These aren't mutually exclusive
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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High-fidelity and artfully stylized aren't, but photorealism is like... a photo.
Photo realism still requires art direction.
Think of a movie.
aight this scene takes place in Mexico so lemme color grade it very Mexican, but also it's a flashback to the 50's so I'm gonna dial down the color saturation and digitally add some film grain
What if it was neo mexico city? Need some cyberpunk chihuahuas
I was in a bluegrass band called Cyberpunk Chihuahuas. We offended many cultural sensibilities.
Albuquerque?
Yup. Take that one body cam game. Making an object look realistic is a matter of slapping a high resolution texture on it. Making a game look realistic involves a lot of prop work and stage setting. Making a game look realistic and still be playable is insanely difficult. Pay attention to the size of the doors in the next "photorealistic" game you play, and laugh at the fools who say photorealism doesn't require art direction
I think we're talking about different things, but I see your point.
By stylized "graphics" I took it to mean like the actual resolution, polygons, draw distance, etc, and then aesthetics goes on top of that.
Art direction isn't purely aesthetics either. There's so many things that go into makeing art, be it a game or something else.
Art should help us feel what the artist intended or sometimes something more personal to ourselves. Many aspects will facilitate or detract from that.
You can have stylized photorealism the same as other styles of art. You mght see pixel art of a realistic scene. Or you can have extremely detailed animation.
I think the better question is does the community allow for and reward that expression? Are there trends we don't find too appealing universally? Are there styles of art that maybe seem overused?
OK we're definitely talking about different things when we say photorealism. I see stylized and photorealistic almost as on a linear spectrum. I realise there are more dimensionz to it than that, but that's the usage I think the meme is critiquing. That's how I took it, anyway.
What they're talking about is what I call "The Wind Waker Effect." When the GameCube was first announced, they showed off a trailer that included a realistic looking Link fighting Ganondorf to show off the power of the system. When the Wind Waker was announced and shown to the public, fans were furious. They didn't want some cartoony Zelda game, they wanted that photo-realistic Zelda game that they had been teased with years before! When Wind Waker came out, it was universally criticized for its graphics. Today, it's considered one of the best looking Zelda games of all time and was the main inspiration for the art direction of almost every Zelda game after it - including Breath of the Wild.
If Nintendo had made that "photo-realistic" Zelda game, it would look nowhere near as good nor be as fondly remembered today, because "photo-realistic" in terms of video game graphics is an obsession with graphical fidelity, not artistic quality. That's why photo-realistic games from the same era are remembered as the "real = brown" era of games. It's a technical or hardware question of "how many polygons can we fit in this character's facial pores", not taking something fake and making it seem real through art direction.
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I think they mean that you can like both, you don't have to choose only one to like
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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!
artfully stylized graphics will always be better because they will look timeless
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.
I would be happy if they stopped making everything look somehow both covered in vaseline while also being more reflective then a fucking mirror.
Just look at this shit in the demo:
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
Like 3d tv, this is just a fad. Most people I know turn off raytracing in a few min (even though they spent $1000s on hardware to do raytracing). The generated frames and full ray and pathtracing have such low payout vs the cost. Unless something changes this is all pointless waste.
Best example I can think of is the rtx portal looking and running like ass compared to the now very old original.
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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.
And if there is dirt, its glossy and reflective. I swear they are trying to give uncanny valley vibes on everything now.
I mean, effects like these have their time and place as well. Looking for a sci-fi setting in a distant future where these robots coming fresh out the factory like that? Cool. But I get your sentiment, if everything just looks like this because it just can and no conceptual thought goes into it, it’s crap.
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Dear AAA game studios: Just look at Hades II.
LOOK AT IT. A good chunk of the art you see on every playthrough isn't even animated.
I'm probably going to clear 300+ hours on this thing before I put it down, and I'll likely tell everyone to buy it because it's that good. Photorealism is the last thing I care about.
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.
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Mirror's Edge is still beautiful to this day, despite being 17 years old
I like both, they each have their place
you know what, I'll just keep playing the same old decade old games I've been playing
No matter who denies it, this is peak artfully stylised graphics for any game ever made.
I wish they'd make more games like Disco Elysium where the whole thing looks like a painting.
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Hand draw each frame. Now do it 60 or more times per second.
Yes, you only have to replace your GPU with about 800 000 artists (assuming the take four hours to draw a frame)
And since they have to do it 4 hours in advance, it's technically using FrameGeneration predicting what the next frame will be in advance. 😏
There's a guy in my computer doing that for me
But Clair Obscur, tho.
Like, damn.
Anyone who says photorealism and stylized art are mutually exclusive needs to play Clair Obscur, then delete their comment
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The trouble with photorealism is that you very easily stumble into the uncanny valley. In addition, something that often looks "photorealistic" today will look really dated in a few years.
If you go with artfully styled games, it can actually be much harder. You need to adopt a consistent artistic style and have that style be used by many different artists. Unlike with photorealism, there isn't always going to be a reference available. You have to watch that over time, and as the scope of the game grows, the style remains consistent. But, when it's done well, it can be amazing.
One of my favourites in terms of artful styling is the game Interstate '76. It came out at a time when full motion video cutscenes were the style of the day. You'd have low resolution graphics, and then come in with a VHS-quality cutscene with real actors and real sets. Then back into low resolution graphics. Interstate '76 chose an amazing artistic style, then did in-engine cutscenes, which kept the style consistent.
The other master of this, IMO, is World of Warcraft. It must be a gargantuan undertaking to have a game with that many different models and to have a consistent style for all of them, but they mostly do. They often do out-of-engine cutscenes, but their style is so consistent that their cutscenes just look like even more detailed shots from that same world.
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.
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GPU consumption is more reliable to know how old a game is than its graphics.
When Minecraft was released, I thought it was an accident. That no other game could be popular and run with with an inappropriate language such as Java.
I was so wrong.
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Why do that when I can just ask Sora to make it for me? Then I don't have to engage my brain at all!
Meh, I like high fidelity graphics. Most "artfully stylised" games are not to my taste either - pixel graphics do nothing for me and nor do a lot of flat 2D graphics. Stuff like GRIS is beautiful, but it seems to be an outlier. So for visually engaging stuff I find it's AAA mostly realistic graphics - if not "photorealistic" - for me.
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 🥀
I loved Firewatch's art style. And story. It was a masterpiece.
It's a shame that "In The Valley Of Gods" is unlikely to happen anymore.
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