A Love-Hate Relationship with Photorealism
By: Victor Li
Tags: Design, Gaming, Features, Technology, UX

It’s a recursive loop. Audiences demand photorealism because it’s easy on the eyes, and audiences demand shooters and survival games because of their accessible primary loop and ease of playing with friends. Not to say that all photorealistic games are of the lowest common denominator: the Dark Souls series, Red Dead Redemption 2, and God of War have demonstrated that a market for storytelling and original gameplay still exists. For an industry that puts profit first, though, there is no reason to hop back into a dated style when photorealism pulls in the most money. Years of tasteless but pretty games that still turn a profit have proven so without a doubt.

Pairing styles with gameplay is an axiom of video game design, and breaking this rule doesn’t often work well. Yet when a style is overwhelmingly preferred, we not only see a flood of games that look the same but also play the same. Other looks that cost just as much, like Cuphead’s hand-drawn animation, are thrown away along with the new ideas they inspire, in favour of photorealism. Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla look phenomenal, but will arguably fail to make as much of an impact on the general course of video games, even within their genre, due to their lack of departure from conventions already established. As jumps in graphical quality become smaller and smaller each year, simple technological improvements are no longer part of the artistry like the jump from 2D to 3D was. In order for something to break new ground nowadays, it needs to innovate creatively instead of technologically. Miles Morales, Godfall, and Horizon Forbidden may be next-gen titles, but their refusal to deviate in any major way visually is a worrying sign.

The past generation of games have improved graphically, but have rarely departed from photorealism. Source: Victor Li.

Should we all buy indie early access games and fund Kickstarters then? For a consumer with a budget, probably not. The inherent unpredictability associated with indie developers means every game could be a masterpiece or a fluke, with the odds heavily stacked towards one side. Venture capital funds are starting to look at video games as a respectable medium, and more money is flowing into the industry than ever. However, this brings the same creative restrictions that AAA companies face, as the kind of games that get funding are almost always mass market-friendly. Certain groups may be interested in more unique games, but they are far and few in between.

In a way, the entire industry is facing a creative block. Video games have grown into the largest media industry in the entire world, and are expected to rake in around $153.9 billion in the 2020 fiscal year. Absolute creative freedom is a luxury that only smaller developers can have nowadays, with massive studio projects like Halo Infinite and AC: Valhalla reeking of focus group testing and marketing department influence. Even relatively auteur directors like Hideo Kojima behind Death Stranding and Neil Druckmann behind TLOU2, both quite expressive and idiosyncratic works, are still arguably restricted somewhat in how they approach their creations due to budget and executive limitations. Did Kojima really want Sam Porter to slam down a Monster Energy every time he takes a break? The forces at play behind the works of art that people make always create conflicts of interest, and we are arguably seeing them more than ever before — their overwhelming preference for a certain visual style is just one of them.

Watch an in-engine cutscene from any current-gen game, and you’ll still see lips fail to match up with the words, along with stiff movement that demonstrates that the technology isn’t perfect just yet. With how much money and resources the industry dedicates to the development of photorealism, it’s unlikely for them to stop when they are just about to hit the apogee of their capabilities. It certainly has a place in the pantheon of tools used to create evocative games; it’d just be nice if they could make room for others sometimes.