Graphics

n late 2000s and in 2010s, video game graphics have matured tremendously. It has become a rare instance where a professionally developed (regardless of the budget) game is truly off putting to large groups of people. There are easy to access tools to make expressive, appealing visuals for your games; certain quality standards has become more and more accepted. And of course, graphics had always a lower priority compared to a captivating gameplay. When a game is popular on PC for years and years, there is a good chance it's partly due to how friendly the game is to older systems. The enormous triumph of Gameboy and Wii owes to their low graphical capabilites. People still cherish old games, despite, and sometimes because of their old-fashioned graphics. As the average hardware has reached a certaim threshold of power, the limitations to making a game visually presentable has been largely eroded, as a result, computer graphics have surpassed merely being tolerable. Today, they are quite alright, even in the most humble smartphones.
This is an overwhelmingly positive progress, but there is a concerning side effect. Graphics, and visuals as whole has lost some spark. Even game magazines, despite how hyped up they usually are, had lost some of their excitement on this issue over the years. Tech-driven hype, at least on non-VR, non-3D side, has lost steam; due to simply how we perceive visuals: There is an incredible difference in rendering an object with polygons vs 200 polygons, 300 polygons vs 1000 polygons... but 10000 polygons vs 20000 polygons? 30000 polygons? 50000? After a certain count it starts to give diminishing returns. However, I wouldn't say this is the only reason. Rather, I would argue that, in the process of standardization, the industry as a whole actively made visuals less interesting, ironically while trying to chase the glory of the early 2000s. But.. why? For this, let's discuss a game where visuals make me really excited:

Ori the Blind Forest(2015) is a gorgeous game. A screenshot from any moment of the game is worthy of a physical frame on the wall. From color composition, careful management of lightning and shadows, great cohesion in character designs, background and user interface to the tiniest details in the pixels; the game is filled with awe and wonder, but with a kind that wants to feel the player welcome rather than being overwhelmed. Not only that, it brims with life: The dim lights on the lab,  Ori's own movements, how the game communicates the weather and the mood of the scene with the most subtle changes. One could say that the game is like being in an animated movie, but this is quite an understatement. Rather, it's as if player themselves is directing the animations, creating a whole alternate reality from drawings.
The feelings the visuals achieve to create do not entirely come from images alone. The controls, the sounds, the level design all play the same rhythm with the visuals. The game's difficulty for instance, is just right enough so that, a player can both linger enough in a level enough and savor the visuals for quite a while, but also make the player master the controls so that they can gradually learn to go blazing fast and dominate the landscape. When Ori takes a hit, its brief "ah!" and seconds of flashing red on its body both communicate the pain clearly without being disturbing, telegraph the invincibility frames and show how adorable Ori is at the same time. Many more examples can be given, but it can be seen that the graphics of the game are not just concened with presentation, they are baked in the language of the game. This is what makes the graphics in Ori the Blind Forest truly special, beyond just high fidelity and eye-candy effect.
Games often build a degree connection between their visuals and rest of the game as they develops naturally, but in some cases, it seems that the direction of visuals is actively towards abstracting this connection. Blizzard games certainly feel like this for example. Beginning with Warcraft 3(2002), all of their games started to share an art direction of easy-to-eyes, vibrant, expressive in-game graphics that don't lose too much quality on old system, coupled with highly detailed and photorealistic cutscenes with a slight cartoony streak which again, saves them from being dated. It is a very succesful style; very easy to make it distinct, appealing, and to maintain compared to pure photorealism, easily surpass most low-budgeted cartoony styles in polish, creates an easily distinguishable brand without needing to be unique, and adaptable to nearly anything. It is too successful for it's own good, it feels like a pretty package for the game, doesn't really add to it; negative or positively. Despite all of its glitter, the art direction in those games is lackluster when it comes to conveying emotion and character on its own, instead either relying on widely recognizable visual tropes or dazzling the players with excessive detail in cutscenes. Blizzard visuals always impress me for a short while, then it makes me feel there is something missing, a thing that a game like Bloodborne(2015), Celeste(2018) or even a game like Super Meat Boy(2010) has.
Isn't this at least a little vain? Seasoned programmers and artists working hundreds of hours with the most proffesional equipment, creating software for computers with the most powerful graphical processing unit and copious amount of memory space, so that we can see the our protagonist'sbody hair waving in the wind in our video game. A huge achievement for the research field, but in practice, all it achieves is to mildly impress people in trailers and have the same function as the graphics of Fortnite(2017), filling the basic duties of visuals, and carry little personality of their own. And among visual styles, photorealism perhaps has been misused the most this way.
a close up beard shot from Uncharted 4[/caption]First, let's establish what 'photorealism' is. It is not just when a game tries to be life-like. A game can be realistic, i.e. visual objects can feel like they have a tangible existence. However a gameWs art direction can be both realistic and stylized. For instance, Gone Home(2013) is rather down to earth with it is visuals, but has a cartoony feel that is not concerned too much with fidelity. Photorealism however, takes being "real" to its conclusion, its aim is to look like a as if recorded in a camera in a real life, a scene from the game looking like a photograph or a moment from a live-action movie. Looking realistic was a goal for video game graphics as old as graphics themselves, but photorealism only became feasible after technology has been developed to a certain point. Though there are earlier attempts of photorealism, notably with Full Motion Videos, it really became a thing in late 2000s when games slowly figured out how to look realistic in close detail without drenching themselves in brown. Then it evolved to its point of today, where we can savor the player character's body hair, every milimeter of dirt on their armor, the smallest detail on the guns with their full glory.
What does this exactly achieve? Well, it can put them ahead in competition, provides a good justification for sequels, looks cool in trailers, gives an incentive for updating game systems, serves as tech demos. What about the game itself? Despite how strict and demanding the style is,  it is often treated as default for a big action game, with actual questionable improvement of the game's experience. As much as I have criticized Blizzard graphics, they are at least indeed pleasant-looking and recognizable. Photorealism is not only at the mercy of the hardware but also it can only look nice and impressive as the scenes it is imitating from real life. A water stream, a garden, sun rising behind mountains can be made truly awesome, but muddy soliders or gray apartment blocks? What does being able to see every little detail provides us?  A game can have a gritty, broody or scary tone without photorealism. Telltale Walking Dead(2013-2019) games are serious and filled with gore as they can be without being over-the-top, yet they are cel-shaded, and this allows the games to depict visuals as detailed as they need while being cost effective and being able to have more control over the visual tone.
What does photorealism truly achieves is have precious moments from the game that truly looks like movies. A real oportunity for the PRESTIGE. Look at Last of Us(2013), Red Dead Redemption 2(2019) or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare(2019), how truly GREAT they are. I am not entirely ironic here, such games have truly impressive moments. However, those moments are fleeting; because in the end, a game not trying to look like a game is a desperate fight against itself, only in brief shots and cutscenes I get to have that "wow" effect. This creates a conflict between the gameplay and the visuals, and it's usually what this makes such graphics actually off-putting to me. The fact that gameplay systems did not have a drastic change over the years only excerbates this: One second there is a cutscene with faces with perfect motion capture, on the other there is an enemy who absorbs very real-looking bullets from a very real-looking gun like a sponge, barely even twitching its very real-looking body. Same guns, same covers, same skill trees, same stealth, same level design; all at least near two decades old.  Those gameplay systems were designed with the graphics of it's day. FPS pioneers were maze games, jumping became more pronounced in those games as 3D spaces expended vertically.  Then, as the graphic power increased, the gameplay become slower and in more cramped spaces to show show the objects in detail. But towards mid 2000s,  the gameplay systems which proved their merit just reused again and again while graphics evolved. That is perfectly fine in itself, but photorealism does not forgive such stagnation. Red Dead Redempton 2 goes extra mile to make everything "naturalistic" as possible, but because it conflicts with the fundemental game systems underneath, it can feel even more artificial at times.
All that being said, photorealism is just a style, and can be used well. Until Dawn(2015) is an apt example. The game goes out of its way to mimic horror movies. Its limited interaction helps to maintain the movie-like feel, photorealistic visuals feel meaningful and build the identity of the gaöe. The appeal of racing games often comes from the extreme detail on the cars coupled with precise physics engines, they exist to be car porns. However debatable its success is, L.A. Noire(2011) at least tries to use its motion capture technology in the gameplay. All of these examples prove that truly good visuals are the ones in harmony with other elements of the game.
Graphics matter. They posses an incredible power to shape our games., both for good and bad. And so much effort goes into creating them, they are major reason for crunches, bloating budgets, delays, two-digit gigabyte patches. Graphics don't have to be amazing, some games don't have any graphics at all, but if we are putting so much effort into them, They deserve better than to be "fine" with occasional "screenshot-worthy" moments. The technology we have can be much more than just more blood for the altar of marketing, it can provide us with truly special experiences, like Ori.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.