There are several games who we're just "this looks like reality" when they released who have aged well too. Half-life 2 (even without the updates) being the first one I think of, but I also think the first Far Cry and Crysis look amazing even now. Good design will age well no matter, the only thing that goes away is the immediate excitement of how impressively real it looks for the ones that went for that, but they still stir something inside people who experience them for the first time decades later.

Psychonauts!!

Similarly Schedule I. Tyler optimized TF out of the very unrealistic graphics in that game, and is only hiring an artist so that the expansion looks pretty.

So I remember playing xenosaga 3 on the PS2. The visual effects on some of the mech attacks were absolutely stunning. It was sooooo pretty.

I wish they'd make more games that have unique art styles.

High-fidelity and artfully stylized aren't, but photorealism is like... a photo.

Don't make me point at the TitanFall 2 and MGSV sign again.

Its just that that's hard for developers to develop, for management to allow, so, instead, use horrifically unoptimized UE5!

When reflections became a thing in graphics, they were the new hotness. But unfortunately they're overused because people seem to think that reflections are the best indicator of graphical realism. They're a factor for sure, but overly reflective isn't the same as realistic reflections

This works for a tech demo if you want to show off a new rendering engine or a new GPU. But yeah, if you base the whole game around that, it's like those movies with more CGI than plot.

In this world, there is no dust or dirt and everything looks like an early 2000’s Apple product.

Hah. Remember in the Xbox 360 era when everything looked like it was wrapped in saran wrap? I hated that so much. It's like - some if not most objects are not that reflective. Yes light bounces off of things, but it's such an "all or none" solution. Things in real life are so much more diffused.

Yes, you only have to replace your GPU with about 800 000 artists (assuming the take four hours to draw a frame)

There's a guy in my computer doing that for me

Anyone who says photorealism and stylized art are mutually exclusive needs to play Clair Obscur, then delete their comment

something that often looks "photorealistic" today will look really dated in a few years

Check the overall vibe of game cube games VS ps2/xbox. N64 VS PS1. Colourful pretty games stand the test of time way better than realism.

Rule #1: Never get out of the car

something that often looks "photorealistic" today will look really dated in a few years.

I'm fairly certain that with AI framegen and he hyperfocus on raytracing this paradigm is broken. Were going from consecutive titles looking better to stagnation while only projects with some breathing room in production will advance visually. (E.g. new witcher).

Wow had been interesting lately. The last expansion I played, there were legitimately zones that I thought “I can’t believe this is wow” compared to the vanilla zones. You can still tell after a moment, but it is just a lot more detailed. I do love the point you make here. It reminded me of my first experience with uncanny valley in a game. I prefer not to have that experience tbh.

I mean, there aren't a lot of Java games, and C# (especially with newer runtimes) isn't that bad if that's what you're referencing.

The old Civ games were a lot of Python, which is perhaps the most atrocious of all, performance wise. But they worked okay.

A person with different tastes than me, grrrr. It's diametrically opposite for me. All AAA, no matter what studio, not ID, not Lorien, their graphics just never look as vibrant as lo-fi graphics of a game made by, at most, 5 people. They do have some impressive aspects but, overall, because they try to look more """real""" they end up looking more mundane and boring to me. Nothing will ever compete with artistic abstraction of lo-fi games 🥀

Agreed, it really depends on the game. Battlefield with Art Stylized graphics would look terrible, just like how if Final Fantasy was done with Realistic graphics would be weird.

I like anime waifu and I think it's timeless. The problem is, because it's everywhere, there are a lot of not great to offensive games that use it

I must have missed the part where OP said, "There shouldn't be any photorealistic games."

I loved the goofy over the top graphics of older GTA games like Vice City, San Andreas etc. I played GTA 5 for a bit and then dropped it cause I feel the game lost some of its charm with the more realistic graphics