Graphic-wise, what games this gen do you think will hold up in the next gen?

icecold1983 · Jun 29, 2018

Dr. Caroll said:
Hair and clothing clipping is an interesting problem. One of the underappreciated aspects of the PC version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is that you could turn on a setting that did GPU accelerated hair/cloth, and what that did was fix Jensen's jacket collars clipping through his skin. It was a really important graphical advancement, I felt, but one a lot of people didn't care for because the performance hit was significant.

Posts like this make me scratch my head. I get flashbacks to people who claimed that the Crysis series had bad graphics because their focus on photorealism was "boring". The Metro series goes for a sort of desaturated photorealism. It's like you're looking at a faded photograph from 1980s Eastern Europe. The STALKER games are still very good looking games. They're basically photographs of the Ukraine slapped onto decent geometry and then a fairly ahead of its time lighting engine is used to provide that characteristic atmosphere. Each new game added a sweeping range of graphical improvements, and when you look at Metro, you see how each new Metro games has preserved that underlying style while moving closer and closer to photorealism.

I think there are some cultural differences between console gamers and PC gamers when it comes to what constitutes great graphics. You look at something like The Last of Us in 2013. A lot of people felt that game was graphically stunning, and it was a remarkable achievement, but it doesn't actually look like real life. Crysis 3 looks a lot closer to real life. Not close enough, sure, but you see where they're going. The art style is nowhere near realism. You'll notice that a lot of the graphically great games from Sony go for a kind of hyper-realism, with excessively vibrant colours. A lot of the graphically acclaimed PC-oriented or PC exclusive games are not concerned with "popping" visually.

Not everyone wants their games to look real. I think that's the root of the disagreement. Take these photographs. This is what reality looks like. Realism is often really, really, really grey. Particularly when it's overcast. That's why you end up with these circular arguments that would basically boil down to "I don't like this picture of the real world because I don't like the art style." This has been a dispute for a long time.

IMO, a game can have amazing graphics even if the game isn't "visually appealing" to us on a personal level.

metro just doesnt look that good because of poor materials and assets. the art direction is fine but the quality is the issue

TheCrackedJack · Jun 29, 2018

I think they will hold up relatively well considering we have the One X and Pro in play. I know people hate hearing diminishing returns, but I think there is some truth there.

You can't expect night and day improvements on all products until the end of time, it's just not realistic. It would be like a car manufacturer telling their engineers to make a car that goes 50 miles per hour faster than the Hennessy Venom F5. Or Airbus, telling their team to make a 100+ capacity jet that goes 500 miles per hour faster than the Concorde. Yeah....good luck with that.

Now, I believe these things are clearly possible to be created here. The land speed record is over 700 mph, so I have no doubt with enough time and money 350 for an actual car is possible. And if the Concorde was made in the 60's, it sure as fuck could be improved upon today. But, the entire point is that everything reaches a certain limit when money, time and resources can no longer be justified by companies.

I think we've pretty much hit a wall in graphics on phones and tablets, because of limited budgets, file sizes, prices, etc. Just compare Real Racing 3 IOS from half a decade ago, to current games. There is almost no difference. And the actual technology has improved tremendously.

Dr. Caroll · Jun 29, 2018

icecold1983 said:
metro just doesnt look that good because of poor materials and assets. the art direction is fine but the quality is the issue

The game's materials and assets are fantastic, though.

Gestault · Jun 29, 2018

icecold1983 said:
metro just doesnt look that good because of poor materials and assets. the art direction is fine but the quality is the issue

I actually don't get what this is in reference to. I know we've only seen pre-release stuff, but assets and materials have been a strength of what we've seen so far.

Dr. Caroll · Jun 29, 2018

Gestault said:
I actually don't get what this is in reference to. I know we've only seen pre-release stuff, but assets and materials have been a strength of what we've seen so far.

I do remember some people picking apart some minor stuff like one specific desk having blurry texture work, or snow patterns repeating, but the gameplay footage we've seen so far shows a beautiful looking game with extremely good asset quality across the board paired with fantastic lighting and shadowing. You go back to 2007. Crysis was the most graphically advanced game on the planet. It had a handful of textures scattered throughout it that were like 128x64 -- particularly magazine covers. Homefront: The Revolution was the same. You had people claiming the game's graphics were "PS3 quality", but then they actually played it and discovered that it's graphically stunning, even on consoles. Every single graphical showcase on PC I can think of has historically had one or two textures that were less than great. Remember STALKER: Call of Pripyat's ground textures? They were like soup in some areas. Still a graphically stunning game in 2011, and one that holds up beautifully today with a texture mod slapped on. Even without that, it still had great asset quality overall. Metro: Exodus is a semi-open world-slash-zone based game, kinda like HFTR. You're not going to get the kind of relentless asset polish you find a linear game. It's a sum of its parts kinda thing.

Akela · Jun 29, 2018

We're at a point where games with stylised graphics are generally no longer limited by the hardware, especially in the case of 2D games. Meaning that unless their art style goes super out of fashion, these games will hold up (graphically) forever.

A game like Journey is essentially a fully realised version of it's chosen art style - you can't really improve the graphics without changing that art style outside of maybe increasing the resolution or upping the polycount of certain assets (and arguably the low poly look is a deliberate choice to begin with). Journey will look just as good as it looks today as it will in 50 years. The same can be said for other games like Inside or Kentucky Route Zero.

And for 2D games, you have things like Cuphead which will still look just as good as it does today as it will a hundred years from now - just as is the case for the films it's based on. In fact it will probably hold up better since it doesn't suffer from the technical limitations of old 1930's film stock or the primitive mastering and post production tech that was available back then.

None of what I say really applies to 3D games that aim for photorealism - because they don't even hold up today compared to the graphics of a CG animated film or, you know, real life itself. Even God of War, which I'd say has a more stylised then photorealistic look, has obvious blemishes that make it look like a video game, and not in a good way.

Though the game is at least at a point where most of these issues, like texture filtering, AA, and maybe texture resolution, could be improved without changing the core game assets. You could create a remaster of the game for a future console that uses ultra-hd versions of the same (mostly procedurally generated via Substance Designer) textures, increased tessellation/subdivision, and raytraced lighting, and get a game that would be mostly on-par with games that will appear a decade or so out from now, since it's the smaller, more nitpicky issues that stop it from fully realising the art style they're trying to achieve. It's not like a game from the PS1 or PS2 era that only partially resembles the art style the developers were initially aiming for.

TheSantry · Jun 29, 2018

Rez Infinite!

Gestault · Jun 29, 2018

Dr. Caroll said:
I do remember some people picking apart some minor stuff like one specific desk having blurry texture work, or snow patterns repeating, but the gameplay footage we've seen so far shows a beautiful looking game with extremely good asset quality across the board paired with fantastic lighting and shadowing. You go back to 2007. Crysis was the most graphically advanced game on the planet. It had a handful of textures scattered throughout it that were like 128x64 -- particularly magazine covers. Homefront: The Revolution was the same. You had people claiming the game's graphics were "PS3 quality", but then they actually played it and discovered that it's graphically stunning, even on consoles. Every single graphical showcase on PC I can think of has historically had one or two textures that were less than great. Remember STALKER: Call of Pripyat's ground textures? They were like soup in some areas. Still a graphically stunning game in 2011, and one that holds up beautifully today with a texture mod slapped on. Even without that, it still had great asset quality overall. Metro: Exodus is a semi-open world-slash-zone based game, kinda like HFTR. You're not going to get the kind of relentless asset polish you find a linear game. It's a sum of its parts kinda thing.

Ok, I can follow that. Thanks for helping explain.

Hobbesian Thudercat · Jun 29, 2018

I can't believe no one posted GG Xrd - REVELATOR -

Just like the XX series, it will look pleasing to the eyes for the next 10-15 years, at least.

Most of the stuff I've skimmed across being posted in here won't age nearly as well. Particularly, a lot of the Unreal games striving for realism IMO.

*edit*

Couple more:

icecold1983 · Jun 29, 2018

Dr. Caroll said:
I do remember some people picking apart some minor stuff like one specific desk having blurry texture work, or snow patterns repeating, but the gameplay footage we've seen so far shows a beautiful looking game with extremely good asset quality across the board paired with fantastic lighting and shadowing. You go back to 2007. Crysis was the most graphically advanced game on the planet. It had a handful of textures scattered throughout it that were like 128x64 -- particularly magazine covers. Homefront: The Revolution was the same. You had people claiming the game's graphics were "PS3 quality", but then they actually played it and discovered that it's graphically stunning, even on consoles. Every single graphical showcase on PC I can think of has historically had one or two textures that were less than great. Remember STALKER: Call of Pripyat's ground textures? They were like soup in some areas. Still a graphically stunning game in 2011, and one that holds up beautifully today with a texture mod slapped on. Even without that, it still had great asset quality overall. Metro: Exodus is a semi-open world-slash-zone based game, kinda like HFTR. You're not going to get the kind of relentless asset polish you find a linear game. It's a sum of its parts kinda thing.

the materials all just look very off to me. that gamey look for lack of a better word. and of course im just going by all the footage from this E3 that just passed

Akela · Jun 29, 2018

Elfotografoalocado said:
Linear/Semi-Linear games like God of War have baked global illumination. Meaning, the global illumination is calculated offline during development (Probably using Ray tracing techniques) and then are cached into memory and affect scenery and characters. Examples of this are the Uncharted games, Last of Us 2, God of War, to add some Sony exclusive examples. In other words, making that global illumination be calculated in real time wouldn't bring a ton of improvement, if any.

Pre-baked lighting can only go so far -for one, it's completely static, meaning that it doesn't react at all to any changes in the scene - whether that's something obvious like a character or a moving light, or more subtle effects like moving foliage and such. It also doesn't effect specular reflection in any way, which is really what makes an object look realistic - in real life everything has a specular reflection (something that PBR texturing tries to mimic) and the way that indirect light interacts with the surface of the object plays a large role in defining how that object appears. In real life, there isn't really a thing as "direct" and "indirect" light, or defuse objects and reflective objects - instead the light and colour that we see is simply the result of photons bouncing off objects, their reflective properties defined by how they scatter off their surface and their colour defined by the wavelengths of light that are absorbed or reflected back, with some of those photons eventually making their may into our eyes which allows us to see the object in the first place. To actually create CG graphics that look photorealistic you have to actually simulate that process as accurately as possible - which ultimately means rendering the image just our eyes or a camera would.

The fact is, rendering a scene in an offline renderer like Arnold will always look way better then rendering the same scene in a current game engine, even if you pre-bake the lighting using the same offline renderer rather the using the one built into the game engine. Simply because Arnold attempts (to some extent) to emulate the scattering of light, from the light source to objects in the scene to the virtual camera, even if it isn't actually simulating the motions of individual photons that we see in real life.

Samanosuke Akechi · Jun 30, 2018

Sunset overdrive
Crash and Spyro trilogy
Forza Horizon 3&4
Ori
Mario odyssey
Dragon ball fighterz

HTupolev · Jun 30, 2018

Akinsa said:
It also doesn't effect specular reflection in any way

How do you mean?

"Baked lighting" is used to refer to a lot of techniques that go far beyond blending a texture with a single stored radiance number.

Psamtik · Jun 30, 2018

Any "realistic" last-gen game without subsurface scattering looks dated today, with faces that appear to be made of plastic or rubber, and it's more or less a given that future lighting techniques will provide a cutoff that's every bit as definitive.

DiableJambe11 · Jun 30, 2018

ArkhamFantasy said:
Games with unique art styles, as usual. I'll nominate Gravity Rush 2 and Persona 5 for 3D games.

2D games will age especially well like Cup head, Ori, and Hyper Light Drifter, they'll still look good 20 years from now.

Yes! Both of these games had amazing art styles and I think Gravity Rush 2 definitely needs more love... one of my favourite games last year!

pixelation · Jun 30, 2018

Kass15 said:
Besides obvious games like Breath of the Wild and other Nintendo games. Witcher 3

BotW?... you must be joking, that game didn't even look impressive when it first released.

My picks are The Order 1886 and Ratchet and Clank.

hanshen · Jun 30, 2018

pixelation said:
BotW?... you must be joking, that game didn't even look impressive when it first released.

My picks are The Order 1886 and Ratchet and Clank.

Wind Waker doesn't look impressive at launch, but it holds up much better than a lot of the graphically impressive games from that era.

Future_TraX · Jun 30, 2018

#DRIVECLUB
HZD
Detroit Become Human
(Maybe) God of War

pixelation · Jun 30, 2018

hanshen said:
Wind Waker doesn't look impressive at launch, but it holds up much better than a lot of the graphically impressive games from that era.

Wind Waker's art style >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BotW's

zoukka · Jun 30, 2018

pixelation said:
BotW?... you must be joking, that game didn't even look impressive when it first released.

My picks are The Order 1886 and Ratchet and Clank.

BotW looks very impressive and because it's highly stylized will likely look better than most AAA games (including Witcher) in 5 years. Just look at most realistic looking AAA games that released with Wind Waker and tell me did they age better than WW.

chris 1515 · Jun 30, 2018

All 3D Game will look dated but cell shaded games will getting old better but cell shaded game from last generation are not looking as good as current gen cell shaded game. But all 3D games will look old but fine this time. And it will be the case from now.

There is many things to improve, number of polygon, GI, quality of motion blur and depth of field but imo the worst offender is shadows quality. I hate shadow maps, they have acne effect, peter planning effect,the cost is huge(not all object have shadows...). I hope we will raytracing shadows and so as soon as possible.

For polygon I like the AMD patent
http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20180301ptan20180061124.php

Tyaren · Jun 30, 2018

Hobbesian Thudercat said:
I can't believe no one posted GG Xrd - REVELATOR -

Just like the XX series, it will look pleasing to the eyes for the next 10-15 years, at least.

Most of the stuff I've skimmed across being posted in here won't age nearly as well. Particularly, a lot of the Unreal games striving for realism IMO.

*edit*

Couple more:

Yes, this. It is still THE best execution of an anime art style in 3D. Not just in games but including CGI anime. There's not even another CGI anime that looks this convincing. I am however still a bit disappointed that this is a cross gen game and that they didn't develop it especially for PS4. The character models are already really well modelled, but I think if they fully committed to the current gen they could've smoothed out a couple polygonal edges that remain when the camera zooms in on the characters and that destroys the hand drawn illusion.

Edgar · Jun 30, 2018

Tyaren said:
Yes, this. It is still THE best execution of an anime art style in 3D. Not just in games but including CGI anime. There's not even another CGI anime that looks this convincing. I am however still a bit disappointed that this is a cross gen game and that they didn't develop it especially for PS4. The character models are already really well modelled, but I think if they fully committed to the current gen they could've smoothed out a couple polygonal edges that remain when the camera zooms in on the characters and that destroys the hand drawn illusion.

Fate Zero has one of the best implementations of cgi to their 2d anime. Land of lustrous is probably the best most recent examples of good use of full cg

Revolsin · Jun 30, 2018

Every single 2D and Nintendo game this gen will refuse to age.

Rikster · Jun 30, 2018

Ori and Doom!

KtSlime · Jun 30, 2018

All of them, graphically at least. All games look stunning these days. Even the reallly bad boring ones do too.

1.21Gigawatts · Jun 30, 2018

Panic Freak said:
2D games and games with a unique art style.

There will be so many advances in animation that games that try for the realistic style of graphics will always begin to look dated. That second gif is already laughable when she is on her feet.

Sure, the animation in games like The Last Of Us 2 are miles ahead already, but that make Horizons general animation look any less coherent.
Its just a consistent look.

Wollan · Jun 30, 2018

Heaps of games will receive new life once they jump from 30fps to 60fps.

Edgar · Jun 30, 2018

i feel like you can downplay the tech part of stuff and just overall approach when it comes to AAA visuals and thats fair. But when it comes to art direction and overall pleasing aesthetics and visuals games like AC or W3 or TLOU2, UC4 stand equal to games like Ori, Cuphead and more indie or just general less grounded and photo real games. Something like Splinter Cell chaos theory still holds up for the most part , except for character models

Deleted member 4072 · Jun 30, 2018

Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Gears 5, Uncharted 4, God of War, Forza 7 & H4

Dictator · Jun 30, 2018

icecold1983 said:
metro just doesnt look that good because of poor materials and assets. the art direction is fine but the quality is the issue

This is the exact opposite impression I have gotten from seeing captured event footage. The game looks to have wonderful material shading from what I have seen...

ColonialRaptor · Jun 30, 2018

MeltedDreams said:
I just finished Frozen Wilds, holy shit i did not expected such a noticiable jump in visuals. Also the quests and new machines were all great. One of the better exansions this gen.

I've been trying to find something I really want to play at the moment and I haven't been able to get into anything I've been playing as much as I would hope but I think it's time to go back to Horizon and play again the frozen wilds. Yes indeed.

Buttzerker · Jun 30, 2018

Pyre. Supergiant games always hold up, Bastion still looks stellar.

Oddhouse · Jun 30, 2018

Crysis. Still looks great now.

floridaguy954 · Jun 30, 2018

sinny said:
I started playing Rise this week, it's a pretty game but it didn't age well and the resoultion at least in the base xbox one it's low and doesn't help, Horizon is just in another league for me.
The thing i really think Rise does perfect it's the cold first hours of the morning lightning, i love it and it looks so natural it's amazing.

Well I played Ryse on PC myself at 4k/30 fps and it looks spectacular. The facial animations are still some of the best this generation has to offer. The real-time cut-scenes were also a treat.

Osiris397 · Jun 30, 2018

With some exceptions everything made from 2017 forward should hold up pretty well for the next 7 years or so. Mid generation console refreshes really opened the dorr to a lot of techniques that will be heavily leaned on in the next generation.

ArchedThunder · Jun 30, 2018

Honestly I don't think next generation's graphical leap will be all the huge, but instead I think it will be more of an idealized version of current gen visuals. I think the big leap will come from simulation thanks to a huge leap in CPU power. So I expect things like physics and world systems to see the biggest leap. We are fast approaching realism and until ray tracing can be implemented in a big way, which I highly doubt happens next gen, I feel graphical improvements will be more about polishing what already exists.
Basically, I think any great looking game this gen will still look good next gen.

Mr_F_Snowman · Jun 30, 2018

Sure its been said already but Cuphead will hold up for the next 100 years

joylevel11 · Jun 30, 2018

Doom + Zelda

ApeEscaper · Jun 30, 2018

Literally all Nintendo games due to its brilliant timeless artstyles

Green Yoshi · Jun 30, 2018

Many games will hold up just fine next gen but nevertheless games like God of War, Asassin's Creed Origins and Detroit: Become Human will look outdated in 20-30 years. There is still so much room for improvements. But I think they are still enjoyable in the future.

RogerL · Jun 30, 2018

So, guess we are at the ending of an generation...

Let's look at two games from the previous generation.

This is the style expected to survive as it did not try to look realistic but rather cartoony.

This is not that far off even today (PS3 gameplay)

Hydeus · Jun 30, 2018

God of Waaaaaaaar.

Peterc · Jun 30, 2018

Don't expect to much for next gen. The graphics difference getting smaller and smaller each gen. Even with xbox1x and think next gen will come close to current gen and that a shame. But there isn't any solution except waiting for another 5years I think.

AegonSnake · Jun 30, 2018

I ran into this area just yesterday and had to take this shot. Didn't move the camera an inch. This is how the game looks when you are playing the game.

Falconbox · Jun 30, 2018

Cuphead, The Witness, Uncharted 4

sinny · Jun 30, 2018

floridaguy954 said:
Well I played Ryse on PC myself at 4k/30 fps and it looks spectacular. The facial animations are still some of the best this generation has to offer. The real-time cut-scenes were also a treat.

I though we were only talking about consoles. My bad.

I only played the begining a few years ago on pc but didn't wow me then anyway.

Christo750 · Jun 30, 2018

Super Mario Odyssey is my top pick. And Ratchet and Clank.

jroc74 · Jun 30, 2018

Nintendo said:
Uncharted 4 and God of War.

Also Red Dead Redemption 2 from what we've seen so far. RDR1 still puts many current gen games to shame.

Definitely agree with God of War.

Horizon Zero Dawn? Maybe.

But definitely God of War.

And agree with the post about cel shaded. I love that style.

Imerty · Jun 30, 2018

Horizon
God of War
Uncharted 4 / Lost Legacy
Cuphead
Ori

Graphic-wise, what games this gen do you think will hold up in the next gen?

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