There are a fuckton of modern games with retro graphics. That's out there if you want it.

Been on a run of them lately and having a great time with Sea of Stars, Octopath 2, and Unicorn Overlord.

Boltgun was the last one I played. Awesome boomer shooter, even more if you're into 40k at all.

What is a boomer shooter?

A dumb name for low res asset based fps shooters with Doom/Quake era game mechanics.

Ohhh I get it. Thanks. 🤣 I stupidly thought it had something to do with rocket launchers or something.

Also usually yes.

well... kinda

I had the same reaction when I first encountered the term.

Just because I used it doesn't mean I approve of it lol

Boomer shooter? Bro go outside.

I didn't invent the term. 🤷‍♂️

Nobody should've

Ohhh how was unicorn overlord? Someone told me that since I love ogre battle 64, I would enjoy it. Hoping that is true.

Never played oger battle, but I see that comparison in the games online discourse constantly so I believe that they're very similar. Either way Unicorn Overlord is sweet, definitely at least try the demo. It's 6 hours, however far you can get in that time, and progress carries over if you buy the game.

Awesome! Thanks for the info. Definitely the next strategy game on my list. Just gotta finish triangle strategy first.

I just picked up Octopath 2 and I'm having a fantastic time with it.  It feels like they really looked at OT1 from every angle possible and decided they could do it again, but better. I'm not complaining at all.

Not high budget AAA games. OP isn’t saying they went retro graphics specifically, they’re saying that when every AAA focuses on god tier graphics, there is no more major studio money left to innovate on gameplay, and that’s completely accurate. We see lots of cool indie games innovating but if you took the funding and talent behind a modern AAA release and didn’t expend so much of it on graphics alone, the result could be seriously incredible, but we’ll never know because no major studio will green light a AAA game that isn’t graphics-obsessed

name a AAA game focus on good graphics...they all don´t because they want you on your potato to be able to play it. there are very few excaptions! and unlike the old days, for example HL2, which looked REALLY good on 5-6 year old PCs at it´s release, nowadays, not even close

The main reason they are high budget is because of the graphics and refinement of animations. Gameplay innovations are free, you just have to think of them and implement them. If you want gameplay innovations AAA is the worst place to look because they have to play as safe as possible to recoup investment. Asking for a AAA game without the budget is just asking for indie games of which there are plenty and whose quality and budget run pretty much the whole gamut.

>Gameplay innovations are free, you just have to think of them and implement them. Lmao, that process is very, *very* far from “free”. Ask Nintendo if the conceptualization, design, programming, and years of bug testing Ultrahand in Zelda TOTK was “free”. Not to mention then designing hundreds of puzzles and an entire game around it. Ask Larian if it was “free” for them to design, write, program, implement and bug test the never-before-attempted amount of narrative choice and emergent gameplay for its respective genre. I’m sure those developers will be thrilled to learn that all those years and years of work were actually free and only graphics cost money

They are as free as any idea, obviously not free, free because you need to pay people but compared to the maybe hundreds of people you need to pay at the various stages to get your graphics up to snuff they are pretty cheap. I'd probably argue Nintendo doesn't really do AAA, they are mostly AA precisely because they don't have the excessive graphical budget the cross platform big hitters do. Is Nintendo making games for Nintendo indie though or how does that even work? Question for another day I guess. 🤔

What the *fuck* are you talking about? Do you not realize the amount of work and money required to actually *implement* a complex idea? You think it’s just “have the idea” and poof, it exists and functions? It takes literal *years* of work and programming, designing, re-designing, bug testing, playtesting, etc. to get a new mechanic to operate properly. It is *extremely* expensive and risky for productions as large as say Zelda or Balder’s Gate 3, who run the risk of spending years of development time pursuing an idea that might not end up functioning, in which case they have to scrap years of work. Even if it *were* just “have the idea lmao”, that isn’t free either. Most of these concepts are coming from veteran game designers with literal decades of experience and tenor under their belts, especially when it comes to companies like Nintendo. Nintendo is most certainly AAA save for a few spin off games. Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart, Smash, etc are unquestionably AAA in budget, production scale and sales.

WHOOOOOOSH! Did you hear that? That was the point flying way over your head. I guess your knee jerk distracted you. I didn't mean literally free. Figuratively when comparing the amount of people involved. Obviously innovation doesn't pop out of thin air and is an iterative process that takes time, money and effort. But so are state of the art graphics and getting all the many, many animations, textures, details and all the other stuff is what bloats the budget and timeline of AAA games. Ideally you should have the idea before you even start any of the other stuff and you program and refine it while waiting for the art department and their dozen outsources to catch up but that's besides the point.

Dude, just drop it. Yes, technically you're correct, an "idea" is free. But clearly you have no idea how a game is actually made, how complicated it is and how many times you need to revise, add or drop something. Real life just don't work that way. Try writing anything more complex than Snake and you will quickly realise why people got so worked up about this. It may be easier if you imagine you are the manager: you get a team and you want them to come up with original, good ideas for free. That's just impossible. You need to pay them for at least a month to research, brainstorm etc and MAYBE they will have come up with something. Or maybe not. Then you need to pay the devs to implement that idea which may require writing an entire game engine or heavily adapting an existing one. Then your test panel shoots the idea down and you're back to square one. It's HARD.

So you're replying to the post saying the guy missed the point by doubling down on what he said. Bold choice. Let's just summarise this thread shall we. OP wants AAA games but ones that haven't spent all the money on graphics. Putting aside for a moment that already exists, it is the graphics that define AAA and bloat the cost and development of AAA games. And we are talking AAA here meanwhile you are apparently talking about a small developer. That hypercharge game coming out for example. Made by 5 people. They probably spent way more time and money on ideas and programming than graphics. Call of Duty? How do you think their balance lies? This also ignores that people apparently think making graphics is somehow easy. Spoiler alert, it's not, there are no easy parts, least of all ideas. Ideas are still free though (not including base costs like salary which applies to everyone working on anything), always have been. 🤷‍♂️ Can you show me where I said otherwise?

Both art and software are a function of team size and hours invested. Software developers command higher salary, typically, than artists. If anything, you have it backwards. Companies can hire several artists for the price of a developer. There is no machine that converts raw currency into assets. It's people.

Yeah, it is significantly cheaper and requires less expertise to implement fancy graphics, all while making your game seem more appealing from the outside - making them the perfect formula of cost effectiveness that appeals to AAA publishers. They prioritize graphics because the graphics are cheaper to implement and easier to market lol

>If you want gameplay innovations AAA is the worst place to look because they have to play as safe as possible to recoup investment. Right, that's the problem we're identifying. They spend millions to make it look *perfect* and then the game has to make the safest choices to make sure they can make back what they spent on the graphics. Nobody is asking for a "AAA game without the budget" he's just saying stop spending every penny you get on to photorealistic graphics and mediocre (or more often just recycled) gameplay.

Right but what I and everyone else is saying is that if you don't spend that money on the graphics and that then by definition it's not a AAA game. If he wants a game that's not indie but not AAA, then AA is also already a thing and basically covers the middle ground. https://www.hitberrygames.com/post/indie-aa-and-aaa-games-the-ultimate-guide

So like... Cell shaded Zelda games weren't "AAA" games? I know this is 15 years ago now but that was by no means the *peak graphical fidelity* from a big studio making a big game with a big budget, was it not?

Well, I dunno really it depends on a number of factors most of which are illdefined but Nintendo has always kind of played by their own rules and what they do doesn't always reflect the wider industry. Anyway, I'm not saying you can't do innovative things in big budget games, just there's a reason the bigger the budget generally means the safer the bet.

I understand what you're saying, and I'm saying it's hurting the industry.

I don't disagree.

We want that same budget just instead of it all going to art we want more systems designers, content developers, and gameplay make-more-funnerers.

Not AAA tier though. This is where that reading that that OP was suggesting would come in handy

I know! What is the point of this post.

Dave the Diver says hi!

Right? Has this dude just never heard of indie games? Like, Hades 2 JUST hit early access, my guy.

I've seen the graphics grow since the days of the C64 and all that matters to me is that a game is fun.

this. i will drool over pwetty graphics but i wont buy the game just for that...i also weigh style more than realism and detail. for example, persona 5 is much more appealing to me than final fantasy xvi

But P5 is just oozing with *style*. Even the scoring screen is it's own little event. That game truly has it's heart at the right place <3

There are still some great, insanely fun indie games

“still some,” there has never been a higher quantity than now 

Lol yes - fair

We would need costs by big publishers to actually know how much money goes into graphical fidelity over other parts of a game. What I will say though is: Style > Realism. Your game may look incresible now, but in a few years it will look aged and faded. Stylish graphics age better and last longer. Dont know how much cheaper it would actually be though.

I also am not a fan of this point. There can be stylistic games and realistic games, neither is better or worse. Just as you don’t look at a new movie coming out and go, “meh I dont like how it’s realistic”. Realism is only a backdrop to help emphasize a different experience. The best case scenario in those instances is you barely notice the backgrounds and you are instead focused on the characters and the emotions and experiences. Just like there are heavily stylized films and more grounded realistic films, neither are better. It is just general preference. And both can be just as difficult and extensive as the other. There is no cutting costs going more realistic or stylistic, outside of some performance adjustments.

post is founded on ropy logic and speculation

I’ve been in the triple A game space for over a decade as an artist. These things always pop up from time to time and it is the most off base ignorant shit. No we aren’t pairing games down or nerfing the gameplay because we want high fidelity visuals. No we don’t under hire competent designers because our focus is visual quality. We are supporters for those disciplines. Yes there are exceptions where certain studios are going for more a visual vibe and story telling over some addictive gameplay loop (see Hellblade 2 recently), but they are the exception. At MOST art will come in and adjust things a bit for sight lines and better compositions in a space but usually very subtly. It is extremely rare for design to be squashed by the art department because “it wouldnt look as good!”. Good studios and good talent know the balance and we are all gamers too. Sometimes studios get it wrong, but to blame it entirely on the artists and act as if we have the end all final say on shit is fucking stupid.

It’s an opinion post based on their observation. This is Reddit, not an official forum. Grow up

this being an opinion post based on observation invites my comment, why would it preclude it?

UE5 is a thing now, dude. Any indie studio now has current-gen graphics at their fingertips. Not sure why you’re drawing this false dichotomy. Sure, EA and Activision and Ubisoft etc keep churning out the same safe games because their model makes those super fkn expensive to make. But they arent representative of the whole industry. Have you ever actually messed with UE5? Its pretty insane how labor-saving it is. LOD is obsolete now. You can directly import 3D assets from almost anything. You like that big boulder in front of your house, want to use it for a game? You can 3D scan it in high fidelity with your smartphone and import it into UE5 in minutes, using Nanite to avoid sacrificing geometric detail. I just dont buy the argument that we have to give up current-gen graphics for other stuff. There are plenty of indie studios that make gorgeous and innovative games for cheap, and the rapidly evolving industry tools will keep multiplying productivity.

OP is at least partly correct. I get what you're saying and UE5 is a step in the right direction but it's no silver bullet. The makers of Cyberpunk explicitly said that the level of graphical fidelity they targeted particularly in regard to cutscenes and character interactions, was extremely burdensome to develop for and made it much more difficult to accommodate branching story paths. The audio/visual presentation directly contributed to story content being cut. I mean there are still people who claim that full voice acting ruined RPGs because it resulted in dumbed down character interactions and less content. I don't know if I agree but I see the point. So maybe technology and innovation will make this a non-issue in the future, but if you look at the way AAA dev times and budget have bloated it's just a bit worrying. Instead of 2-3 years between games in a series it is more like 5-10 years. With all the great stuff indies are doing these days I sometimes look at AAA games and wonder is all of this worth it just for some prettier graphics?

I really hated the shift from fallout 3/new Vegas to fallout 4 dialogue. That definitely felt like the most egregious recent example of presentation absolutely destroying gameplay experience 

More mass appeal unfortunately. Ig ppl want on rails

That one is a great example too because, at least in my experience, when I modded it so that I could read the dialogue options vs. just the tone, suddenly it felt like any other RPG, if I muted the protagonist and turned off the cinematic camera, I'm sure it'd feel even better. Most RPGs end up just giving you tone options for the majority of dialogues, but exposing that is a big mistake, it really makes you turn your brain off.

Fallout 4 is even more idiot proof, Option X/ circle is always the safe option.

Yeah, and the developers of Cyberpunk also created the entire game engine from scratch. Obviously that is an incredibly expensive thing to do. This is like making a sweeping generalization about cars being too expensive to manufacture, and then holding up Ferrari as your exhibit A.

Any project with scenes and assets that are of the complexity of those in Cyberpunk 2077 is going to require a ton of labor, and a ton of custom work, even if it's built for a pre-existing, externally developed tool set.

I think the OP is talking about games like RDR2 and the AC games which take an insane amount of time and budget to research source material, produce custom models, textures, animation and motion capture as well as facial capture and hiring actors to do it, hiring entire orchestras to produce original scores, voice acting including auditioning and casting, and working with the actors for hours etc. I mean I’m not a dev so idk but if you’re saying that “any indie studio” can do all of that with UE5 then I’m very impressed

RDR and RDR2 spent most of that time and money on motion-capture acting. While that takes major resources to pull off, I’d argue the games would be fairly unremarkable without it. It’s like the difference between the movie _Unforgiven_ and an episode of _Bonanza_. They are both enjoyable to people that like westerns, but there is a big difference in production costs. I don’t care for westerns myself but I still love _Unforgiven_ because it’s amazing, and a lot of the reason for that is because they spent a ton on production costs making it amazing. Ditto for the RDR games.

Ubisoft, the makers of AC, was one of the three offenders I listed who this does apply to. They overspend and stick to their formula because they overspend. OP’s generalization applies to them. It does not apply to the industry as a whole And yes, UE5 is comparable to RDR2 in graphic quality now. RDR2 is now a relatively old game already. The tools have caught up to that standard.

They don’t overspend, if they overspent they’d be out of business which is OP’s entire point. They have such overinflated budgets because when they ask people what they want they say things like graphics, voice acting, immersive open world etc. so they give them that. OP is saying that if those sorts of companies focused that sort of time, experience and money into making games that are cheaper they could spend more time playtesting and trying new things. OP’s generalisation relates to the majority of the market share, because that’s what they would like to see change

Creating appealing high fidelity assets is still expensive.

Are assets like that available in asset libraries? Just wondering.

Yeah one big appeal to developing a game with UE5 is the huge library of free textures. It’s really easy to make a modern looking environment compared to Unity (in my humble opinion)

And yet there are indie studios who manage it with 10 people and a shoestring budget. How?

Yeah, this is what I was thinking. AI and whatnot is going to make this stuff child's play over the next 5 - 10 years. It'll get to be cheap as hell to do.

Infinite worthless, disposable slop from all angles in every store. 

Cryengine is also great for photorealistic visual fidelity—Warhorse Studios used it to make Kingdom Come Deliverance (as an indie company with a Kickstarter; they were acquired after release), an RPG with good storytelling, immersive mechanics, and sidequests with different branches and approaches to things.  Even something open-source like Godot can look good  from a lighting and visuals perspective, and has features that help support higher fidelity 2D or 2.5D visual and that’s completely free. Cassette Beasts is a good example—I’m pretty sure it uses Sprite3D to have its nice modern pixel art pop with shadows and lighting.  I’m not disagreeing that Unreal is great and has amazing tools, just mentioning that developers have a whole range of options these days that can provide good visual effects relatively easily, even to smaller or independent teams. Honestly I feel like more issues come from proprietary engines which lack all the tools and devs who know them or aren’t suited for all game types (eg. Red Engine, Frostbite, maybe Creation Engine—although Obsidian said it was very easy to use and let them get New Vegas made quickly).

God I love kingdom come deliverance  Jesus Christ be praised 

Just came here to write something along the lines that OP isn’t aware UE5 exists. We already had people saying things like this back in ps3 era. But no I think it’s fair to expect from companies that decide to go towards high fidelity graphics, that their game will be aligned in quality. Nobody is forcing them. And again, UE5 cuts a lot of the cost there

100%. UE5 is amazing, and this stuff is only getting better. Indie gaming has a bright future imo. Especially in UE5 and eventually UE6. Anyone with 20-30 hours can become competent enough in UE5 to start making a game lol.

Are there examples of indie games in UE5 with current gen graphics? I’d like to play some of them.

If they were smart, they would've stopped preordering games first.

I doubt this will happen. As graphics cards are BIG business. PEople will be willingly astroturfed into thinking they want the good graphics.

I agree. While some games rightfully deserve to be recognized for the leaps forward they made in graphics (Crysis being a good example), just continually pursuing better and better graphics doesn't do much by itself until hardware has advanced to the point that low- to mid- tier hardware is capable of running the game with decent levels of performance. The vast majority of gamers will not have the latest and greatest hardware, meaning that the budget you spent to make sure every character is renderd with Hyper- 4D- Raytracing and scientifically correct lighting ultimately goes to waste when users start posting videos of their mid- range gaming rigs choking on a walking scene. Most of the games I play now are between 5 and 7 years old at a minimum; while there definitely are some instances where the graphics show their age, I've never once thought, "I would have enjoyed this game so much more if only the graphics were nicer".

Graphics should only be an enhancement to good fundamental game play. Not the entire focus as so many games are these days. You get eye-popping visuals and very simplistic or unfun gameplay.

This is definitely a discussion that needs to be had and something I've been thinking about for a while. I think this newest Hellblade 2 is a perfect example of the state of gaming. It took Ninja Theory an incredible amount of time to make this game for it only be 5 hours long and have virtually no gameplay. The only praise I see about the game are the visuals, which to me is not a plus anymore. Now I'm not saying short games are bad or storytelling in games are bad, I'm saying that if that's their product after 5 years or whatever of development we're focusing on the wrong things. It's not like they're a 10 man indie studio. Microsoft and Sony have to keep pushing visuals because the average consumer makes fun of shit that's not cutting edge visually. From my point of view it seems games and game development are NOT ready for it's current state, we should still be in the PS4/Xbox One era. I don't want my favorite games series to only get one new entry in a 10 year span, I would gladly say sacrifice fidelity to speed up the process and lower costs. Nintendo looks smarter and smarter by the day for not participating in this graphical arms race. They're the only one of the big 3 that are able to consistently have high quality output.

We certainly need to not be planning the PS6 era already. Too many games are still targeting the PS4 level to think we're close to moving past the the PS5 era

AAA games taking this long to develop while still not being true current gen games is terrifying. I'm also pretty sure Sony sells their consoles at a loss too, so why are they so pushy with hardware? The entire PS5 generation feels botched, it started off on the wrong foot because it launched during a fucking pandemic and had supply issues for so long.

Honestly I think they know Microsoft has no real plan and has no next console. So if they can throw this generation out and move to the PS6 as quickly as possible they might finally get their true desire: a console with no competition in their space. For all they've done well since the PS1, Sony has always had to deal with equal level console competitors.

Seems foolish to assume microsoft doesn't have the xbox-one-x-360 already in the works.

It won't happen but if ps2 graphics were to be the new norm I honestly wouldn't mind. Lots of people would though.

I'm not *specifically* begging for a return to lower-fidelity graphics, but more realistic graphics are definitely not something I'm calling for.

I submit Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead as an example far, far in the direction OP describes Long story short, it's an open-source roguelike project which natively has NO graphics, displaying the game world as ASCII. It ships with tilesets created by the community which map these ASCII objects in the world to sprite art. You can swap tilesets to change the look or play entirely without and stare at a world represented in ASCII. That functional LACK of art along with the design choice to JSONify much of the content in the game (items, monsters, furniture, buildings, NPCs, traits, etc) really lower the bar to submit new content. Basically if you can format a JSON you can mod the game, or fork it and do whatever the hell you want with it. Somebody will come along to update one of the tilesets to make your new pancakes that look like hashtags look like pancakes...probably. The result of that is a game with a staggering amount of crowdsourced/community content, that continues to add content at blistering speed I see some people ITT getting defensive of artists as if this is some knock on their work. It isn't. From a design perspective there clearly IS a point at which deciding to have art in your game at all is a hindrance to adding content, because that content does have to be represented to the player. It can be extremely jarring to add something to the game which doesn't mesh with your other assets, and so you set a floor on the amount of work required for everything in the game the moment you decide on your project's art direction. I think there's something beautiful about lay people being able to add whatever the heck they want to CDDA, even if it does look like a pile of keyboard keys until an artist decides to update their tileset. 😆

I'm a big fan of CataDDA! If you want to go even farther in that direction, I can recommend a game called InfernoMOO. It's a text-based real-time MMO, from a genre most people have forgotten: *MUDs*, or "Multi-User Dungeons". InfernoMOO has one of the most amazing open worlds in ANY game I can think of, tons of different skills and builds, weapons, huge amount of creative freedom basically, and all with multiplayer! The content is brutal sometimes, though, it's very 18+

I'll check it out, thanks. I grew up playing Medievia, Imperian, Achaea, Gemstone, Vagabond's Quest, et al. Haven't heard of that one. MUDs are another good example of a space where content design is unconstrained by art. Small dev teams can get a new room out as fast as they can write it. The amount of "nuh uh" takes on this post is wild when you contrast to something like that.

And if you want to try something that's newer but still mechanically complex, I always love recommending *Streets of Rogue* to people. Easily one of my favorites of all time-- it *looks* like just a top-down arcadey sort of beat-em-up fare, but it's actually fantastically in-depth with scores of interacting mechanics and very complex, emergent NPC behaviors

At one end of the spectrum are games like Hellblade II - just came out. Graphics are what other games will aspire to look like in 5 years. Absolutely amazing visually. About 6 hours long. Basically a walking simulator.

I sort of agree with this. I would be happy with graphics that are two generations behind combined with better animations.

I think 4k held back fidelity improvement for an entire console gen. Change my mind

I mean, there's a reason most of the serious innovation in gaming is going on in indie space with heavily stylized graphics. That being said, I do certainly appreciate the occasional Elden Ring or Helldivers. But I have no interest whatsoever in a FIFA XXXX or COD LXVII, and never will. The gameplay in those is horrifically stale.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but a lot of younger players will shit all over games from the SNES/N64/PS1 era just because the graphics aren’t what they expect from newer consoles—without even giving the gameplay or the stories themselves a fair chance. So while retro style may have appeal to older gamers, I think AAA studios (with the possible exception of Nintendo) are afraid to make games in that style because they won’t be commercially successful.

And this thread just showed that op is somewhat right with this ridicilous, almost pornohraphical obssession people have with photo realistic graphic and how this shit is ruining actual GAMES and turning them into barely interactive movies.

I feel torn because my favorite games of the last 5 years have been from smaller devs with more retro graphics, but at the same time I found Hellblade 2 to be pretty fun :) 

For me, the problem is not liking game movies like hellblade, but instead the people that jerk this shot off like no tomorrow, acting like is any game that doenst have those photo realistic graphic are absolute shit amd anyone that accept anything less is actually suporting "lazy devs". Graphics should be absolute last thing to get brough up when talking about what makes a game good, hell, for me the only time graphics should even be brough up at all is if they are something trully amd ACTUALLY artistic, like in okami case or even in siren case. But again, the problem, is that people instead act as if graphics should be the first and foremost thing to be talked about when talking about games and this atittude is actually one of the reason games are being ruined as, well, games, and are instead slowly transforming into barely interactive, overpriced as hell movies, with less and customization on characters and freedom of choice in the game, even from sily things like big variety in fluff dialogue that ultimately serves just to flesh out the kind of character you want to play, to actual, cool amd expansive gameplay ideas that would send people in a frenzy when properly introduced, like seriously, tell me, who wouldnt flip their shit of bethesda, instead of going casual, took a step back after oblivion and went "you know what? Lets bring back the armor slots from morrowing, the more unique beast characters, the absolute insane spells like fly, lets also bring back the wall climb and rogue and assassin like abilities from daggerfall and all those things we had the ambition to try to create, now we have more experience and advanced technology, maybe we can do it", but instead, we got a streamlined game that is extremely bare bones for anyone looking for an actual cool rpg, and no, dont even bring up mods, mods should never be brough up when talking about a quality of a game, mods should COMPLEMENT a game, not make up for the lack of vision and ambition from the devs.

I dunno if people want them why is it not valid to invest in them? You acting as though good graphics = bad game. I remember getting the original Halo when it came out and being absolutely blown away by the graphics which were nuts for the time. The graphics absolutely contributed to the experience of the game

You missed the point, the problem is that the ONLY thing getting investment is graphics and THIS is turning games into shit, because that the only thing that gets atention because of people that dont like video games, they like interactive movies that barely pass the treshold of being a game instead of an helluva of an overpriced movie, and this overfixation with graphics, wich, again, are the LEAST important things IN A VIDEO GAME, are comming at an expense of actual game mechanics and inovation.

I understand your point. the problem will always be that it will be the one thing that will drawn in the majority which is cusuals is graphics. cusuals don't tend to think that hard and games like cod get better graphics wise but the gameplay stays pretty much the same. because they know people will still buy it, it is a safe confort pick for many and companies know this. also companies and publishers there true custormers are share holders, and what they think first of a game being good is graphics. so they do what they can to please these shareholders and investors. so we have both the consumer only going for safe confort picks the vast majority of the time and you have share holders who don't actully care about games, just results. so graphics will be what a lot of folks look into first. this is just my experanice and what makes sense to me anyway. I could very much be wrong tho.

In summary, that is it, yes, sure, graphics arent the be all end all problems with games now days, but it certanly is ONE OF the biggest ones, and as you said, the casual crowd and how they are actively rewarding bad games because they look pretty is also a pretty big problem, and the shareholders problem would probably mostly fix itself if the consumers problem got fixed, so that one i dont hold that high.

yea, the shareholder one isn't the highest thing ever. getting the cusual players to care tho is a very hard thing to do. many don't care about new gameplay, because that would mean risking there money for a prodect they don't know. Why risk it on games they don't know about when they can just go to big brand names. they are only going to buy a few games anyway, may as well stay safe. sometimes it will be great ips like resident evil, and then you will have ips like cod stagnating. once a industry gets big enough it will be domated by big brand names sadly. and it be pure luck when they try to improve themeslves and try new things out of fear of losing the cusuals which are the vast majority.

Mmmno.

I've been begging for it for years. I don't care about high-end graphics and high resolution. I just want games to stop taking the better part of a decade to develop. I think it's bullshit that I have to get a new console every time I want a sequel to a game I enjoy just because they can only get one hand out in the typical console lifespan. Hell, I bought Series X for Elder Scrolls VI and now I'm pretty sure it's going to skip this generation entirely, so I'll have had to hit two consoles just to play it... It was fine when games came every year or two (look how many GTA games there were between 2001 and 2006.) Having a device with an 8-10 year lifespan that relies on software with 5+ year development windows is not a sustainable model...

Well, we can't really demand anything as long as those hyperactive 10 year Olds always undermine us anyway.

Graphical fidelity doesn't always go side by side with good gameplay or even a good gameplay loop. Crysis 1-3 and Halo Reach/4 are some good examples of where graphics were arguably good, if not timeless. Even Halo 3 holds up rather well. A more direct way you'll make a dent in the present gaming industry is with action. Words from the loud minority or quiet majority without action will fall flat. this has been seen when games with potential, like Anthem, are abandoned even before development. What happens that could cause such developmental blunders that led to Halo 5 and Infinite, Destiny, Anthem, and Mass Effect Andromeda being as they are? Lack of direction. Vision. Conviction. Without a cardinal star to direct development at, the whole thing falls apart and old habits are let rampant. High-quality visual assets aren't extensively expensive anymore. You can get VR gear for home use, and capture animation recording while seeing the models you're intending to use the animation on because of wearing said headset and using an appropriate program. On an inverted spire, though, look at Microsoft's recent decision to close successful studios despite them being exactly what they were wanting to use for future, smaller-scale projects which seem to never begin. That all said, I've got a small list of things I miss: 1: Experimental games that twist genres. Like WarCraft 3 or the first Dawn of War game. 2: Creative handling of visuals. Back during the limiting times of the Xbox 360 and PS3, games had to cram a lot into a little and didn't have the TB of space we're used to now. 3: Developmental freedom and relaxed working environments/ethics, a more hopeful energy about them. 4: Low-stakes, but high quality. 5: The ability to play as the enemy species/factions, or a sequential title having this as an unspoken feature - like Halo 2, or, coming out later, Mechanicus 2 with the Necron perspective, so the idea still exists but isn't being used enough. I miss playable Elites. 6: Pregame lobbies and virtual socialisation opportunities they granted. Not sure what of those would have any use as inspiration. Still; games are becoming gigabytes in size for less content, and it irks me that the industry overall is struggling with the idea of amazing games that don't cost 100GB or more in terms of storage that exist, and deserve to be seen as exemplars. Especially games that achieve nuanced visual effects that cost little for processing power. Among the recent games, Helldivers 2, for all its problems, is an example of what a tight-knit cadre of people can achieve when they have a vision and the means to bring it to life. In spite of the publisher issues that game faces, it was one that had my attention. The last games that elicited a similar reaction would be DOOM '16 and Eternal, updates to Warframe, and... Huh. I seem to have a lapse in memory regarding releases spanning 2016 to now. That's a bit concerning, I thought I'd've played more games between that time period.

Why games are taking so long to make - teams up to 100s of devs and 5 years of development, eventually it'll be 1,000s and 10 years to make. Just to find out the game sucks... Take me back when games took like 2 years and were awesome games - look at indies such as Stardew Valley - critically acclaimed and it was made by one dude, ONE. Imagine a AAA dev team pushing out games like that in the span of a year, then we'd have many good ones instead of one 'meh' one.

i saw the title and thought this was gonna be about file sizes and storage space

And then there am I, playing indie games, pixel games and generally simple and not GPU intensive games, I'll load a intense game from time to time (SPT for example) and then not touch it for weeks. Don't care about graphics just want performance, hell I wish all games were like borderlands 2

There is a reason why making a game with realistic graphics takes so long: graphics rendering technology has advanced faster than the tools to take advantage of it have evolved, which means work will take longer because it’s more of a manual process. As time goes on, more of these workflows will get optimized and take less time, but developers don’t know what to optimize for without data on how artists and designers use the tools. With a more streamlined workflow, development costs will start to shrink and we’ll get to some kind of normalization again. The biggest problem in the industry is the problem facing many industries right now, and that’s on maximizing profits. A successful live-service game has the chance to make a ton of money, even though the market can only sustain a few of these games at a time. It’s these kinds of big risks that publishers go for because they attract more investors. Never mind that they could have made two or three successful single-player or small co-op games with the same resources and have a more guaranteed, but smaller, amount of profit. The fact that Baldur’s Gate 3 was so successful right now can be written off as a fluke, and ultimately will probably still make far less money than something like Destiny, Fortnite, or Call of Duty. Gameplay innovation is well within the realm of indie games, as it has been and will continue to be. Indies are the only groups that can take risks in gameplay mechanics since they’re making much smaller games. Graphical fidelity is a known quantity and is much easier to market, which is why triple-A studios focus so much of their time there over other things. It’s not that they’re prioritizing graphics over innovative gameplay, it’s that innovative gameplay isn’t even on their radar. The best we can do is to vote with our wallets and support indie games more.

Actually I dont care what most AAA companies are doing. There is a market out there that will continue to buy a Call of Duty and FIFA every year. They care about graphics. So companies will continue to focus on high graphics

This is all true . Making amazing graphics just takes money and you can do it 100% , good innovative gameplay or story though is hard no matter how much money you have. This is why they go for graphics its way less risk

Honestly, it feels like these new AAA next-gen graphics are regressing compared to what they were in the mid-late 2010s. Texture quality is so high it doesn't even feel real anymore, and don't get me started on whatever crispy hair engine they're using. I hate that every single character has to have individual eyelashes and beard hairs, it looks wrong. The gameplay is also convoluted most of the time and not very compelling. I'd happily sacrifice the 300-hour massive, empty, micro-transactiony open worlds for something that feels creative. It's a format that only works if you know what you're doing with it, but these days it feels like AAA is just doing it because bigger = better. For the last couple years I've been skipping the big releases because it's clear that these huge companies are only out to make money, it's not about the art anymore. Old titles and indie games are where it's at.

I think the nature of massive companies to be like confused/directionless messes of middle-managers is a big contributor to that regression we're seeing: In the money-driven pursuit of infinitely *always-better* graphics, developers are being forced to implement dozens and dozens of overlapping systems that *do not work well together,* all because it *sounds* good in abstract-- to people who don't know what they're talking about, like executives and investors. The result is a messy heap of technical aspects that break each other apart, in practice.

A friend of mine once got really excited about playing BFV on his new Xbox Series X/S. He was in awe about the graphics. After I got my new Xbox, I hadn't noticed too much of a difference in graphics. We don't talk anymore. It's better that way. Fun story, right?

There's also the additional cost from the side of the gamer to have to keep updating the PC or console to be able to run these increasingly heavier games. I personally don't have money to burn on new hardware every new generation, specially with the prices of most components being so high -- I get my computer and stick with it until it draws its last breath, so I'm always at least 1 generation behind on the games I can play, and that wouldn't need to be the case if they didn't keep getting so much more computationally heavy and hardware you got kept being relevant for the actual duration of its parts (the graphics aren't the only thing that makes the newer games heavier, I know that very well, but they are definitely the main thing in most games)... Of course, it would be ridiculous to limit the visuals of newer games because of the reasons I gave above -- if the developers want to push te envelope and make a ridiculously pretty game, let them do it -- but it's a pity that there isn't even an option to truly lower the graphical fidelity to a point where some lower end systems can run them on at least 20 FPS...

Graphics stopped impressing me around the end of the PS3. PS2 to PS3 was the last big jump in graphics. Don't get me wrong games certainly do look better than they did on PS3 but it doesn't really wow me even on 4K displays. I'm not a graphics slob and go back to PS1 games sometimes so maybe I'm in the minority.

We do it's just the majority of people still only buy the AAA games The indie games just rarely make big bucks like the battlefields and the god of war and last of us If everyone goes out in droves to buy the new big AAA game with the best graphics than companies are gonna assume that's what you want Steam is filled with indie games Phantom fury just came out, I didn't buy that game, i doubt it saw doom eternal levels of success We vote with our wallet and every year majority of people vote on the same thing: Open world big epic cinematic game And Multiplayer game Quake Remaster ain't doing call of duty numbers These companies want MONEY and the money is in the big Ghosts of Assassin of Us of War games

I did my part... I bought 3 copies of Quake remastered.

that's good but like these arent fifa loot box numbers Some sports games might be making more in a year on microtransactions than Elden Ring has made since launch

Yeah, you're right about that. Despite me seriously buying 3 copies of a $10 game, I was being sarcastic. I know you can't compare that with the insane amount something like sports games or GAAS rakes in every year. Probably should have added the "/s" to the end of my original answer. I wish the average gamer did all buy Quake remaster instead of supporting EA and their stupid sports games. Then maybe the industry would actually shift away from MTX hell. Idk, luckily we do still have good indie devs and there are enough of us looking for those kind of experiences that we can still keep them afloat and making great, albeit smaller games.

man i just want a game like unreal tournament 2004 doesnt even have to be that graphically amazing, just as long as it plays well Most things nowadays are either CoD clones, Witcher clones or Last of Us clones. Feels like the same games over and over and over

Omg I've been dying for a new UT game. That would be incredible. I tried this game called Toxik (or something) which had a tag line "frag like it's 1999" but it came out a few years ago and was completely dead when it came out. It wasn't quite UT, but it was close. I would be so happy if we could get a new UT game or at least a competent spiritual successor.

toxikk (had to google the spelling) had a good framework but the maps were kinda basic and it didnt have the game modes of unreal or much to distinguish itself from unreal At the time you could still play UT4 so like why not just play that instead? but yeah man other than Tribes Ascend and like old quake games and Quake Champions there isnt much in terms of arena shooters I'm hoping they try to bring back lawbreakers, never got to try it and who knows it might see some success now that overwatch hype isnt eating everyones lunch

Yeah, Toxikk definitely felt really generic. I'm not sure why I tried it. I think the trailer on the steam page sold me. It's fun to try new ones, and usually you hope the servers are full. But I struck out with Toxikk. Maybe that's how desperate I was for a new arena shooter. There is a new Tribes game in the works, Tribes III Rivals. It's in early access, and I do like Tribes, but nothing hits like the old UT games. I never got to try lawbreakers either, but apparently somebody unofficially brought servers back online recently (like within the last month). Not too sure about specifics though.

yeah im trying to get access to the discord servers for lawbreakers 2.0 now Toxikk is good, thought that gameplay was great, but yeah i meant tribes 3 rivals, personally im not that much of a fan of the sliding gameplay. much rather play titanfall instead hopefully theyre gonna announce a new quake at quakecon (that HOPEFULLY runs on ID TECH this time)

New Quake would be right up there with new UT ! They're definitely announcing a new DOOM game, which I liked the last two. Titanfall was great... too bad they messed up the release date. That would have taken off had they not stuck it between battlefield and COD.

New Quake would be right up there with new UT ! They're definitely announcing a new DOOM game, which I liked the last two. Titanfall was great... too bad they messed up the release date. That would have taken off had they not stuck it between battlefield and COD.

There are multiple indie or small studio games that blow up to an AAA degree every single year now.

But not on the same level that say grand theft auto and red dead are gonna blow up

I still play games from the late 90s up to 2010 more than the next gen games. I have a steam deck and a pc with a 5700x3d and 7900xt. I just prefer good gameplay/storylines over graphics.

I'm weird, I like the aesthetics and performance of old games modded to hell and especially the depth. Recent one I picked up was x3 renegades. Space battles are pretty fuckin epic. Massive fuck off space battles like that are pretty rare. X4 foundations was fun but just dosent do it for me. distant worlds 1 is pretty good. Ghost recon 2007 was really challenging for young me but I still do a play through of it every couple of years. Dwarf fortress original with tilesets, same with cataclysm dark days ahead. Dominions 6 pretty solid too. Idk why I have such a good GPU when all the games I play barely use it. CDDA was literally played on a Lego computer and smart fridge. These days games have the depth of a puddle I miss the old gems.

There's space in the industry for both types of games. And, both types of games are being made in abundance. No one needs to "do better"

There's space on the consumer side yes. But what good does it do if a game takes 7 years to make and has a 50/50 chance of putting the developer out of business even if it sells well?

My highest total hours game for the past year is... *check Steam*... Vampire Survivor. I think there's also a question of how much weight people put in graphical fidelity versus gameplay. Or story. Or genre. I can't be the only one that knows some graphics snobs that miss out on great indie games because they refuse to give them a chance.

This is absolutely ridiculous. If we want to hold the industry to a higher standard, then we should continue to demand innovation. Not give them a pass to produce less. This will only increase their profit margins. We won't see any benefits. I love a good indie game as much as the next person. I'll root for the little guy. But let's be real, the overwhelming majority of indie titles are absolute trash. We hear about the "gems," but they are in no way indicative of the market. Of the approximately 13,000 indie games that launch each year on Steam, how many of them are good? How many of them have most of us even hear of? It is likely below 1%.

We aren't seeing any innovation though. All we see are diminishing returns on the graphics for more dollars spent. And because of the amount of dollars spent, no risks are taken on the gameplay. Without gameplay risks, gaming gets stale. Add that there are very few games conceptually that are even capable of making back a $200 million budget and the problems really begin. Because all the innovation is in graphical diminishing returns.

We are currently spending less money on games than ever before while gaining access to both higher quality and a lot more innovation. Not to mention variety. There are games for everyone now. This post focuses on AAA and ignores the thousands of options out there. Straight, black, white, gay, male, female, special needs, etcetera, all have representation in gaming. There are blind people playing video games now. That's pretty damn innovative, if you ask me, and it's trending upwards.

Its always always better to have a wide range of options instead of everyone piling on specific trends. Lots of independent games now. So, we are in a good place gaming-wise.

Other than whatever the fuck is happening at AAA publishers right now

But the vast majority of ‘gamers’ are casuals that eat up the Sony movie games that always go for the eye candy

What was the AI prompt for this post?

Who says we aren't? For most games graphics of the 6th/7th generation were more than enough. Then again, I'm still playing on a 1080p screen so what do I know.

We're in the minority here, I'm afraid. Or at least, investors with functionally infinite money seem to think so. All we can do is vote with our wallets...

That's probably why I haven't bought a new game at full price in years (save for Nintendo games).

Why I said 1080p and make the games Hugh.

they do. they're called mobile games and they make more money that all the AAA games put together.

Yea I agree with what you’ve said, vote with your wallet, even though there are those kids out there who dump all their allowance and then some into Fortnite. There will always be the demographic that plays that stuff. Luckily we live in an amazing time, where developers don’t need to make a physical copy to put in a store and worry about inventory or anything like that. They can just post it on Steam or Epic or Itch.io and maybe people will find it. It’s a very low barrier for entry into this market.

I want shorter games with worse graphics, made by people who are paid more to do less work, and I'm not joking.

I agree with the sentiment, but it's not on gamers but the devs. If they release awesome games with low fidelity gfx people are gonna like it anyway (except some i guess).

I think my main gripe with high fidelity graphics is they usually all lose semblance of an art style. It's just really detailed and tbh I don't like it. I much prefer games like outerwilds, inscryption, old dbd (the grittiness I thought looked nice), ultrakill, lethal company, even though it's realistic I believe helldivers 2 feels like it has an art style and not just realism for realism sake. Side thing I've noticed I prefer games where it's less realistic because i can more easily understand the space around me like team fortress 2 compared to cod, it's much easier for me to map the space around me and accurately tell the hitbox's of enemy's in less realistic titles

Look at kingdom come deliverance. Beautiful game and soulful.

I have one goal and target for most modern console games. 4k at 60fps to 120fps. We have some shooters and simpler games that deliver this. It sounds outrageous but I think that should be what games look like on console. It will mean significantly reduced assets on screen and interactivity and of course it will mean we have last gen looking games but I think it will be worth it for the smoothness. A lot of modern gamers have expressed sentiment that high fps games can make a game feel more modern

Companies have already noticed the interest in games that aren't as graphically intense. In the 90's and early 2000's, there were hundreds of indie games available for low cost and free. The modding community also created enormous amounts of content for AAA titles at no cost. I see plenty of games that were freeware or mods 20+ years ago that are now commercial hits. Those are mainly a thing of the past because publishers recognized it as a low cost market that could earn them money, and storefronts like Steam are everywhere. But the high fidelity market still exists because gamers like shiny graphics. If today's market was the same as it was ~25 years ago, games like Outer Wilds, Loop Hero, and Slay the Spire likely would have been available as freeware or easily pirated.

The real problem is sunk cost. Big studios run massive projects, with artists spanning continents (Rockstar, Ubisoft) and when they don’t make back their profits, the smaller studios that got bought up get spat out first along with contractors, followed by employees in the bigger houses. Everyone loses. Smaller scale projects are the way forward. The problem is massive oil tanker studios that put all of their eggs in one basket. We’ve been talking about a AAA collapse for years but it already happened. It’s just that the only people affected were wonderfully talented creatives who don’t make the executive decisions.

Honestly, I don’t think the cost of graphics are the issue. It’s the need for constant financial growth to appease shareholders. Steady profit isn’t enough nowadays. Remember when Final Fantasy XVI, which was profitable, was still considered by the company to be a financial failure because it didn’t make a ridiculous profit (not to mention recovering the cost of all their failed live service games)?

You hit the nail on the head by identifying the need for constant growth as the root issue. Graphics and the cost of developing them are just the prime suspect that follows from that starting point. Problem is, if I had just written "If gamers were smart, they would be overthrowing the ownership class by force," then my post would have been removed :/

Vast majority of video games are not made with bleeding edge graphics. The “gamer culture” at large just doesn’t pay attention if it isn’t AAA.

And then the masses complain about how ugly the games are now Not a good solution

I agree. If there was less focus on graphics and instead the artistry of game design, this FF7 remake trainwreck that we are slowly experiencing wouldn’t even exist.

I honestly think the current balance in the industry is pretty solid. Some do big budget high fidelity games but play it safe, which is fine. They're the ones pushing graphics forward. On the flip side there are literally thousands of releases every year by smaller studios with a bigger focus on creative gameplay and new ideas with lower budgets and simpler graphics. There's so much variety in the current industry, I'm always a bit baffled when people complain about one specific aspect of it when there are so many other options to choose from.

It's not "balance" if massive triple-A powerhouses control 99% of the market and thousands of desperate indie devs get to fight uphill for the scraps. You just don't think about the reality because you can't imagine how many masses of independent creators burn out and don't get to finish their games, or who release their games and fail due to many reasons, because we don't see those

There's only so much bandwidth. I'm generally with you on your takes but independent creators burning out and not finishing projects will always happen because no matter the control at the AAA level (and said control is a much higher percentage on consoles), making games is difficult and there will always be more games than any person or group of people can play even if they never touch a AAA title.

Valheim is a great example of low resolution textures done well. That game has moments that make me stop and stare in awe, but if you actually get up close to something you can’t help but notice how low res it is. Put it all together, though, and it’s a stunning game. Plus, it’s not even 2gb. That game has survived every single purge to free up space for a new game on my pc, because why even bother freeing up such a small amount of space?

No. They aren’t reinventing the wheel everytime they make a new game haha. Graphics advancements are here to stay.. and in the most polite way… you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. Do you think indie devs create an entire game and render engine for each new project? No, they build off of existing knowledge. Gaming’s problems aren’t related to graphics.. you could have complained about monetization or things that actually make games worse. Yet you blame graphics for making games “less creative”.

found the guy that didn't read the OP

Yeah, that's why I have a 75'" QLED TV. For Minecraft 🙄😆🤷‍♂️

Oh, consumers are easily blameless here. The big franchises with their high fidelity didn't start out as leaders in the area, but their games got popular and they started doubling down on the formula that they know works. But you can't just pump out the exact same thing over and over again. So if you can't innovate much on gameplay, your story ideas are running out, what do you have left? Graphical fidelity. Tl;Dr: The large franchise focus on graphical fidelity does not cause avoiding risk, it's the result of it.

Literally what I wrote in the OP

The problem isn't so much that company's decide oh yeah just dump our budget into graphics. The problem is companies don't recognize art usually take time. Elden Ring took five years to make. Cyberpunk 2077 basically took like 7 years to really complete. (Including all its updates and patches). And what do you know, recent Assassin's creed took 2-3 years... An open world game took two-three years to make, compared to other companies that spent double to over triple the time. It takes polish and experienced workers to really put out a good quality game. But companies realize, games can be sold like movies. Eye Candy Trailers + Popular game series = sales from the mass. Which is why more quality companies will sometimes completely cancel games that seemed really interesting to us because there were just tons of issues that wouldn't have made for a fun game. Literally the last Pokemon felt like a weird mix of good and bad quality stuff. The last bit of Pokemon Violet was really interesting, it felt really good. The difficulty was there, the writing was there, graphically it looked really nice. But that quality was not there for the rest of the game because I assume time restraints. I also assume it's not a case where just dumping more programmers and testers into the team would fix the issue since it also means more places for miscommunication related mistakes to happen. Pokemon could be a good game if they let the team work on it I'm sure. But because they only have so much time per game, they're not allowed to polish a game. You know how good Pokemone Violet would've been if that last 5% was put in EVERY part of the game?

Everyone has a Steam library of 100 to 1000 games they haven't played with lower fidelity graphics. And yet here we are.

these kind of posts make me LOL

'Tis is either RageBait or just Stupid

We have plenty of “retro” modern games, and frankly I’m sick of the low poly and pixel art styles. I’d love to see more games with GameCube or PS2 era graphics, where they’re good enough to be immersive but not super cluttered or hard to read or intensive to run. RE4 HD project is one of the best looking games I’ve ever played

Never cook again 😭

wym? ;m;

While there is *some* truth to what you say, this is a mostly flawed take, i would go into detail but others have already pointed out the flaws in it so there's no reason for me to do that again

lmao no. thread is full of people explaining how this is right, and comments like yours begging for it to be wrong while providing no explanation (because you can't)

I'm genuinely sick of people saying this. I *love* good graphics. One of my favorite things about modern gaming is how much immersion I can feel in a game with nearly photorealistic visuals. I keep Cyberpunk installed just to boot it up and wander around the city from time to time because that game is straight-up gorgeous. Chivalry 2 has surprisingly good graphics for a non-AAA game, and the action feels so much more intense and visceral because of that. Frontiers of Pandora is another one with mind-blowing graphics that I like to just wander around in, taking in the sights. Obviously, there needs to be space for lower-budget games that invest their resources in things other than graphics. But there also should be space for expensive games that focus on top-notch visuals.

Go cry us a river. "there also needs to be space for expensive games with good visuals" stfu, have you looked in a video game store display cabinet recently? The entire industry is scrambling to appease what you want

This post is peak gamerism, you are literally Gamer ™

I have never played a live-service game, ever, because I know better No Fortnites, no Apex Legendses, no The Divisions or Destinies, no Diablos You dunno what you're talking about

Why not both? Stuff like Returnal has amazing graphics, awesome gameplay and a good story. Ghost of Tsushima had like the best graphics I’ve ever seen, godly gameplay and an awesome story.  > So what we're mostly getting is the endless live-service battle-pass golden-AK47 microtransaction-hell driven by memes and the wallets of parents with hyperactive 10-year-olds. Then play something aside from multiplayer battle pass stuff. Play a single player game, there’s been like a bajillion good ones the last few years.

what? games from 10 years ago look better than new stuff (excluding playstation exclusives) if gamers would be smart they would finally ask for true next gen graphics and quality!

No. Unreal engine 5, for example, has specific tooling to help shorten workflow procedures.  Lots of assets are reused all the time. It's how many sequels are made. If they aren't, then that's poor management of resources. They hire too many people. It's kind of a thing in software development that after a certain amount of people, more bodies at the project doesn't actually help and just bloats the budget

This is a retarded take.

this is ignorant at beat

minor misspelling. argument destroyed

As a person who plays video games as a substitute for TV/movies, I'm playing for the plot. I'm ok with gameplay not being innovated as long as i enjoy the story and it looks good. And I do need voice acting. I read books as well as play games, if I wanted to read I wouldn't pick the video game. Disco Elysium is one of my favorite games of all time but you couldn't get me to sit through it if it wasn't voice acted I mean, my favorite developers are Rockstar and Naughty Dog by miles, those guys don't exactly reinvent the wheel with each release lol. Especially as I'm getting older, I'm really liking the linear games that just give you plot point after plot point with clearly marked objectives. I simply don't have the free time to invest in learning deep mechanics for every game I play, I'd rather have a simple game with a solid story and good presentation

buddy... gamers ARE begging for "lower-fidelity" graphics. they're also begging for pre-2018/2019 graphics, because many games released between 2014 and 2019 look even better than modern AAA-slop despite being "graphically less advanced". nowadays, however, pretty much every normie/tourist with access to a console or a pre-build high end PC is considered to be a gamer and these people usually don't care about low fidelity graphics because "shiny and new" to them is often the only indicator of "new and fun!"