Why Next-Gen Graphics Seem To Have Stagnated

The level of graphics is reaching the critical point where I don't care anymore.

We all know when graphics were perfected. PS1 Hagrid.

"Is the game any good?" "Omg so good, the ray tracing is spectacular, you can see the cars windows reflection IN THE SKYSCRAPER reflections!" "Cool, but is the game any good?" "Its amazing, its runs at a constant 60fps" "Sweet, but is the game any good?" "Its brilliant! It runs at a native 4k" "...but... is the game any good?" "Yeah it was alright, ending was a bit shit, I preferred the first one on ps2"

I really wish AAA games hadn’t ruined realism to mean having no style, it’s a huge loss that there’s no games that take a Rango-esque direction with realistic textures but with character/setting designs that take creative liberties and risks. Now is the time to experiment with realism for new and exciting styles rather than having it move painfully slowly towards a goal that nobody needs or even wants anymore.

Meanwhile, I’m still playing TF2 because my computer is a Casio calculator

"A photo in low resolution is more realistic than a 4K AAA game image".

Now is the perfect time for video game history to have its "impressionism" time period whiles we come to the peak " Renaissance" level.

I feel like the “next gen” of graphics is going to be stylization instead of realism. Sure, cool reflections are cool, but at some point people are going to realize that the game doesn’t need to be realistic to look good.

2 reasons: 1: pushing for 60fps requires twice the power compared to capping a game at 30. this overhead could, instead, be used to make a game look better. this also applies to 4k - resolution doesn't make a game's 'graphics' better. 2: asset creation. we've reached the point where hand-made models in games hold a game back from looking truly realistic. unless we move toward using photogrammetry for all models in a game, then this is a hard limitation that will be hard to overcome.

It’s not the amount of pixels on screen, it’s how fast it takes those pixels take to show up on screen that I care about.

Everytime I hear “Raytracing” being loosely thrown around, my mind immediately wanders to “blast processing”

I would like to see more realtime/dynamic destruction in games.

My TV only has 720p, so in the end does any of this even matter.

I don’t get the obsession with 4K honestly, I’m at the point where graphics look cool but I’m down with whatever if it’s fun.

Man his description of “average joe” is the a perfect description of me. Meanwhile according to about 50% of people I know, I’m a “gamer”

I hope the 2020s are a boom in stylized games. Every game has the crazy graphics, but a signature style like persona is gonna be great

RDR2 was the only time Next gen blew my mind in recent years

Honestly, Physics upgrades are much more interesting that amount polys on screens. If the game play is fun enough and story interesting enough, how pretty a game is low priority and low importance.

I think ultimately all the "low hanging fruit" has been picked. Its more about specialization (can we make hair look more realistic, can we make reflections more realistic etc) then overall, global graphics quality. Then there is diminishing returns, doubling the amount of polygons does not make as much of a difference today as it did in the year 2000. However, one thing that does get me excited in games, and I wish developers paid more attention to, is AI. I can't wait until NPC's are realistic rather than just taking another arrow in the knee.

I honestly was more immersed in games with pixelated graphics than in thos high resolution titles, i think there was more space for my imagination to kick in..