into the mid-2000s I'd say the gap was pretty massive. But since then the gap has been shrinking rapidly. We're at the point now where the only major thing gaming hasn't quite conquered yet is real-time ray-tracing.... and even then artists have become pretty good at faking realistic lighting over the years that even that's not much of a jump anymore

Man, that stained glass knight is actually really impressive!

I'd say, yes games are at an all time high in terms of technical aspects. But I feel as though the tendency toward realism is badly stifling creativity. With only a few execptions, most AAA games on PS4 and PC these days trend toward a realism style in their graphics. While it is technically impressive, it limits creativity. You get a situation like we saw in the Detective Pikachu movie, with many things that aren't "real" looking painfully out of place. While that movie did well, I think people were only accepting of Pokemon designs like that because it was Pokemon and an already established franchise.

Trending toward the highest end graphics and realism makes it so it's much harder to design fantastic and colorful worlds and creatures that many of us have grown up loving. How could you make Pokemon or Dragon Quest or Mario in a realism style? It'd look totally different! And not likely in a good way.

I think if you were to take Nintendo's major titles on Switch and port them to PC, they'd not end up looking dramatically different. You could get them at much higher resolutions and perfect 60FPS or better. Run the games at 4K or even 8K but if you pushed something like Mario Odyssey into a realism style... I think it would be hideous!

Stylised graphics always outdo realism in the long run. Been playing a load of older fighters recently and if you told me games like Third Strike or Mark of the Wolves were released yesterday, I'd probably believe you. It's no wonder Wind Waker looks so much better than the following 3D Zelda in the series. Until the uncanny valley has been completely supplanted, devs should focus either on lighting or stylisation. The tech to pull these two elements off has existed for an eternity and succeeding with either (preferably both) helps a game to age like wine. Obviously have no gripes with developers pushing hardware and visuals to the limits but unless you are pushing the limits, I'd have to ask why even bother aiming for realism.

To me realism isn't what videogames should go for. That's why Nintendo has always been my main platform of choice. Their games are wacky, Zany and totally out there! Complete nonsense and fun as heck! You know like willy wonka. Pure imagination! Realism is boring. If i want that I'll turn off the videogames and go back to reality. The way the world is today though that's the last place i wanna be. That's why i game.

There so high now that I don’t feel drunk

@skywake Holy shoot, that looks better than some of the CGI you see in TV shows still today, nearly 30 years later. Pixar are clearly masters of their craft.

As for graphics looking better, the answer is yes, but beyond the obvious more power, better graphics APIs answer, there's also the fact that developers are finally back to using stylized graphics after the period of utter brownness that was the 360/PS3 era. With that level power and proper design being mixed, many games look leaps and bounds better than a significant portion of last generation despite the power gap not honestly being that big.

Here's a channel that'll likely be a house name among the video game analysis and essay community in no time:

Fascinating video about some incredible displacement mapping texture tricks used in one of the levels of Mario Galaxy 2. For as cute as some of the cartoony offerings are in Nintendo's catalogue, the company is packing some incredible tricks into the development of these games to keep them looking fresh for years to come.

@Zeldafan79 I'd stay inside too if the world around me looked like Midgard from God of War

@cryptologous Welp, I'm now subscribed. That video was fascinating, and there's clearly tons more things to cover. That does explain why Super Mario Galaxy looks so wonderful in the 4K screenshots I've seen though.

@link3710 make sure to check his website noclip.website to have your mind blown (probably won't work on mobile, would recommend using a computer).

Not to overload this thread with recs but Nerrel is, subsequently, a compulsory check. I didn't give a fraction of a darn about textures until I fell in love with this channel. Man's love for Majora's Mask is unprecedented.

@J-Plap NES graphics were never really impressive to be honest. The Master System had better graphics with more colour and no flicker. The NES flicker used to do my head in in the 80's. Megadrive and SNES graphics were incredible at the time, no doubt about it but only incredible at home. The problem was arcade graphics were always so much better and you were aware of that. A home console game being 'Arcade Perfect' was a pretty big thing back then but few games ever achieved it , unless it was a port of an older arcade game. Even then there were usually still sacrifices. Final Fight on the Mega CD was one of the rare examples of a home console game looking as good as its arcade counterpart and that game blew me away. Mario 64 looked incredible for its time but again, you could find many games with better graphics at the arcade.

It wasn't until the Sega Dreamcast that we started to see parity with arcade graphics and it coincided with the death of the arcades, at least in the UK. I'd say the all time high for graphics was either with the Dreamcast or the first HD consoles. Graphics obviously look better than ever now but the jump from PS3 to PS4 was nowhere near as major as the jump from PS2 to PS3. Or from Saturn to Dreamcast. Or from NES to SNES.