"The Best Looking Game Ever"

[@JacobGeller]

Pow! Biff! Hop on over to Nebula to watch my video on the visuals of Batman: Arkham Knight (and get a hefty discount on your subscription): nebula.tv/videos/jacob-geller-how-does-arkham-knight-still-look-so-good

[@nathanressl]

What is the name of the song at 7:27?

[@Tom-zw9jr]

Hey Jacob, please try Max Payne 3 multiplayer, its so fun and still played only on PC

[@azertyQ]

Nebula also likes fence sitting wrt ongoing genocide

[@teenagesteveminecraft]

I don't normally do this but could you link the source to pages and pages of making a copper spigot using PBR pipeline please >,< it would be really helpful material to give to people learning 3d as most material is in video form today.

[@The_Shimp]

@@azertyQby fencesitting do you mean they’re not supporting either side?

[@cillid2381]

My grandfather stayed with us towards the end of his life. At the time i was playing through Red Dead 2 and he would sit and watch as i went through cutscenes and rode my horse in awe that it was a game he was watching and not one of his westerns

[@ruussell3923]

my grandmother felt the same watching me play through Cyberpunk, she loved sci-fi stories. thanks for reminding me of those days ❤

[@CoperliteConsumer]

Oh my God..."Westerns" I used to get so bored sitting with my grandpa as he would watch his "Westerns" and eat at the end of the day. There exists no thing I would not trade, sell, or do to watch even one last western with him😢 Whoever is reading this, if you still can, Go call your grandparents, it may be the last chance you have and you won't know til it's too late!

[@SilverDragonJay]

That's really sweet, I'm glad you were able to have that time with him. Very elderly people might struggle to play video games, but I like the idea that they can at least sit and watch their grandchildren play. A good bonding opportunity for both of them.

[@IanIanaSpencer]

That's weirdly wholesome. Sorry for your loss, tho

[@substance90]

My grandma walked in on me playing Mafia 1 about 20 years ago and asked me if this is a movie!

[@nickcoulson4968]

One must imagine Sisyphus rendered in 4K

[@michaelkitchin9665]

"Here's John Carmack to tell you how he did it ..." And then he gets on stage, wide-eyed, silent and broken.

[@kacperkonieczny7333]

This 4K... To hold ME?

[@TheEvilCheesecake]

One must imagine learning a second joke. Please.

[@DolphinTillTheEnd]

Oh god he's hot!

[@RubyCow8567]

​@@TheEvilCheesecakeone must imagine TheEvilCheesecake pushing a large boulder up a hill, doomed for the boulder to roll down, repeated their eternal punishment daily

[@Humorless_Wokescold]

"But can it run Crysis" ran through me like a Cold War sleeper activation code

[@gospelofrye6881]

The first version of this I remember was in the 90s telling Mac users about Quake and they'd say "sure but have you seen Myst? Now THOSE are some good graphics!"

[@Neoyoshi-FFXIV]

@@gospelofrye6881 OMG... Myst. jesus christ.... that, i'm sure my father has better stories about that game than me. xD But yeah, that was one of the first games i played on my fathers Computer.....i think it was also one of the few games we had on the 3DO Jaguar ( i think)

[@neekfenwick]

@@gospelofrye6881 funny you should mention Myst.. amazing game, mechanically and graphically really well built.. but put together in the Hypercard engine which was basically a business like slideshow engine. Hats off to those guys. I wasn't into it at the time but have seen a documentary since and as a software engineer I respect the sheer Chutzpah of those guys.

[@sunbleachedangel]

@@Humorless_Wokescold same

[@tcrzsppr3163]

The settings, Mason, what do they mean!?

[@j0nnyism]

I played defender of the crown in 1988 so I can positively say that if you were to show me hellblade back then my head would’ve exploded and I wouldn’t be here today to make this post. I had an Amiga 500 as an Xmas gift close to when it came out and defender of the crown was the second game I got for it. I loved it and it’s incredible to witness how games have improved in my lifetime. Hopefully I’ll live for a few more years to witness more improvements and see where all this is heading

[@JZStudiosonline]

You could've been shown the 1st gen iPod and it would've blown your mind.

[@mitchthetruelitch1724]

does the audio gets weird for anyone else at around 34:10

[@chantolove]

oh thank god it’s not just me

[@Azzdude]

Yeah, I had to come to the comments to check I hadn't just gone a bit deaf

[@Deadflower019]

This popped up just as it happened and I was like "okay yeah, someone's talking about it!"

[@zaxolotl]

@@Deadflower019 I think it's some kind of AI song removal because he got a copyright claim on the song for that section or something. I'm pretty sure KZbin is experimenting with a tool like that

[@bryztoe8754]

I thought my headphones were broken for a moment lol

[@MrChessboxing]

One of the most poignant gaming memories I have is back when me and my brothers got a PS3 for Christmas. We took the system up to our room, set it up, and then popped in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. For the next hour or so we just sat there, fully immersed in the game, until my dad stepped in and sat down for a few minutes to watch. After a bit, he said "wait. Aren't you boys watching a movie?" When we told him that no, it was a game, he just shook his head. He was shocked. Didn't have anything else to say. Just watched for a bit and laughed to himself. I think that's more or less the reaction people from eras past would have for the highly graphical games today. Bewilderment, confusion, comparison to the entertainment medium that we know looks the most like real life: television and movies.

[@jbear3478]

This is a sweet story ❤

[@blakksheep736]

Funny enough, I have a slightly similar one. My dad knows I like computers, so one day he called me over saying that he had an interesting robot movie for us to watch. It wasn't a movie, it was a longplay of Detroit Become Human, but like, same difference.

[@devonesq.7533]

the last time my dad saw me playing a game was burnout paradise, one night i'm playing red dead 2 in the living room and he's completely sucked in, took him quite a while to realize it was a game and not a tv show. i was born in 2004, so the graphical improvements have of course been drastic, but nothing compared to my dad, who was born in the 70's and has witnessed pong to rdr2, which i can only assume to be quite the trip. the computer industry has grown massively in such a short amount of time, it's staggering, something deemed a luxury 30 years ago is now a necessity in the modern world, there's nothing else in human history that can compare to that growth and reliance.

[@TheBfutgreg]

Or also the other direction, a lot of movies look more like games with lots of CG happening...only certain genres sure

[@MiniatureRanni]

Cool story that definitely happened. "Dad had a look in his eyes like life was never going to be the same after it. All he could muster was a "heh, well ain't that somethin'" and my brother and I knew that this was something special." Get off it.

[@r.g.thesecond]

Worth noting that photorealistic rendering has pioneered methods that have definitely helped in non-photorealistic "stylized" rendering too. The discussion and research around pushing graphics towards hyper-realism also has ramifications for any other type of rendering, and thus important.

[@simplysmiley4670]

At the same time, at this point, there's no longer any big leaps, just tiny steps with ludicrous cost for potential plyers of the games, higher prices of the game, higher prices of hardware required to run the game (even more expensive if you want the "full experience") all while the common joe's gotta be more and more stingey with money.

[@AirLancer]

@@simplysmiley4670 For the big AAA titles, sure. But it's not like there's any shortage of games that don't want to go for eye-watering graphics available in the market. Indie games are bigger than ever.

[@DanielleAlek]

@@simplysmiley4670 There not being any big visual leaps doesn't necessarily mean we should just stop all development, though. Incremental change isn't as impressive to a consumer, but when you look at the difference in 5-10 years, you'll understand why continuing to iterate is actually worth people's time. Not only that, but the REAL improvements are happening on the development side. The technology used to make games look "better" is also used for all sorts of other stuff. The technology behind real-time raytracing in games is also used in film studios, making 3D filmmaking more accessible than ever, and these leaps in technology allow us to seamlessly integrate different styles of animation together in ways that previously took long hours in the compositor. Not to mention medical simulations, protein unfolding, encryption, and all the other things the cutting-edge consumer GPUs are capable of today that used to be entirely the realm of supercomputers. They may not look fancy to an audience, but right now, the real big leaps are happening on the development side. Making it easier and more accessible to create the games you love is absolutely a worthwhile endeavor.

[@RandomDude647]

Like the spiderverse movies

[@quasarulas3968]

From a visual arts perspective I was told realism is the best style To study and that makes a lot of sense because it gives You far more control to bend warp and stylise it

[@TheThunderbirdRising]

The point about how arcade cabinets used to be the peak of graphics makes me wonder what a modern AAA arcade game would look like, with all the computing power that could fit into the cabinet, all designed to play this one game specifically

[@cjware316]

I think they have a few. The halo one for example.

[@erickschusterdeoliveira2662]

I genuinely can't imagine that

[@erickschusterdeoliveira2662]

@@cjware316is there any online footage of this? what's the name?

[@mekudesu]

They have arcade cabinets with modern fighting games in them in Japan and stuff, e.x. guilty gear and street fighter, as well as exclusive arcade-only stuff like popn music (rhythm game) and I'm sure tons of other cool stuff too. It's only in America that arcade machines are still stuck in the past.

[@sayhowling]

thing is, they probably dont even need a cabinet for that. mini itx pcs can fit inside a small shoe box, while also being capable of running games. if arcade stores want to invest into ultra realistic acade games, no one is stopping them.

[@ceciliamoore7329]

I’m surprised you didn’t mention Death Stranding, its trailer showed off during the actor segment, the engines ability to create realistic looking tears. But that said any Kojima game MGS V and onward or nearly anything developed for the Fox Engine or Decima

[@neonmushroom1]

36:04 I always find it funny when ultra-realistic graphics get praised for how BEAUTIFUL they are but the thing being shown is literally a pile of trash

[@TheBlindWeasel]

Trash is incredibly complex after all

[@joringedamke5597]

Or Skyrim with its HD dirt and spray-painted snow.

[@whitepaws60]

It does make sense though. making a trash pile look convincing is really hard

[@purefoldnz3070]

yeah in this game they chose the most bland setting: rocks, rocks and more rocks.

[@HenryTownsmyth]

​@@TheBlindWeaselif it has destruction and interactivity. Most games don't have it.

[@lazydroidproductions1087]

Wow Defender of the Crown is finer pixel art than most we get today, not to rag on modern pixel artists but to say just how much sheer time must have gone into making it look like a game worthy of the Amiga’s price tag, that is some fantastic pixel art work

[@comlitbeta7532]

Necessity is the mother of invention

[@Shilobotomized]

​@@comlitbeta7532 Necessity is an inventive mother Promising sanctum that she cannot provide She is the hand that rocks the cradle The wind that breaks the bough and leaves you to die

[@basilmemories]

God yes. I tend to shy away from pixel art games because those were what i grew up with, and they always seemed to fall short of what they were depicting... but then there's that. Every single moment of that was meticulously rendered and must've taken ages to do. I would give a lot to see Triple a studios put their money into one really well rendered, really well animated, pixel art style game.

[@NihongoWakannai]

There's an easy explanation for that. People who choose pixel art today are doing it BECAUSE they want something that can look decent while being faster to produce. Meanwhile people working on retro consoles had no choice, so they poured a whole lot of time and skill into making the best and most detailed pixel art they could fit into the game. In the modern day, putting that much effort into pixel art just isn't worth it. Making super good pixel art is way harder than just making regular art and most audiences would prefer just good regular art.

[@kailey7735]

​@@NihongoWakannaiPixel artist here! While pixel art is a common budget choice for indie games, another common motivator is nostalgia. Folks will chase a particular "look" that only really exists in fond hindsight of classic pixel art games, which is hit or miss to execute. When people try to draw what they remember childhood games looking like, as opposed to what they really looked like, it's bound to have inconsistent results. For a nostalgia-motivated pixel style that pinned the feel of NES era art, see Shovel Knight. No NES game ever actually looked like it, but they pinned down the vibes-in-hindsight well. For a game that chases the nostalgia of pixel art without tying itself to historical limitations, see Sea of Stars. There is incredible amounts of effort poured into the assets- I don't think I've made that much pixel art in all my projects combined over the years.

[@Gggly2513]

One of the most interesting things to me about gaming as a medium is just how young it is. We’re not just developing style and genre and artistic/literary qualities, but simultaneously- and often at incongruent rates- inventing the very fabric itself. It’s like we’re writing fantasy novels and textbooks and political documents while still deciding what letters look and sound like, and then after that, formatting, grammar, stylistic variation. It’s a whole new art and mathematical form all at once rapidly evolving as we make the tools in response to every limitation. With the foundation of art/literature and math/mechanics to guide us, but still entirely unequipped for our ambitions as we create what we want as we go. Books, paintings, poetry, sculpture- all have ancient history in their mediums as they’ve evolved in purpose and style for as long as we as humans have. But gaming, even film, is so young and unexplored and dropped into the middle of the context of all art before it. Graphical power creep is I’m sure only the beginning of how we see the progression of the medium. In such a short time we’ve made leaps and bounds technically. Eventually I think that will settle into a standard (in the same way that novels, ~2hr films, music albums, have become standard format) and we might be nearing that edge now with the common semi-realism campaign style. But after that, and we can even see now, we’ll get more experimental, more pushing more boundaries we didn’t even know we had. Even outright ignoring graphics, it’s intense to think about; what will video games be in 50 years? A hundred? Vr and photorealism is too obvious and will get old quick. We already think last gen’s games can be trite. What will our children think of our “best looking games ever”? Our most “fun” or “innovative”? Where will gaming settle, and what limits will it keep pushing? It’s so crazy to me that we’re living in such a rapidly progressing technology time, in frightening ways and also in fascinating ways. Someone a hundred years ago witnessed the birth of moving picture and could never begin to conceptualize our use of it in interactive simulation. We’re in gaming’s infancy; what’s to come that we can’t conceptualize?

[@beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees]

I know we all hate comparisons to movies, but I think about Christopher Nolan's Oscars speech where he talks about the language of film being like 100 years old and being able to make a mark in that early vocabulary a lot when this stuff comes up. For someone like that to consider film to be in its early days (he's right, by the way) kind of speaks to just how far games have to grow and how strange they'll seem to me when I get there. Exciting stuff.

[@NihongoWakannai]

Not just technically, but game design has progressed a lot. A lot of old games feel jank not because of any technical limitations but just because no one really knew how to make a game feel good to play back then. There is still a niche of people who make fan games for old consoles/emulators and they make some stuff that is way more impressive than the actual games of that time despite being on the same hardware.

[@discipleofbolas]

@@NihongoWakannai God I have a lot of trouble playing older games just because so many of them have incredibly clunky UIs.

[@dziooooo]

​@@NihongoWakannaiTHIS! I love what we're seeing now with more and more involvement of disciplines traditionally considered just "humanities" in the tech-heavy field of game design. Sure, tech bros and artists can make a game that runs smoothly and looks great. But when you add psychologists, art historians, linguists, accessibility researchers and communication experts to the team, the quality of player experience skyrockets. And obviously game writing and level design is a whole separate beast that requires an interdisciplinary approach to be really good. They didn't do that in the early days of game dev. At least not in a purposeful and methodical way. Because you certainly had people with very diverse experience and background coming into this new field, but that was more often than not a lucky coincidence and not a planned staffing strategy.

[@Kacpa2]

We are not in any sort of "infancy" anymore. Games were done expertly well in terms of feel and gameplay since late 90s. If anythibg things got drasticly worse over last decade in that regard. Just a videogames are thrust into this disgusting hyperrealism visual vomit.

[@endertwelve]

I'm glad games like these exist, it shows how far and how willing this medium can go. And if this push truly is a Sisyphean mindset, then one must imagine (and hope) Sisyphus happy.

[@delphicdescant]

This mindset is also why video games exist at all. The nerdy basement programmers of 50 years ago, or 40 years ago, or 30, didn't create this medium in order to make "the best gameplay possible." They had D&D and board games for that kind of thinking. And if those nerds weren't interested in creating reality inside their computer, or as close to it as they could possibly manage, D&D and board games would still be all we have. Some people think that "graphics" are just the thing big companies use to lure us in. But no, it's the "graphics" that put the "video" in "video games." It's the very heart of it all.

[@MILOPETIT]

I WANT EVERY GAME TO HAVE PS2 GRAPHICS AT MOST

[@TheSolarWolf]

@@delphicdescantThen it’s the thing it’s going to kill itself on. The issue with this rat race down is the same issue with the whole hype about constant technological progress. You are going to hit a brick wall. It’s inevitable no matter how much you deny it. You can’t expect things to keep getting close to real as possible without it plateauing and becoming very samey. The novelty of it is already started to drive people away as we speak. Some point, the “video” part isn’t really going to be something people are going to be after. Especially if the “game” part has to suffer in the name of it. Technological progress isn’t an infinite rocket to the moon.

[@dopaminecloud]

@@delphicdescant I think that vastly underestimates the passion for game and system but sure. Graphics and system have overlap though. To throw that line right back at you, there's also a reason these aren't just videos but they remain completely enamored with this little innocent and incredibly complicated subject of "play".

[@delphicdescant]

@@dopaminecloud Thanks, but that's not throwing the point back at me, really. I have neither said nor even faintly implied that gameplay doesn't matter. The issue is that it's no more than a pen and paper game without the graphics. If everyone in the comments were talking about how they both have to go hand in hand, then we'd all agree. But they're not. They're talking about how no games should look better than PS2 games, or how Minecraft proves that graphics don't matter, or all kinds of other brainless blurbs.

[@BreezyBeej]

First time seeing Defender of the Crown and I have to say, I gasped. Those visuals held up very well.

[@berry11756]

the audio going down the toilet as soon as you showed the hd minecraft pig has to be the best unintended piece of comedy to come from your channel jacob

[@nilzero5686]

what did the outdated computer say to the psychiatrist? "i'm having an existential crysis!"

[@matej3276]

The interactivity of the environment and the physics engine in Crysis was amazing, you could literally punch a whole house down until only the floor remained, I kinda miss that in modern games.

[@DarkTwinge]

You might enjoy 'Teardown'.

[@Audey]

Same. A lot of those little things like mirrors that actually reflect and destructible environments are really cool and you just don't see it much anymore. Honestly if I had my wish I'd have frozen graphical realism sometime in the late 2010s and proclaimed "Okay from here on out extra hardware power goes to realistic physics, materials, objects rendered, etc". I want my SpaceMarine to punch an oil drum and have it realistically crumple. I want artillery barrages that create realistic craters dynamically in real time. I want a Total War game with 10s of thousands of units on screen and each individual soldiers has solid AI and pathfinding.

[@avatarion]

Crysis also featured pretty large maps, which can't be said for many of these other games that were said to have great graphics. The video never really took into account the added fidelity aspect of open worlds, which is obviously going to decrease micro details but increase them on a macro level. It's a trade-off but I wouldn't say a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 looks bad at any distance.

[@boi8328]

Battlefield Bad Company had that as well.

[@ristoravela652]

​@@Audeyexactly. I want more gameplay options, not just graphics upgrades. I want to punch enemies through walls or collapse a house on them. I want to cut down foliage for cover, I want to be able to cut holes into things to create lookout spots, and I also want enemy AI that is smart enough to possibly notice what I've done, so that there's a point in trying to create a hiding spot that's not immediately obvious. Gameplay options, not just more complex lighting and fabric effects.

[@narc0manic]

In my experience, there's this weird paradox of: the more photorealistic a game is, the less immersive it is, and a lot of it comes down to that animation jank you mention. Or it's not necessarily even janky animation, but that by necessity, a game will have a limited amount of animations to assign to different actions. For example, go and open a door in your home ten times and see how many times you move your hand _exactly_ the same, how many times it takes you _exactly_ as long to do. Never. But obviously a game isn't going to do a custom animation for each door in a game, or even a handful of different door opening animations to cycle throughout the game. It will have The Door Opening Animation that happens every time your character opens a door, and once I've noticed that, every time I see it, it pulls me out of the game because I remember these are just bloobity-bloop pixels moving on a screen.

[@PhotonBeast]

It's the paradox of consistency - the more you push one area, the more the difference in fidelity in other areas stand out. So while there's nothing wrong with hyper-real graphics et al, the challenge is that it makes anything that isn't stand out... and with hyper-real, the implicit expectation is realism (but more). That you can freeze time at any point and it'll be like a perfect photo. It is a cursed problem, though, in that once your characters are hyper-real, you have to then have hyper-real animation... and then you need hyper-real NPCs... and world... and that continually pushes everything higher and higher and higher until oh look... we've now spent a year on making clouds look better when you spent most of the time on the ground or in dungeons. Oh look, it now takes two years to make a new character because they need 10,000s of animations. Oh look, we can't change the dungeon because we don't have the unique assets for the change. At some point, you just have to accept either jank or the needs of the rest of the game (gameplay clarity, gameplay feel, etc) or you'll be chasing shadows rather than actually making a game at all. Finishing a game is the hardest thing to do. And though I use hyper-real, this is true for fidelity in general even in stylized environments. A game that's good across the board with the really important moments being great is going to be a lot memorable for the right reasons than a game that's firing on all cylinders all the time... and then you run into the moments or elements that fall flat (or never got in because they couldn't be finished).

[@Irisverse]

I remember seeing a clip of one of the recent Call of Duty games making the rounds on Twitter, of the POV character taking a walk through a bustling Amsterdam street, and so many people were gushing over how good it looked, at certain points it could almost be mistaken for live-action footage. But the more you looked, the more things seemed a little... off. The character models for the NPCs were incredibly detailed, sure, but their idle animations looked weirdly stiff and inhuman. And it just reinforced how narrow the push for better graphics could be. Game companies are putting out products with more polygons, more detailed textures, more advanced lighting, but if that effort is not matched with the animation and physics, then it just lacks that sense of verisimilitude they seem to be striving for. What's the point of being able to see the individual pores on a character's skin when boats still don't leave a wake?

[@mcslender2965]

​@@Irisverse because maybe one day the indie games will have the same amount of fidelity if they want to. Maybe one day the boat trail will be rendered and the game will look even better. I feel like the part about how The Order game gave way to future render techs kinda answer your questions. Going with physics, Teardown shows the power of physics in smaller games which would be much harder to achieve without prior games to build up on. Theres also The Finals which looks pretty enough and comes with jaw dropping destructible environment

[@Peb02497]

GTA IV and V to some extent have solved this issue using physics based procedural animation+mocap, but it is too expensive to process and develop

[@NihongoWakannai]

There's also the yellow paint problem. We keep making game environments more realistic, but the real world is chaotic and not made with a specific narrative path in mind. So companies then have to start doing "yellow paint" (literal or metaphorical) to lead the player through these more chaotic world environments which just ends up making it feel even more fake. Whereas in older games, the graphics were more limited so it was much easier to clearly see where you need to go or what to interact with without any need to very obviously point them out to the player.

[@lonetwig2734]

The hyperfocus on realistic graphics nowadays not only affects the playability of games, but also reduces the number of games being released. This increased demand for high-quality visuals requires more work, and I can only imagine how much effort future games will require and how many fewer games we'll be receiving.

[@patrickdoherty4527]

Very true. It's ridiculous, considering how successful games like Minecraft and Fortnite are.

[@arcadenoah993]

Indie games will save us

[@RePorpoised]

and the thing is that little of the process is actually getting significantly faster. Instead, it feels like they're just shoving more time into their projects. Hellblade probs looks that good because they went through insane amounts of mocap and made sure the animations fit with the environments. There may be tech used to make that a bit more consistent, but fundamentally, it's just an insane amount of man hours gone into ensuring the animations come out perfect.

[@PositiveBlackSoul]

Ready at Dawn sharing a lot of their homework is actually really important. I remember during Exile Con 2 one of the Path of Exile 2 engineers was on stage while talking about some of the tech he developed for PoE2 and how there's less ressource sharing in the industrie than there should be with a lot of tech getting developed again and again by different engineers at different studios around the same time.

[@smugbowkid9919]

For once I actually somewhat like one of these “realistic graphics aren’t needed” videos not only due to the quality of Jacob’s channel but because he actually mentions how, whether some companies like it or not, all graphical improvements and engines are progressing through collaborative effort.

[@delphicdescant]

Yeah, nuance on the internet is always a rare treat.

[@nevinmyers1245]

I still very much prefer lower fidelity games, but I think it comes down more to personal taste for me. I recognize the incredible amount of effort that goes into the photoreal, but I just don't like the end product. Photorealistic graphics are an incredible feat, but they're also just kind of boring to me.

[@NihongoWakannai]

@@nevinmyers1245 I feel like we've just been in the uncanny valley for too long and technology isn't progressing fast enough to get us out of it.

[@kacperkonieczny7333]

@@nevinmyers1245 I think the reason why people like stylized over real is the same why people love animation over live-action. Stylized graphics don't have limits and they let the imagination fill in the gaps, where live-action need to try as hard to make everything look real and even then they might slip into the uncanny valley.

[@crediblesalamander8056]

​@@nevinmyers1245i love super stylized games and animation. meanwhile, my sister will literally get headaches from them and is more immersed by more realistic visuals . different people have different tastes, so many "graphics bad, actually" people somehow seem incapable of realizing that in the context of game visuals.

[@legendarysoil1064]

The Wind Waker games are a great example of art direction over graphical strength. The cell shading and cartoon style holds strong even today

[@ultimadum7785]

Okami is a similar case for me.

[@jayemover_16]

Miitopia and Tomodachi Life as well. The fact that they're not realistic is part of the appeal, and making them more realistic creates good dissonance in the Switch version of Miitopia.

[@jbear3478]

That’s how I feel about the first dragon age

[@cassidy8307]

TF2 looks better than any other valve game released around that time because of its style

[@Reubel]

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995) is my personal favourite in this category.

[@BlueSR]

i've always been a little too dismissive of this aspect of gaming, as someone who mainly plays indie games with stylized, defined "timeless" artstyles, as you called them. But hearing you talk about The Order really shines some light onto the craftsmanship, innovation and care designers, artists and programmers put toward their painstaking goal of reaching hyperrealism - a task perhaps as unreachable as it is fascinating. Fantastic video, Jacob! I'm excitedly awaiting the arrival of your book later this year :D

[@blakksheep736]

"stylised timeless art styles" _speedruns Hollow Knight_ Checks out. ✅

[@TheSilentPr0tag0nist]

Oh absolutely, I feel the exact same way. In my opinion the best looking games are the ones with the best style and execution of the style, I even have a motto, "style over substance". However while I still hold this to be true, it's good to appreciate these games for what they are trying to do, and sometimes this type of eye-candy is really enjoyable (even if I still prefer my hand drawn or pixel art games 😜). Btw are you planning on making a new HK song in your voice? 😁

[@blakksheep736]

> "mainly plays indie games with stylized artstyles" > Hollow Knight Speedrunner Checks out

[@crediblesalamander8056]

​@@TheSilentPr0tag0nistsometimes, style is its own substance. im unashamed to admit that i probably wouldn't have enjoyed persona 5 if it weren't for the best ui/ux ever put in a game.

[@LimeyLassen]

I say AAA is the vanguard of new engines while indie is the vanguard of new genres. Even if one is more "artsy" than the other, they are both pushing the artform forward in their own way.

[@bachpham6862]

I have a hatred of this AAA chase for "the best looking game ever". It means that you will have to continuously upgrade your PC to manage to run the game in playable frame rate, and not even sure whether you will like the game or not. For me, the peak of graphic has been around the PS2 era: game are good looking enough that the graphic is not too harsh on your senses, but avoid the uncanny valleys, such that you find facial expressions believable without being too alienating. Games like RE4, SH2, GTA 4, ... has always seems a perfect place for video graphic to be.

[@clandestinogonzalez9509]

According to topic, in 34:06 the audio quality drops when talking about minecraft, until 36:06 when speaking about cyberpunk, to show contrast between games. good video

[@LimeyLassen]

I thought the same thing, lol

[@k.l.graham5860]

Heather from Silent Hill 3 still conveys emotion better than many characters created 20 years later.

[@UnchargedBattery978]

“I can’t stop shooting the trees!” -Jacob Geller, 2024

[@KaizoeAzurum]

Sounds more like something a 'Nam vet would say.

[@lancesmith8298]

POV: You are a Boy Scout struggling at archery

[@munjatkumo1929]

What did the trees ever do to him to deserve such cruelty?!?!

[@jorge69696]

That poor turtle at the beginning.

[@Overcrox]

Jacob Geller hates trees, you heard it here first folks!

[@tapioca2k]

The reason "the best looking games" of the 2000s don't have gameplay tradeoffs like in other decades is because of limiting factors. In the 20th century the best looking games all had to use techniques that involved pre-drawing or pre-calculating the visuals because real-time computing power was a limiting factor, and that necessarily means less dynamic gameplay. And today the limiting factor is budget, where it's too expensive to make a game that's "the best looking" without dialing back the scope. The 2000s were the inflection point where budget and computing power were at the right place, so the recipe for making "the best looking game" was to just make a normal game and then have a few very talented artists and programmers on the team.

[@BillyCobbOfficial]

I swear if there's no mention of Alan Wake 2 in this video... it arguably looks better than Hellblade 2 I'll never forget my first time playing Halo 3. That shit looked real to me, and going from PS2 to that was huge. It still looks great today.

[@JaquesBobe]

I think the most impressive examples of visual fidelity come not necessarily from the highest resolution textures or most realistic ray-tracing, but from talented art directors working closely with the technical team to identify those few things that make us *feel* like the graphics look real. How do you make rain look realistic in a racing game? Simulate pressure, temperature, humidity, cloud density, vectors of raindrops from their formation and down to the precise point where they fall on the ground? Nope. Just put some reflective puddles on the road and make the raindrops slide around the windshield in the opposite way to the car's movement - and everyone will be blown away by the realism. It's not about winning a war, it's about finding the easiest most important battles and beating those.

[@LimeyLassen]

Most artforms about about illusion-making. A community theater can't afford a giant prop dragon, but they can make a dragon-shaped shadow on the wall.

[@yoshigottagun]

Both you and Ahoy releasing videos in which you talk about the Amiga on the same day is probably the most attention that thing has had since the towers fell.

[@icedlava7063]

LOL

[@skulkify]

BOOM! 💥

[@ffnovice7]

Ahoy is against civilian gun ownership

[@abbaszaffarkhan1872]

@@ffnovice7ok?

[@Rowlesisgay]

@@ffnovice7 is yoshi a civilian? I think not, peach would conscript him before she sent all her toads to stop him (largely because the toads would loose)

[@cwaero]

16 years later, I still feel like Mirror’s Edge is the best looking game ever. I think great art direction and design will always trump graphical fidelity.

[@wallbrick1]

Well its not

[@sawyerstudio]

Definitely one of the best looking games ever.

[@Antwon22]

@@wallbrick1 bro really liked their own comment invalidating someone elses opinion, go outside

[@MattB90]

Makes me wanna revisit it I just remember it being fun but I was just a wee lad

[@0uttaS1TE]

For me, the best looking game has to be Wipeout HD Fury, though it's more the case of already strong art direction from Wipeout Pure and Pulse given a graphical overhaul to really shine

[@snosibsnob3930]

My favorite will forever be rainworld. Rainworld may just be a 2d pixel game, but its commitment to procedural animation and extremely dynamic cresture AIs makes it feel incredibly dynamic despite its incredibly simple style.

[@Squabsss]

rain world reference !!!

[@Drstrange3000]

A game feeling more real is a lot more immersive than a game just looking real. Stuff like Rainworld will always amaze me.

[@KillahMate]

Rainworld of course also has a very sophisticated lighting system for a 2D pixel art game - the backgrounds are lit dynamically by dynamic light sources. There's quite a lot of 'graphics' going on under the hood with that game.

[@HelloWorldMyNameIsLyra]

rivulet submersed superstructure

[@GGrimmmm]

Rain word is fantastic, and beautiful, but in a heavily stylized way, while this video is focused on fidelity in video games. Rain world’s greatest contribution would probably be the creature AIs and the emergent gameplay from that

[@isidroguzman9815]

This video is the Dragons Lair of video essays with the "skip ad" quick time event added every 5 seconds.

[@rainydayyoutube]

Fun Fact: $1,200 (the price of an Amiga) in 1980 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $4,580.68 today (2024). $200 (the price of an NES) in 1980 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $763.45 today (2024). The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.09% per year between 1980 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 281.72%. The PS5 at launch in 2020 cost $500, which is 25% less than the NES in 1980 when adjusted for inflation ($763.45).

[@vantablack6288]

and its still expensive af

[@cruzmatt22]

at least the nes had games

[@rainydayyoutube]

@@chillbro1010 federal minimum wage in 198o was 3.10 per hour, right now is 7.25. Mora than doubled.

[@mronewheeler]

@@rainydayyoutube is that accounting for inflation though? Because that was the point of the original comment

[@PolandDoge]

Why do my neurons activate the second i hear a note of music from hotline miami

[@dependent-ability8631]

you've been programed

[@carlosmiras5592]

Maybe You like hurting other people?

[@silkdust8069]

Game good. Music good. What did you expect?

[@Octobris]

Is your brain gyrating

[@Puppy_Puppington]

do u like to hurt ppl??????????

[@DanielleAlek]

I feel like a lot of people who talk about how stylized games are inherently better are kinda missing the entire point of why games push graphics in the first place. Wind Waker's tech was built upon the foundation laid by Jet Set Radio, which was for the Dreamcast, the console featured in this video as the moment arcade and home consoles had visual parity. It also couldn't run on the N64. It only exists because of the graphical fidelity allowed by the same system that ran the Resident Evil remake mentioned in this video, whose engine went on to be used in Okami. These stylized games don't exist to spite photorealism, they exist BECAUSE of photorealism. Every extra push towards creating a more believable environment puts another tool in the box of all game developers. Even games like Minecraft, whose entire style is based off of the aesthetics of older games, is still only possible because of the work done by games that wanted to be on the cutting edge. The procedural generation employed by Minecraft is based off of years upon years of work by many developers to create worlds that would be fresh every time you played them, everything from the rudimentary Rogue to the experimental .kkrieger, these games were all considered to be landmarks in development in some way or another at some point (with .kkrieger taking the odd distinction as the world's smallest FPS). These games don't exist in competition like most people think. These games exist because of eachother, to service eachother, to put spotlights on eachother, and are made not just using the same engines and technology, but the same people, as well. Comparing the two is like saying "I like movies made with sets better than movies shot on location".

[@amandathewolf]

Yeah, as someone who doesn't really play photorealistic games or even want to play photorealistic games, I'm still kind of baffled by the "one vs the other" approach. A couple months ago, I was playing through Twilight Princess and letting myself get astounded by how beautifully the light and colors and unrealistic aspects of the twilight was impacting the scenery. Simultaneously, that's one of the most photorealistic-adjacent Zelda games. It's not about whether you try to be photorealistic, it's about how you use the technology to create art that feels meaningful and awe-inspiring.

[@NihongoWakannai]

idk, it seems like you're conflating different concepts. You don't need to be making photo-realistic games to push technology forward. If consumers all valued stylized games the most then technology would still be moving forward to make better stylized games. The focus on photo-realistic games has actually held us back in other respects, imagine the incredible games we could have if AAA companies put all their budget into making giant immersive worlds with less expensive graphics instead of shallow boring worlds with amazing photo-realistic graphics.

[@thefebo8987]

This is so wrong. The N64 never pushed for realism. And no, 3D on its own has nothing to do with realism. You could had have the same tech-development without the need of photorealism.

[@Drstrange3000]

@@NihongoWakannai This. Pixar is notorious for pushing realistic tech and rendering forward while still using stylized charactered. They have so many videos on them trying to render hair correctly on multiple different films and using what they learned to keep pushing boundaries. I think gaming would be better with semi open worlds again. All they seem to manage with these giant open games is making copy and paste content. Deus Ex HR and MD both had smaller hub worlds but felt so much more complex and lived in. There was more interactivity. Same with Baldur's Gate 3. Nintendo/Monolith Soft has been doing this with both Zelda BotW AND Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3.

[@DanielleAlek]

@@NihongoWakannai You also don't need to be going to space to push technology forward, but NASA still is responsible for many technological developments that've made it into your daily lives. Where a technological advancement comes from doesn't make it any more or less valuable, and some environments breed technological advancement better than others. Having a clear goal to strive for, one that comes with an extremely clear roadmap but is still insurmountably difficult and comes with a myriad of challenges, is just objectively a good environment for innovation. Yes, we COULD have stylized games pushing things further, and that has happened, but photorealism is a more reliable way to solve these problems. Stylized games are far more likely to find creative solutions for using existing tech to achieve greater results, while photorealism is much more likely to create new technology altogether. Both of these are extremely valuable workflows that the industry couldn't do without. Another thing about photorealism is it gives developers of stylized games tools they didn't even realize they wanted/needed. I guarantee you, no stylized game was going to run into an issue in development that could only have been solved with real-time path-traced global illumination any time soon, but now that the technology exists, it's being used in plenty of stylized games to great effect. As the technology gets cheaper and more ubiquitous, it'll become more prevalent, and that'll lead it to become more flexible and capable of greater levels of stylization. "If AAA companies put all their budget into-" but they're not going to. Looking at AAA games and hoping for masterpieces is like listening to the radio and expecting them to play the entirety of Mr. Morale front to back, like yeah, it does ever happen, but if you think the reason AAA games aren't good is because they're pushing for realism, I have some bad, bad news about how the games industry works. These games aren't bad because they're wasting resources, these games are bad because they're bad games. They were going to be bad no matter what graphical style they went with, because they have weak, loosely organized, overworked, and underpaid creative teams who're being given insane mandates by the higher ups that're mostly set in the hopes that they'll fail and can be reported as a tax-writeoff. Blaming photorealism for issues caused by violations of labor laws that're so systemic that they've become ubiquitous is just not productive in any way, shape, or form. You're blaming the hard working individuals who're exceeding with flying colors at their jobs, instead of the people who're squeezing the creative teams for everything they're worth.

[@Tom_Hillman]

The "gulf in detail looks like a Minecraft HD texture pack" point really resonates with me, especially with a lot of these newer amateur UE5 games coming out. I've noticed a lot of games now have incredible scenery and groundbreaking lighting just to have character models and animations that look horrible by comparison.

[@NihongoWakannai]

This is exactly why I didn't jump on the UE5 bandwagon as a gamedev. It's true that the engine has incredible technology, but you also either need the budget to hire a team of pro artists or only use stock assets from a storefront. If you want your game to have interesting and unique 3D models then you're either going to have them clash heavily with the photorealistic terrain assets you got or otherwise shell out a lot of money for each and every custom asset. "spend $10,000,000 or look like an asset flip" is just two bad choices.

[@Drstrange3000]

I thought the same thing. It was my biggest worry when they were pitching the engine with how easy it is to develop for. Sadly, it seems to be exactly what you have said. It is really jarring and uncanny.

[@pisscvre69]

love how pipes are always like 5 planes even now with 4k textures lol, like it just looks weird

[@sunbleachedangel]

Soon to be changed with their new animation system and character creator. But also good things require skill no matter how advanced your tools are

[@sunbleachedangel]

​@@Drstrange3000untalented people will make bad games, no matter the engine

[@BubblegumCrash332]

The 90s was the best time for gaming. It felt like every year a new console was being released. Then everything went 3D. I don't think we will ever see a graphic leap in a decade like that again. In a couple years it went from Super Mario World to Mario 64, that's crazy

[@patrickdoherty4527]

For me, the most impressive leap was from PS1 to PS2. It was mind-blowing. That probably has a lot to do with my age at the time, too, but I never really felt that same wow factor again.

[@tinycatfriend]

photorealism in games tends to frustrate me more often than not because my eyesight isn't great. i find these games are less likely to have clear visual cues because they rely on the player having decent vision, and if a person can get around in real life just fine, it's not so hard to get around in a game like that. but i can't navigate the world like everyone else, i miss huge changes in my environment on a regular basis. it wasn't until playing baldur's gate 3 (which doesn't have this problem because it's simulating a TTRPG) that i started to understand why the style is so well-loved and sought after. the detail in every character's facial expressions is awe-inspiring, and gives you a connection to them that can't be easily replicated. i find i can more easily enjoy these technological advancements for the works of art that they are, now. i still can't play most of them, but i can accept that more than i could before.

[@mcslender2965]

I definitely think BG3 is one of the best use case of realistic graphics that enhanced the overall art style. Someone here talked about how Astarion would look better in PS2 style and i shudder to think about trying to show his tics after the little laughs like that

[@tinycatfriend]

@@mcslender2965 oh absolutely. the mo-cap wouldn't shine the same way in a PS2 style. could it be lessened somewhat without loss? probably! but not to that extent, imo

[@Itsfinebuddy]

I have kinda same issue with realistic games, whenever there are dynamic shadows and lighting my eyes start hurting. I can play old games that had baked in lighting fine but can't play 30 mins of any new game unless it's an indie game.

[@Kacpa2]

I HATE modern photo realism. It just looks like smeary awful cgi vomit and is just disgustingly ugly due to uncanny detail on people. I very kuch preffered stylized attempts at realism like Valve did in Half Life 2 or Left 4 Dead and PS3/X360 era games(GTA 4/5 or Max Payne 3). It also makes it stupidly expensive to make games, that then fail to run on hardware we could run BETTER looking games a decade ago. Bloated file sizes, no optimization. We dont need any of this. I dont need a game to weight 150gb. Dirt 3 and Grid 2 look just as good as Dirt Rally 2.0, but take up a miniscule fraction of the disk space.(8-13gb vs 120+gb). They shojld keep the style and fidelity the same and just focus on improving the animations. Life like animations extra gameplay details such as things to find and do as side activities is what needs improvement and good gameplay not pushing visuals down this disgusting hyoerrealistic pitfall.. I absolutely hate what Blizzard has done to Warcraft 3....a beautiful stylized rts game wirh comic book like 3d artstyle turned into hedious Raid Shadowlegends liek hyperrealistic vomit....

[@Itsfinebuddy]

@@Kacpa2 any opinion on Half life remake? The Black mesa one. I found it pretty good tbh

[@GameRevo]

I appreciate the use of music from Minnesota Fats: Pool Legend for the Saturn at 13:59. Now that's a deep cut.

[@fellowpod7271]

I didn’t read the comments before I posted one and inadvertently copied your comment, my bad 😅

[@DavidCowie2022]

@@fellowpod7271If you were a REAL not-read-before-commenting person, you would have made the same obvious comment as twenty people, not the same rare comment as one person.

[@fellowpod7271]

@@DavidCowie2022 …What do I gain by purposefully copying someone’s comment? I can promise you I don’t need likes. I’m sorry, I’m just confused by this response. It’s a silly coincidence, nothing to be confrontational about.

[@blackmarketbingo]

Literally just came here to comment about it lmao

[@JorisWeerts1]

@29:19 Hit deep, for some reason. I am that sucker who saw Crysis's simulation fidelity as a glimpse of the future of games, a promise which never came. Not just in its interactivity and destruction fidelity, but also in its systemic reactivity. The number of active NPC entities-in one area or from afar-is still staggering compared to modern games. The fact that CPUs didn’t massively increase in raw clock speeds is one reason it never happened, as simulation game logic is still handled by a single main CPU thread, relying on deterministic cause-and-effect game logic with multiple systems depending on, reacting to, and colliding with each other and the player. Multithreading mostly helps with offloading tasks that aren’t dependent on game logic (like particles or asset streaming), but it’s still much harder to program for, as separating these tasks without creating dependency errors can make the whole game-logic simulation unstable. The Crysis Remaster even had to downgrade some of the NPC numbers in certain areas because it still throttled the main CPU game thread to this day. Even after 17 years, I’m still chasing that dragon in some ways. Not that Crysis itself is all that interesting from a content or thematic standpoint, but I loved what Crysis stood for, in this same way, I hope something like Half-Life 3-or something similar-could raise that bar again (pun intended).

[@nikitamedvedev4696]

This. Crysis was so advanced when it was released that even current games fail to impress me on technological level even if they look better and even Remastered version wasn't even looking better despite having more advanced technology. I still wish that future would come as I still think that game was the last real step forward when it came on graphics and interactivity in general even if Battlefield 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and RDR 2 tried to achieve the same thing.

[@noalowenstein6741]

it's always amazing watching a Jacob Geller vid and hearing him espouse word-for-word my internal thoughts while playing a game. I finished Hellblade 2 a couple months ago and I remember missing the extreme environments, the thrill of the combat, the tense boss fights. And I also remember my mouth hanging open as Senua climbed that cliff face in the opening of the game, and marveling at Thórgestr's intro, and the voxels of the waterspout. The game is stupefyingly gorgeous. I just wish it was a bit.... more

[@sunslap]

If there is one thing arcades should focus on it's physical interactive media that you simply can't have at home. DDR is probably in it's late 20's at this point, but getting your hands on good dance pad is extremely expensive, same with VR, same with racing game setups. These are all still things you can draw in crowds with.

[@logo28thunder]

Nice video, but can it run Crysis?

[@Sensei_BigJoe]

What if Crysis where the graphics we saw along the way?

[@StevenSeagull123]

I really adore the graphical style of Outer Wilds. It is somewhat low poly, but still has enough fidelity and pretty looking effects to convey its gameplay and story.

[@thenumberIX]

Life is the best looking roguelike

[@nostromofidanza1502]

Well, how do I abandon my current run and restart then??? I would like a different build...

[@ashutoshsethi6150]

​@@nostromofidanza1502Start a cult

[@AugustRx]

embrace buddhism​@@nostromofidanza1502

[@QuilloManar]

The plot could use some work, and a lot of the characters are so annoying. But the graphics and physics engine are stunning.

[@ChicaneryBear]

@@nostromofidanza1502hold r

[@Conchobhar]

my initial reaction just from the thumbnail is that Alyx Vance is not an evolutional leap beyond Heather Graham.

[@MajorArlene]

As a Doom lover, I really appreciate your section about Doom 3. I'd always adored the lighting of it but never really thought about its harsh contrasts, and I can't help but wonder if maybe that was a nod to the sector lighting of the first two Doom games. We also have found ourselves trying to chase more realistic bouncing light in ports of classic Doom, getting there somewhat with shadowmaps in GZDoom and working on a new port to try to have baked-in lighting.

[@Danae_O]

Zelda really is a great and at this point often-pointed-at example of how the conversation around graphics evolves. The original Legend of Zelda pales graphically next to Defender of the Crown, but LoZ was the one to start one of the big franchises. Ocarina of Time was the first 3d Zelda and brought new ways to experience the games with a more cinematic approach, but the graphics themselves are one of the aspect that didn't age that well. There was such a push at some point from certain fans for Zelda to become more and more realistic after it, and now Wind Waker (which was reviled by some for being such a swerve from those expectations) has become pretty much shorthand for "graphics that stand the test of time". It's also funny how one of the ads for the *original* Zelda had a kid look at the game and go "WOAH. NICE GRAPHICS"

[@mashymyre]

The reaction to Wind Wakers graphics has been overblown. More people back then were complaining that the game was unfinished and had crappy dungeons

[@Galanthos]

​@@mashymyreThe reaction to the graphics was happening before the game even came out though. People were pretty much immediately comparing the early trailers for Wind Waker to a Tech Demo that featured a less stylized Ganon and Link swordfighting. The whole discourse prior to the game's release was tied up in the idea that it didn't look like what Nintendo had already shown they were capable of doing.

[@calebd3947]

woah nice graphics, id like to get my hands on that game

[@cnmnnaturalist]

One of the reasons I have always preferred playing on PCs rather than consoles was that the must-have games with incredible gameplay and graphics may have been out of reach in terms of your PCs capability close to the release of those games, but you could see upgrading your PC to be able to run it as a more attainable goal. You could first upgrade the PC to run it those games at the most basic levels, and could realistically visualize that goal of upgrading to parts that increased your ability to run the games. Maybe you could still only upgrade to a mid-range PC, but you could still take part in the experience. "PC Savings Time" was something you could speak of without shame. With consoles it always felt like saving up for the console or games felt like you were catching up to everyone else. That there was this feeling that by the time you got your hands on those games and consoles, you were now seeing that the goalposts had moved forward and you were left behind. These feelings were often just a personal bias, rather than the reality of things. Unless the time you were taking saving up for those consoles were so long the new consoles were around the corner, you were still on a more even playing field.

[@laffycade3151]

Probably the most nuanced essay on video game graphics I've seen till now. You're amazing Jacob.

[@mow_cat]

I see so many people missing the point rn Its not "photorealism bad stylised good" Its, "prioritizing photorealism over every other aspect of the game leads to a boring game that looks mediocre"

[@mow_cat]

To add on to that, no one is arguing against developing better technology for video game graphics. No one is saying we shouldn't do that. Just that games should put focus on gameplay and story and NOT only graphics.

[@marcinmcula99]

There are some games that are so unappealing visually I'd never touch them despite many people saying the gameplay is fun. I don't mean old dated games, I mean something that looks like it was made on a school classroom PC

[@mow_cat]

@@marcinmcula99 I'm not saying you shouldn't even try to make your game look good, what I'm saying is that photorealism alone doesnt make a game good like so many corporations seem to think it does. Hell, photorealism doesn't even necessarily make a game *LOOK* good. It's incredibly easy to make a photorealistic game that looks awful, even though it looks exactly like real life. Not everything in real life is a tourist attraction, real life settings can be pretty boring and bland. Map design is an art, just like texturing and game design. It all affects the final product.

[@sonofwotan]

1. Realistism /= beauty 2. Realistism /= fun gameplay (However..) 3. Realistism = sales

[@ebiooo]

​@@sonofwotansay that to concord lol

[@zozzleberryfin1735]

3:18 As an artist at first I was like “Wait, you’re not always doing that???” but taking a step back it truly is a mark against a game if, while all these important story beats are happening, the only thing the player is taking away from it is “Wow, that’s pretty….” It truly means that there’s nothing else of substance there.

[@insu_na]

That's why I like games that aren't photoreal. If they weren't in the uncanny valley when they came out, they won't get into the uncanny valley later on either. Love your video! Really weird feeling to not see your face in one of your videos tho 😅

[@mashymyre]

I think the uncanny valley only hits on realistic games that animate poorly. I do believe games like Red Dead 2 or Last of Us 2, for example, will age like wine because of their commitment to animations

[@experimentsininsanity4478]

@@mashymyre Bingo. What matters is the artistry, not the technology. A game with strong artistic vision - colors, scene framing, animation, sound design, performances, etc - will age well regardless of whether it's graphics were "cutting edge" or "retro" at release. You see this a lot in film, too. People will look at bad cgi and say "practical effects are always better." But the truth is that *good* practical effects look good, and bad practical effects look bad, and the same is true of cgi. One of my favorite movies is Jurassic Park, and it used cutting edge technology at the time that is heavily outdated now, but the reason it holds up is the artistry in the film.

[@crediblesalamander8056]

​@@mashymyreyup. the last of us is over a decade old. i played it on a ps3 not too long ago and it's barely aged.

[@ASLUHLUHC3]

"They won't get into the uncanny valley later on either" - So what? Do you play a game after waiting ten years?

[@insu_na]

@@ASLUHLUHC3 Yes, I often play old games.

[@erickschusterdeoliveira2662]

wow, Defender of the Crown looks amazing even today

[@yarnpenguin]

My toxic trait is thinking that no, none of these games are more beautiful than Okami. Many games are far more realistic-looking than Okami, yes, more true to life, but Okami remains the most beautiful game I've ever played (I'm An Old(tm) who's been playing since PC and console games since '87). That art style still just wows me every time I see it. It's breathtaking.

[@AdwayBachchan]

Do you like the HD remaster?

[@Drstrange3000]

Okami is such a stunning game! The watercolor and ink style is iconic. If you are looking for anything similar to Okami, Bayonetta Origins surprisingly seems to share some DNA from Okami. Kunitsu Gami is also another game that recently came out that shares some vibes and even has a small Okami collaboration.

[@yarnpenguin]

@@AdwayBachchan I do! I got it for my Switch, though I also hadn't played the original in roughly a decade, which was on my Wii, different kind of TV, etc. So I have no complaints about it but also no real comparisons I can do easily, plus I haven't checked out the PC version (trying so hard not to get games multiple times over multiple platforms, even when they generally always look/play better on my PC than the Switch).

[@yarnpenguin]

​@@Drstrange3000 Well, now I have some demos to check out, thank you!

[@Drstrange3000]

@@yarnpenguin You're welcome!

[@WaterDrinker666]

I remember my dad, who wasn’t really an arcade person, used to tell me that his brother and him were absolutely floored when Pitfall came out in the early 80’s. You didn’t play as a geometric shape, but something vaguely resembling a human! His shirt and pants were different shades of green, incredible! He recalled that at the time he believed “Games couldn’t possibly look any better than this.” About a decade later my mom had gotten him an NES and Punch-Out!!. Despite the SNES and far more impressive cabinets already being out i can imagine it utterly blew his mind.

[@swamashijudbedolofritt4448]

The writing to this video is phenomenal. The forshadowing, thin red line, how consistent the narrative is, they way it makes your inner dialog understand your reasoning. Thank you. I really enjoyed watching this.

[@dani.5087]

I love how you show Wind Waker when you say "We can all name games that look timeless" because that's the exact game that I think of when I think 'timeless visuals'. I've been replaying it after *years* of my wii sitting in a box in the garage, and *even though* the color balance is messed up on my TV (Link's hair is really orange for some reason) the game still looks really, really good. I remember back in the day (and even when I got into the game in like 2009) people were really mad that they got Wind Waker instead of that gamecube tech demo that more resembled OoT, but honestly I don't think it would have had CLOSE to the amount of staying power. That tech demo was just that, a tech demo--Wind Waker is a whole cohesive visual experience.

[@TheWorstPartyMember]

...and then we sorta kinda got that tech demo in Twilight Princess, a game that has aged considerably worse, to the point where I keep forgetting Wind Waker is the older game.

[@m_the_pig]

Jacob Geller

[@w00per8]

Jacob Geller

[@SanguineThor]

Jacob Geller

[@MatthewJohnson-hi2th]

Jacob Geller

[@mori_in_space]

Jacob Geller

[@chippler5822]

Jacob geller

[@shizukousapostle1stapostle710]

Even with a video as good as this its sad seeing so many comments still devolving into "realisct graphics bad stylized graphics good" ignoring the fact that many "realistic graphics" aren't actually realistic they have evey strong art styles. You see death standing you know its death stranding or GTA 5 , even if the games are realistic in a real-world sense like NBA, most games never have been and most likely never will be realistic. What "Realist graphics are not needed" misses is that the best looking game today not only sets the standard for the best looking game, it creates a standard for many other games to follow even if two steps behind. The tech explored and experimented with by the realistic games help games with strong stylization too

[@Dan-km8je]

This made me think that there's definitely still a market for arcades, they just need to recapture that idea of "you go here to get an experience you can't at home". And I think the hole that they could fill is VR. High quality VR setups are really difficult to do at home, you usually need to dedicate an entire room to them.

[@YUR0ii]

God Defender of the Crown brought back an ancient memory of endlessly playing the 2007 remake as a kid. My favorite game when I was like 6 and didn't yet have anything but the family computer to play on.

[@0uttaS1TE]

I've been having this thought for a while, but I think we hit "peak graphics" about a decade ago, especially when it comes to environments or machinery. Like, you look at gameplay of Driveclub for instance, the way the rain droplets smear and move in response to the wiper blades and g-forces, the dynamic lighting, the volumetric cloud cover. And of course, the cars (and bikes) themselves, expertly modeled inside and out. Then you remember that game is now a decade old, and never even got Pro support, let alone a port to take advantage of the PS5. Same with Just Cause 3's Medici or Gotham from Arkham Knight. Hell, that game was built on UE3. THREE. NOT FOUR. Since then, I can't help but feel like we can't get better than that, not without the prohibitive expenses, and reductive gameplay that even a few of those older games were accused of having.

[@RoadsOfShadow]

The jump between Final Fantasy 7 and 10 is definitely ridiculously stark, and 10 definitely has a claim on 'Best Graphics Of' but for sheer technical improvement, the one year gap between 7 and 8 is hard to beat.

[@HalfgildWynac]

That particular difference is not because of some improvements in rendering or art techniques per se but because the characters in FFVII were not all that good-looking. The developers got more experienced over time (and probably hired more experienced 3d artists), so the cast of FFVIII became much more detailed. People were used to both pre-rendered and low-poly 3d graphics at the time, so they had some idea of range. The backgrounds were good, and you can notice a much smaller jump from FF7 to FF8 in that department. The characters were acceptable as a stylistic choice.

[@KillahMate]

The jump between FF7 and FF9 is staggering, for a difference of just three years and on the same very limited console.

[@CaliTechnician]

I think you touched on an interesting point, the idea that graphical fidelity and their advancements can actually be a paradox in immersion. By pushing the cutting edge of what we consider the closest facsimile to reality, it becomes the focal point of the experience, rather than the the story or anything else the developers are trying to say with the game. There were moments when I was playing RDR 2, for example, where my mind went from "Wow, I really feel like Arthur Morgan" to "Wow, look at the animation of him reloading his revolver!" I'm not sure what a solution to this would be, aside from setting an impossible standard for all games to have rockstar sized pockets; but maybe it doesn't need a solution anyways, as it's okay to step back and appreciate an experience at times.

[@PhotonBeast]

Part of it is recognizing and celebrating games outside the hyper-real high fidelity space. Those games are like Oscar-bait; they risk becoming fairly similar and focused on the incremental goal of 'win graphics/graphcs tech awards. But if we were to treat games that aren't these things with the same kind of prestige and respect - for accomplishing stuff beyond the realm of the hyper-real, there's value to that, both in the immediate and in the long term.

[@theblah12]

RDR2 is a good example of what happens when a dev team prioritises graphics over gameplay - you get a game that feels sluggish to play as you wait for the beautifully animated actions of reloading your gun, picking up objects or running around the world play out. Fluidity and the connection between you and the character you play as is compromised in the pursuit of graphical fidelity. I think a certain amount of uncanny valley comes from the feeling of not having complete control over your character.

[@PhotonBeast]

@@theblah12 Yeah; in trying to be real, the game reminds of how unreal and limited it is. And in trying to fix it, the risk becomes bloat - instead of asking the player to fill in the gaps, the risk becomes "Make more animations..." and "Build a system that has the character grab things faster when the situation is more tense...." and oops, now you've spent six months making a single corner of the metaphorical room look really amazing only to turn around and see that you've not touched the other corners... and on and on. There's ALWAYS going to be some gap in fidelity so it's a question of what to push and how far; with a defiant "We push everything" only really making everything worse. It's a question of remembering what the end goal is (a video game experience).

[@NihongoWakannai]

@@theblah12 This is a big problem with "realistic" animation. In real life, sure movement is a lot slower and harder in real life, but it also has WAY more freedom than in games. Games trying to emulate realistic movement end up copying the slow and hard part without any of the freedom that comes with real life. Like in star citizen, if you break into someone's space ship you can kill them before they even get out of their chair because getting out of the chair is a long slow "realistic" animation. Whereas in real life if someone broke into your space ship you wouldn't lazily stand up like you're going to your fridge for a snack, you'd jump up as fast as possible to fight them. There are a dozen different ways you could choose to get out of your chair in real life depending on the situation. This is why the best animation for a videogame is not animation that *looks* realistic but animation which gives you right amount of agency and control to feel like you are controlling the character rather than watching a movie happen when you press a button.

[@slyseal2091]

@@theblah12 that excuse has been bullshit from day one. You wanted fluidity, you played arena shooters, until they fell out of fashion in exchange for letting inverse kinematics do your part of imagining how it interacts with the world. We have lost so much, and anyone who draws the line at RDR2 instead of the earliest mutations of cover shooters is ranting angrily at how the fire isn't lighting the cave up as well as it used to.

[@D0S81]

Dragons Lair. i grew up on the seafront here in the UK, southend-on-sea. and its full of arcades. so back when it came out everyone flocked to the machine. i still remeber seeing the teaser play on the machine when no one was playing it and being amazed at the graphics ''i can play in a cartoon?!!!'' i got a coin, put it in the machine, and died within a minute. i never got to play it again as i didnt get pocket money back then. but fast forward a good 30 year and emulation meant i could finally have a proper go. and i did, that and the space one that they made. and while they are good, they were essentially just FMV games, and were a bit anti climactic when i realised this all those years later. A a kid, i honestly thought i would have full controll over this amazingly animated world. who knows, maybe with todays tech they could ull it off

[@KnightsDisillusion]

My fav video on this channel. I was smiling the whole way through.

[@dupre7416]

I've heard that large parts of the special effects for the awesome show Babylon 5 were made on Amigas. That must have been an amazing time.

[@thepowerfulpaet4937]

Have you played Alan Wake 2? That gets my vote for the best looking game I've ever seen. I was straight up taken aback at several areas in that game. The warm orange light of the setting sun coming through the windows of an old nursing home was so beautiful I just walked around admiring it for like 20 minutes. It's stunning.

[@coolsenjoyer]

I'm not usually a huge fan of studios chasing the cutting edge graphics and photorealism, but I think Remedy gets a pass because they really know how to use it to the advantage of the setting of their games and it also serves their tactical use of live action footage really well. Plus they always have very solid art direction on top of the graphical fidelity

[@Tunazap]

Watched this at Nebula yesterday but wanted to give you the views here as well. Mirror's Edge still looks so good and it just adds to the fact that realism sometimes takes away from the longevity of a game. Like you said, pushing technology forward is important, and I'm so glad games like Hellblade 2 took my breath away the first time I played it, but I don't remember all the story details of that game. I can tell you how in awe I was staring at Senua's sweat on her face, but feelings are vague in my memory. But I can talk about Hellblade 1 all day, and how I fell into her shoes and experienced her trauma with her. AND I can also talk about the graphics being incredible, then and even now. The lifespan of a game can last decades as long as it plays great, the graphics will be left behind eventually.

[@gameguy301]

The thing about Crysis and CPUs is that the game released in the mid 2000s which coincides with the breakdown Denard scaling. The death of Denard scaling in a way explains the move away from ever increasing clockspeed and towards multi core CPUs. I’m sure we are all familiar with Moore’s law that we are able to fit twice as many transistors into the same area every 12-18 months. Well Denard scaling simply states that a transistor half the size should consume 1/4th the power, the implications of this relationship had been the driving force of the “megahertz war”. The problem is that our ability to successfully dope ever smaller areas and control ever more physics bending leakage current could not keep pace with how quickly transistors where shrinking thanks to Moore’s law. In just another 5 years we would abandon planar transistors entirely for Fin-Fet designs to continue to wage the war against leakage current, and now currently we are on the cusp of abandoning Fin-fet transistors for Gate All Around. Worse is that at these sizes we encounter phenomena like quantum tunneling, and even further in the future it’s proposed that transistors will change to use tunneling as their method of operation! It’s insane.

[@kodyack]

I have a vivid memory of playing Donkey Kong 64 as a kid. It was one of the few N64 titles I had to play around in and I spent a lot of time in it's incredibly polygonal world, especially the Overworld where I'd sit on the beach, listening to the score by Kirkhope. I remember looking out at the ocean as I thought, "This is the best looking game ever" and then I started thinking about the games beforehand, of the 2d sprites of Mario and Primal Rage, and then sat with the realization that games were gonna look so much better in my lifetime and got excited to see how things would go.

[@tyriekbaker2667]

I think when it comes to graphic fidelity, at this point, the best we could possibly have is looking exactly like real life. But even real-life footage from a TV still separates you from the video you're watching. I think the next step should be to remove the window between you and your digital reality. Parallax, I feel, would completely bypass the feeling of something being fake. Because even if it isn't realistic looking, the window between you and your game being gone makes it look like this fake world can still be entered and that it can touch you too. That's realism

[@blakksheep736]

I'd be enthusiastic, but we already have 3D movies, and they never really took off.

[@BenRangel]

Ironically though - when it comes to VR I kinda prefer non realistic games. The immersion works very well despite simplistic graphics. So I feel like there’s way less demand for hyper realism + immersion

[@KillahMate]

You might be interested in trying out VR games. The best stuff currently available doesn't even look all that good in pictures or KZbin videos - but many VR games have incredible immersion exactly through the mechanism you're describing, even with graphics that plainly don't look realistic.

[@JGYoutube0]

That's what many thought for decades and they still don't realize they've got it all wrong.

[@SammyEdgeINC]

8:48 Discord light mode

[@arhopkins2000]

Despite it not being out yet, or even having a release date, I’m surprised you didn’t mention the gameplay trailer for “Unrecord” as a window into what could be possible in the future.

[@mcslender2965]

I feel like Jacob could cover those body cam style realistic games in an entire separate video

[@arhopkins2000]

@@mcslender2965 I’d certainly watch it lol

[@bonemeal_boi]

Cant believe Man: Ham Day has its own essay on Nebula.

[@emporioalnino4670]

I'm evening the odds

[@ram10-]

@@emporioalnino4670 I've spent 10 years collecting the rizzler trophies.

[@TheBlindWeasel]

You reminded me of the first time i watched a HD documentary in my first 720p/1080i TV (which is still being used in the kitchen) as I turned it on, man, those terrains are still burned in my mind...

[@bloo9699]

I remember being so impressed by ice melting when you shot an ice bucket in MGS2.

[@HadesWTF]

The biggest jump IMO. Was that PS1 to PS2 jump. The first PS2 game I ever got to play was Silent Hill 2 and that seemless transition from cutscene to gameplay in the bathroom had me legit sitting there for about 10 seconds waiting for something to happen before realizing I had control of the character. It blew my mind at age 13 or so. I feel like the graphics curve has never quite spiked in such a way again. It is literally something I've remembered for 20 years.

[@mikew466]

Yeah, it was actually the jump from PS 1 graphics to Sega Dreamcast. Though the Dreamcast was short lived, it really started the 3D at home as good as the arcades trend. PS 2 came out shortly after and arcades never caught up again.

[@eclipserepeater2466]

@@mikew466 Which is a leap I sadly missed out on, since the Dreamcast was my first console. Games of that era still look awesome to me; they looks like how a game "should" look I guess.

[@NihongoWakannai]

NES to SNES was a gigantic leap. Having only 4 colors per sprite with a single background layer to suddenly having full smooth color gradients, multiple background layers and even pseudo-3D. NES games look like a child's scribble compared to the art of the SNES

[@KillahMate]

The biggest jump that was even possible (or will ever be possible) was between the Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64 - or any 4th generation 2D console and any 5th generation 3D console. And then right below that the jump between those first 3D consoles of the 5th generation and the new ones in the 6th generation. And the principles of computer graphics then ensure that every further jump between generations will inevitably be less impressive than the last.

[@WestfilmsCo]

Still can’t believe jacob orchestrated this video to come out on my birthday

[@iwaslikenope1070]

happy birthday! hope you had a good one!

[@comlitbeta7532]

🎉🎉🎉😊

[@choder9956]

birthday buddy!!!

[@clintlaroux]

happy birthday

[@theartofnina]

Happy birthday!

[@unclepecos3512]

I feel like you could make a banger video out of Darkwood.

[@tbdaemon]

You graze this point and touch on it a bit deeper in your accompanying Nebula exclusive. Essentially, I agree more with the sentiments previously expressed by ErrantSignal and Yahtzee on this topic: that chasing graphical fidelity is a fool's errand, that the more important thing is a cohesive art style, that games are better when the visuals are not emphasized and that our hardware could be pushed to do more with games outside of making prettier graphics.

[@Gyrbae]

For me, the best graphics on a game will forever be Megaman Legends. Not at all realistic, about as low poly as you can get but the style and aesthetic was so unique at the time that people still talk about its graphics and try to replicate it on modern game engines.

[@twifty9951]

> me, a 3d graphic artist beginner, replicating the style of Megaman Legends, feeling very called out.

[@martynoob09]

20:58 Let him cook.

[@kingsalomi7480]

Yes, let the man cook

[@TheEvilCheesecake]

Maybe you should cook a better comment than this "haha i get the reference" ass lameness.

[@gamesandculture]

Love the note about the "feeling of fantasy" in the mid 90s. Long before I became a sort of graphics-agnostic, gameplay-first monk, I don't know that I even separated graphics from gameplay (even though I was encouraged to do so by the review categories in EGM). Instead, game graphics felt like what a game "was." So as graphics grew so exponentially, the feeling was that games themselves--what was possible, what fun could be had--felt like it scaled just as exponentially.

[@thepaintingbanjo8894]

No game generation will ever capture the magic that was the transitory 6th-7th gen era with the PS2/XBox/Gamecube/360/PS3. What an insane time it was to be a kid growing up with that.

[@krishacz]

massive shoutout to need for speed 2015. it's an INCREDIBLE looking game, and a clear showcase of how limitations can enhance a game's look. It doesn't have a day-night cycle, it doesn't let you drive off-road, but thanks to that it can give you the most crisp looking nighttime i've seen in a videogame.

[@hieunguyenrileygekko]

half-life 2 and portal have aged wonderfully in fact all of valve games using Source engine are still nice looking

[@DarkninjaRocks]

half life source:

[@Veelofar]

I’ve always had a knee jerk reaction to that description. If a game is the best looking game ever, it probably is just as good a game as James Cameron’s Avatar was a good movie. Very rarely does someone have enough money to break through into a new realm of visuals and also have a halfway decent artistic vision or even understanding of things in their medium beyond the tech.

[@KillahMate]

I have to push back on that slightly - it might not be everyone's favorite movie, but as far as artistic vision goes I'm pretty sure that every pixel of Avatar is _precisely_ as James Cameron wanted it to be. Whatever else one might say, Cameron understands his medium (both technically and otherwise) better than almost anyone and it's definitely his artistic vision on the screen. The problem with movies is that ones without an artistic vision aren't really capable of breaking through in terms of visuals the way that games still are.

[@Veelofar]

@@KillahMate the man made a racist “white man saves the savages” movie with no soul and some of the most contrived and backbreakingly twisted messages I’ve ever encountered. It’s his artistic vision, his artistic vision is just not very good.

[@BlueGamingRage]

@@Veelofar It's a tech demo that felt obligated to include a cliche plot and cast of characters

[@Veelofar]

@@BlueGamingRage The innovative storytelling of 100 3D Marios on screen at once

[@blakchristianbale]

James Cameron’s own Terminator 2 was the most expensive movie ever made on release and used extremely cutting edge CG, and it’s still widely considered one of the greatest action movies ever

[@quntface1518]

I really hate that this discussion often gets boiled down to “photorealism is bad and stylised is good” in other circles, as it doesn’t even really make sense and just seems like more of a contrarian take than anything.

[@BababooeyGooey]

That's the internet for ya. Be contrarian and stay in your circle jerk echo chamber.

[@edwilson397]

Especially when it’s paired with the statement that “realistic games always age badly”, as if metal gear solid 2, half life 2, battlefield 1 etc look bad today

[@thefebo8987]

It makes sense. First of all: It has nothing to do with photorealism, not even with the aestethic of photorealism. And why should we praise games which look all samey and are only for tech-fetishists?

[@mcslender2965]

​@@thefebo8987because photorealism doesn't automatically make things bad? Its just part of the general art direction. Games like BG3, Mirrors Edge 1 looks great in its realistic style

[@thefebo8987]

@@mcslender2965 it has nothing to do with photorealism. Look at Photos (digital and analoge) and compare. It's just tech-fetishism

[@rob.c0d]

the thumbnail for this video is my favorite so far, capturing the topic at hand while also visually being able to depict it. and man, my jaw dropped when you said arkham knight because everything you said about it was running through my head during the last half of the video😂

[@RidleyMMA]

I love how you bury the actual title under the intro. I was enticed by the video title, I was engaged with your dialogue and finally I'm completely invested by the time the true title of the piece reveals.

[@Tomismyusername]

*Best looking beard ever.

[@aspacelex]

Where's Far Cry 1? That first vista was _the_ graphics showcase moment of the era.

[@GrabaCuppaPodcast]

The best looking games I've ever played for me aren't the ones that look photorealistic. They're GOW 2018, Ghost of Tsushima and Skyrim. Skyrim is the best because I feel like I'm playing a storybook. The people and environments might not look real but that's fine because I feel like I'm playing an ancient storybook. And it's beautiful. Ghost is the best because of the vibrant colours that get contrasted by the filth and grime of the characters and events occurring in the story. It's beautiful. GOW is the best because the colour is muted but it's still there. And when you see it it's striking. And the motion capture and emotion on the characters faces is, for me, unbeaten. It's beautiful.

[@wiremesh2]

I'm at the section talking about Daytona USA. I don't remember that game flooring me, though I do recall in that timeframe being excited that Nintendo's next system would be able to deliver the graphics seen in Cruis'n USA... which of course didn't exactly happen. What actually amazed me was a couple years later when Scud Race came out. That game was incredible at the time to me. Side note, I never really thought until this moment how Daytona USA seems to take place at least 1000 miles away from Daytona.

[@lets3]

Personally, I think we peaked at Chex Quest.

[@pastelcatnip]

Chex Quest is humanity's greatest achievement