What Happened To Video Game Art Styles...

[@vicctretamaj]

I noticed a severe lack of Nintendo here, but ig it goes without saying. Sure, their games aren’t high fidelity, but they make up for that HEAVILY with their unique style. A lot of Nintendo series just look different amongst themselves, it’s impressive that they can still make captivating looking games with an old ass tablet. Overall, great video

[@justiceiria869]

I honestly wish that people would judge nintendo games more fairly instead of disregarding it just because they don't follow the same rhythm as everyone else (sony, microsoft)

[@TimmyGinobili]

That halo comparison shows what you mean perfectly. Its like yeah those unreal shots look nice but it feels like its missing the art direction.

[@HamZero]

You're totally valid about how games these days don't have that many memorable art styles. Some directing in older games were just better. More to your point, it is about cohesion between characters and their environment. When they're so tightly connected, it leads to positive immersion and more memorable moments. Part of that is the level of scalability. Some games have the best graphics and a huge world, but provide lower quality character development. It's almost like they have the final piece of the puzzle without laying a good foundation.

[@jimmygameman7912]

I think the disparity between game environments and the UI assets/ character designs like you said is really what i tend to notice the most. Like god of war looks great until i open up a menu, or see an enemy heath bar, or look at the ability cooldown widget and my player health bar and stuff. Theres just a level of cohesiveness that some of those older game you showed have compared to stuff now. Great vid as always goat

[@Kirblae]

Indie games have so much potential to fill super specific niches. Both in terms of art style and spiritual successors

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

I imagine this is the result that all the graphics wars were all building up to. When you had an early 3D game console that couldn’t quite handle realistic-looking graphics, most game developers settled on a cartoony aesthetic since it generally works with simple graphics. But the more complex and better the consoles got at rendering these graphics, making games more cartoony seemed like a pointless endeavor since there was no longer that many obstacles to hide. Now we’re trapped.

[@Eishous]

If AAA studios go back to style over fidelity, maybe they will be able to release more than one game per decade and that without insane crunch and layoffs. What a world we live in.

[@JuhoSprite]

Yup and also dont have games over 100gb. Something unrelated tho, epic games is making a second fortnite version with lower graphics and lets u chose what content you wanna download so it limits the total size of the game and that is pretty respectable imo, cuz nowadays these companies force you to download insanely packed games.

[@qwertygutierrez1293]

Nintendo seems like the only AAA company that does this

[@eIikernen]

i miss when games where cartoony :(

[@JuhoSprite]

Not everyone enjoys that style. I hear a lot of people just saying it's for children, they categorize everything into the same box just because its not hyper realistic.

[@henriquezioto8760]

Honestly, the more i think about it, the more i realize that indie games have far surpassed AAA games in pretty much every aspect, it's not even close, it makes most AAA games seem like a joke.

[@FullmetalPanda]

I've always felt like limits produce innovation. You give a company an big ol budget to make a triple A game and they're gonna make a hyper realistic game that is going to play it safe. If there were like heavier budget constraints maybe they would start to think more about the way they use the budget. I've seen companies turn dirt into gold, but all I really want is a company to turn a slab of stone into a nice sculpture.

[@ap-kl8lq]

I just dislike unreal engine's stark lighting and surface reflections, too shiny, smooth and glossy, it does look like a tech demo

[@SkithTickler]

What people don't understand, is that we're currently in the "Corporate Safe" and "Industry Standard" era. It's a style all of it's own. Don't believe me? Okay, take a moment to consider two concepts. Realistic Graphics and Millennial Grey. It's Corpo Style, it's Investor Maxing, it's CEO Aesthetic. CEOs and Shareholders just want to copy what sells. No one takes risks, developers are not allowed to think outside of the box. We can't make MMOs, that's too much of a financial risk! Look how well Fortnite and Minecraft are doing financially, just make those! Toxic positivity and nothing that dares go against the grain. It's why we can't have something as insane as Berserk these days. Corporate has way too much of a say in these things now. It's happening everywhere you look, not just games, and it's bleak as all hell to me.

[@StormyG]

OMG LFG new stoney vid its like Christmas in October!!!!

[@journeyburney]

Dude I thought you would have 10 times the amount of subs you have currently, this is a high quality video!

[@bdizzle__]

HE DONT MISS!!! Keep it up Stoney 💪

[@bdizzle__]

Snowboard kids music is always a nice touch 🔥

[@Sneaky_racoon_sly]

Pennys big breakaway nailed it

[@syygnis]

my exact thinking, I've been talking about this topic for a few years now amongst friends!

[@DaniloSantosVieira]

The exact same thing is happening with movies. Although they have more cgi than they ever did they lack style and look generic. If you want to see some early 2000s movies that absolutely DRIP with that sauce you're talking about , look no further than Speed Racer, 300, Sin City....

[@jensheilman4179]

I wish more game studios would see art styles as a tool to game design rather than seeing it as a marketing tool. But, to be fair, many indie titles are stuck with a certain art style because when the team is small, it is stuck with whatever the few artists are capable of producing. A good game artist is flexible but many indie games are passion projects and you can often see that in a lack of art direction which is also something I don't want in my games. It's a tough balance.

[@nevercanyoucant]

did i hear a track from snowboard kids ? ...... hell yeah

[@chibishortdeath]

Even going older in game history, art style was still such a big thing. The River City Ransom style was wildly different from the Blaster Master style- the Castlevania style was wildly different from the Sonic the Hedgehog style- even games from the same publishers and studios would have distinct styles based on the individual story they were telling! And I get that trends are a thing, but it also feels like nothing is really being done that’s all that new with the hyper realistic style, that I’ve seen at least, and it’s lasted so so long compared to others. Idk, realism has its place, but I’m just kinda sick of seeing it be the option everyone goes for!!!

[@Taktaagic]

I absolutely LOVE the art style of The Big Catch. The retro-y look with dope character designs, hella inspired locations whilst still having a bit of realistic detail in there too for things like textures and some parts of the world is PERFECT in my eyes. Also the game has railgrinding which is peak For how much I love the visuals I'm a little bummed out that the gameplay isn't for me. I love a lot of 3D platformers - Mario Sunshine is my favourite game of all time - but there's some stuff about the controls of The Big Catch that don't jive with me. Despite that though I love seeing gameplay of it, cuz just looking at the game is a treat

[@Stoneey]

yeah i feel that it took me moving around for a good bit until it clicked for me, but also absolutely yes incredible vibes all around shit has incredible style

[@cdkw2]

I never played any big Nintendo game, I played my first pokemon game pokemon fire red in 2017 and still its my fav game and it made me feel the quality of old nintendo.

[@GzegzolkaDA]

You got point but it also about tools devs pickup to do their work. Unreal engine is fantastic tool but it already got it's own style. If game have to had style it requires certain render metod, textures must fit that style and models/characters/objects too. Even stuff like how camera show action or events. It is lot of work and during mid production You can change one element of visual presentation without affecting rest of them too.

[@kylespevak6781]

Unreal Engine

[@dreamnail]

Sonic Frontiers looks so bland and sad in my opinion. Despite being like 12 years older than Sonic Frontiers, i think Sonic Generations looks SO MUCH COOLER.

[@40kkidlock18]

well dude no shit its bland and sad your litterally running through graveyards practically

[@M1XART]

Thing that i can't quite understand is that why the fonts have been toned down into static boring crap looking text? -Yes, even on Nintendo games.

[@shrippie-4214]

I honestly think the lack of style is born from lazy and broken render pipe lines and being afraid of looking outdated

[@hbaabes]

I always wanted jak and daxter 4 but ngl i am worried that it won't be the same and probably they gonna make it very realistic and look similar to other AAA games artistic style

[@shizuwolf]

I think I get what you're saying. Everything is either hyper realistic or fortnite levels of cartoonish. And if you can't do either of those, then try to look like a SNES game. Not much variety these days

[@chastly10]

DAMN great video my dude. games fokin suck rn but we are blessed by the indie game side of thing

[@ryanst2830]

Space channel 5 mentioned!!!

[@roadkill_52]

The golden age of videogames was the 80's, with the 16-bit and early 3D ones being the second one. Yes, you are looking with zoomer nostalgia googles.

[@nimhard]

totally agree - subbed

[@Nyorane]

I see Jak, I click.

[@ImKeefStrongshadow]

7:06 What the name of this game?

[@thejack5952]

We won't be able to see these styles of game art again unless the gaming community stops buying games because supahty-doopity realistic gwathiccs and actully look at some of these AAA games if their actually something worth playing in the long run.

[@Chineseisntalanguageapparently]

Besides the obvious? Not much. Just a reliance on graphics

[@11vag]

Modern video games (AAA games that is) just don't have character. They all feel, look and are the same. As you have very well said, if I wanted to see hyper realistic foliage or rocks, I might as well just spend an entire day outside. I don't want to see realistic characters either, let alone "realistic emotional stories", which in my opinion, further exacerbates that feeling of blandness. I grew up in an era where video games were that, games, that would let you see things in a completely different perspective. Modern video games are just messed up man..

[@JuhoSprite]

The only thing I dont get here are the halo comparisons, and also u showed some other older games that had a similar thing where, they simply did try to look just incredibly realistic? Like halo was clearly trying to look as realistic as it could, but since their tools where limited it just looked like crap and full of polygons. And now that they have smth like unreal 5 it just looks like the first game, but realistic. They also show planets and the halo ring in the sky. They have colorful lighting. So whats the difference? There isn't anything back then that they aren't doing now. But in total rly valid video. 14:50 also whats this game called holy I absolutely f with this I was just blown away as it started playing while im writing this comment.

[@afhamdanish1957]

I kinda suprise you didn't mention any Nintendo games like they the only company still using different art styles for they games like super mario wonder mario and luigi brothership and etc

[@jensheilman4179]

I don't feel like the art style of Super Mario Wonder is that interesting. Very close to New Super Mario Bros, doesn't do much when it comes to colors, shapes or rendering. Art styles in Nintendo games have been stagnant for years too.

[@afhamdanish1957]

@jensheilman4179 I kinda disagree here because Super Mario Wonder have like clay art style to me and the animation was more expressive than New Super Mario Bros does and the world itself more vibrant

[@henriquezioto8760]

15:09 game name?

[@wyattbarnett3877]

what about triple A anime games

[@jakcasey2048]

Indie games.

[@Pqvk]

Truly a game Dav Stoney classic. A few notes I took while enjoying this video: - ultimate Spider-Man definitely looks like the walking dead video game to me. Perhaps a mix of Simpsons hit & run in there? Can’t blame them. - is Dragon Age basically a 3rd person view RuneScape? Where’s the original ideas at? Sad! - I personally think that The Last of Us was where gaming peaked. Now all these developers are chasing that type of style & success. It can’t be replicated! Once again, where’s the original ideas?! - the monkey with those chest cannons definitely grabbed my attention. Maybe include that in future videos? - I agree that the big corporations with their large budgets are ruining games. Indie developers are our only hope! - facecam?

[@StormyG]

What in the hell is blud saying 💀

[@erenattacktitan4964]

what are those indie games' names?

[@leftindarkness870]

They got dem grafiks now, either that "realism" or fortnite graphics or a blend of them Horrible

[@mordrehr]

What's the game at 14:35?

[@Stoneey]

STRAFTAT, they got a demo out right now too its stupid simple fun

[@mordrehr]

@@Stoneey Thank you very much 🫡🫡

[@XWXS2]

Art style died with unreal engine 5 there is something about the engine that pisses me off also indie games have alot of shovel ware and i dont have a powerful console or pc to play games that are looking like n64 games or whatever i wanna see Evolution not devolution.

[@MyStellarSpace]

I get you dude, even some cartoony games still being made today have that insipid look to them, either they were actually made with UE5, Unity, or have details that resemble things from those engines, it just makes them feel cheap somehow... (I'm talking about motion blur, lighting, models looking way too matte or super shiny, etc...)

[@gl7973uh]

@@MyStellarSpaceue5 has broken TAA which might be the source of your biggest complaints

[@ProjectMirai64]

Nice

[@vdpt9911]

sure but have you ever played a nintendo game (e.g. brothership)

[@Stoneey]

brothership looks so sick!!! luckily nintendo kinda falls out the realm of this vid, I feel like they will at least always be making some sort of stylized games

[@vdpt9911]

@@Stoneey I'm just kinda confused how nintendo, who I believe still counts as AAA (maybe sometimes AA for some titles/people), didn't crop up at all, especially when you mention older/more cartoony games, the whole stuff about cohesion, different dedicated engines for purposes, etc., is all them to a tee, to a fault sometimes. separate video or did I miss something?

[@Stoneey]

yeah it is kind of a "hey this is how things are, oh but besides Nintendo" situation lol. They definitely do count as AAA in some cases but in my head are just so unique to the rest of the industry that they fell outside what i was talking about in the vid. In hindsight probably should have had a section on them in particular tho i get what you mean