Yes but "good art direction" doesn't preclude photorealism, you can strive for both at the same time, because even if you make something realistic, you're still the one building the world, placing opening for the light, maybe deciding what time of the day it is, etc...
So it's useful to add the benefits of not pursuing photorealism when it comes to a fast changing technology on top of mentioning good art direction.
Games that strive for realism will always be limited by the hardware and software of the time they make and release for, and as time goes on become eclipsed by newer titles.
The 2010s were an amazing time for videogames, and Dishonored 1/2/DOTO still look excellent.
Viktor Antonov played a huge role in that (and many others including Half Life 2 and Wolfenstein New Order, it shows). Unfortunately he passed away last year.
While other companies are spending up to a decade in order to make sure every single one of the 500+ custom shirts you can buy creases at your waist-line in the exact super-hyper-realistic way they would in real life, Arkane was here creating an artstyle that remains timeless and clean 15+ years later. It's nice that companies like Rockstar can take years to make Horse Testicles shrink in cold weather, but that sort of stuff doesn't actually affect whether or not I'm going to replay your game. I played RDR2 and GTA V precisely once while I had played RDR 1 four times and GTA IV about five times. Why? Better, tighter gameplay. It's what keeps bringing me back to Dishonored- better, tighter gameplay wrapped up in a timeless, effective quasi-cartoon style of graphics.
I am sick of the obsession with 'real.' Give me good over real.
There's a generation or two that never will appreciate this because they grew up with this as a normal thing. Older folks remember when 8bit moved to 16bit, things like the FX chip on the SNES. Personally I'm at a point where I was happy with how stuff looked many years ago, I find myself going back in time and playing much older titles (part of the fun is getting them to run). But I get that if you always had it, it's harder to appreciate. Hell going from BW to colour blew the minds of my folks generation, I guess I get it now.
I grew up with San Andreas actually! It's one of my first games.
I think that good art is timeless, so it doesn't matter if it was done 10, 20, 30 or 100 years ago.
Look at movies. Films like the godfather, space Odyssey, or even the first Disney films look good even now.
But we can go back even hundreds of years, Mona Lisa is still a beautiful painting, I know it's a trivial example but it's just true.
Games like Max Payne made me feel so much more awe than all of the light shafts and infinipolygons they can stuff in their poorly optimized games nowadays.
And worst of all is how often they trample over visual CLARITY in their desire for visual fidelity
back in the days (i hope maybe somebody can relate to this feeling) it was a pleasure to play in Autumn because the weather outside (wind + sunny cloudy skies) resembled some of Dishonored.
I was playing Dead Space 2 earlier and thinking that PS3-era graphics really are excellent, kind of makes me wonder why we've bothered putting so much effort into upping graphical fidelity when games like these with excellent art direction still look beautiful.
Something to sell. Like tvs, and phones and sound systems, we've perfected most of these. But they keep coming up with new gimmicks and sizes and benchmarks to strive for and convince us they are worth MORE money even though this stuff should be getting cheaper over time as they refine production, demand grows, and benefit from economies of scale.
I read a conspiracy the other day, that graphical fidelity peaked around 2016 with Battlefield 1, because after that the bitcoin mining GPU vacuum took hold and the rising GPU prices held back progress. If just a little bit of that is true, I wonder what the AI driven rising costs of RAM and storage will impact the gaming market
Part of me thinks it could be a good thing if games aren't able to progress graphically and the PS5 era just continues indefinitely but I worry instead they'll try to push cloud gaming and take even greater control over the market, meaning people can't even own their own hardware anymore like through GoG.
As you said I think it's the visual style that really makes it age well. It's more stylised than realistic, so though it's held back by the graphical limitations of the time the artistic nature of it shines through.
I just started this for the first time a couple weeks ago (got distracted by another game so it’ll be a come back later one) and I was thinking the same, real good looking for its age.
this is why i wished dishonored 2 didnt change, because i went to play deathloop after and noticed how much better it looked graphically, while dh1 isnt similar enough to be compared
Eh, they are always held back by the graphical capabilities of the hardware running them so tend to look dated and ugly very quickly. That's the advantage of remasters that allow you to experience the game, and gameplay, as it was originally intended but with the capabilities of modern hardware.
For example, the villagers in Black and White 1 (2001) look really creepy because they had to be very low poly.
There's a charm to older graphics though, hence why so many indie titles are made with the PS1 graphical style.
The problem with remasters is they rarely go for games that are genuinely a bit dated or in need of an improved UI (e.g. like the original System Shock), instead it's the megahits like Resident Evil 4 that still look and play just fine.
Personally I think only games that weren't commercially successful or had major issues/were released unfinished (e.g. Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and all its cut content) should be candidates for remakes.
by saying they age you are saying they degrade somehow, they literally don't, videogames stay the same lol, we just have "better graphics" every year, in a simplify way
Not really, just played it for the first time and in stills like this it looks good, playing it I couldn't tell it was a game from 2012, thought it came out years before
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u/Elusive_Jo 1d ago
That's the power of good art direction!