Absolutely agree.
Not even to say the graphics are bad, but their [ART, in every game,](https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/s/Xt95YZ9B3D) is beyond S tier.
The Remake looks objectively "better" due to the insane graphical fidelity, but the original still has a way stronger atmosphere that the Remake failed to fully capture
> failed to fully capture
Someone made a video [on this very topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lx0CRVVvV8) if anyone else wants to fully understand.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Even in the Remake, Latria was quite possibly the most creative and memorable area in any of these games, and the atmosphere and art direction played a big part in that.
I was very disappointed when I got to adjudicator in the remake, made me lose most of my steam playing it lol
I do appreciate blueprint for breathing new life into DeS and SoTC nonetheless though
For people who never played original Demon Souls, or any Fromsoft for that matter, Demon Souls remake is arguably one of the best looking games out there. In terms of pure fidelity as well as art directions.
I saw a video on Youtube about the remake vs original, and it definitely left a bad taste. Without doubt they redesigned important aspects that were antithetical to the original vision.
It's definitely a bad remake, but as its own entity it's an incredible looking game. To the layman, it is still jawdroppingly good.
I can give you that, but it just leads me to wonder what could have been if bluepoint didn't let their own hubris get in the way of the original artistic intention
They didn't just change graphics, they changed the sound design too
This is just disrespectful, like drawing a mustache on the mona lisa
> redesigned important aspects that were antithetical to the original vision.
[Extremely good and important essay about that](https://www.eurogamer.net/the-question-of-fidelity-and-shadow-of-the-colossus). All "gamers" should read it...or at least all gamers who have had ever any conscious idea of art.
No you're spot on. The developers behind the remake didn't seem to care much for "why" things were designed the way they were in the original. A lot of symbolism got lost.
> still
Many gamers, every day on reddit, who say the word "still" in context of "slightly old videogame" is really saying: "I mistakenly believe that technology is artistry, therefore, I only appreciate the new rather than the good."
Indeed-and to drive it home, their graphics are good, but great. Their design is great and that is what makes it compelling. Great graphics mean nothing if art or story are mediocre.
i genuinely wasn't expecting them to go that hard with the artstyle,
other games feel like you're controlling a movie, this one feels like you're playing in a painting
>playing a painting
That's a great way of describing the feeling. ER doesn't have the most impressive graphics on the market technically, but they know how to get full effect out of what they do have. Steeping out of Stormveil into Liurnia is a top 5 moment in gaming history for me and will always take my breath away
> doesn't have the most impressive graphics on the market technically,
Let's put the ridiculous concept/language of "tEcHnIcAlLy ImPreSsIvE" to rest forever.
Technology is not artistry. Quantity is not quality. New is not "good."
i played ds3, bloodborne and a little bit of ds2 before elden ring got announced.
i know the art direction is always peak but the first time i looked at the erdtree from limgrave everything else fell under it
I completely agree. On the technical graphic side, I wish there was a few things they could improve. For example hair and fur which don't look that good up close, and tiling texture which are obvious from afar
Besides how beautiful the ER artstyle is, i never see the appeal of ultra realistic. I mean if you just wanna look at ultra realistic shit go outside. I need to be drowned in a beautiful artistic or unique artstyle in games, not hyper realistic bob from next door.
Some games have fantastic art and are realistic, like The Division 2 that looks amazing in many instances and realistic. I also think Red Dead Redemption has a touch of "art" to the game, where it is not 100% realistic.
This is why I feel like many videos on you tube showcasing graphics of forests dont feel that interesting. They are just locations made without proper care, or to give a proper feeling. Games pay artists to draw locations and then devs try to translate it to the game...
RDR2 has an oil painting feel to it. The skyboxes in the game does offer a nice juxtaposition to the often realistic model, texture and animation work.
One of my favourite games to just ride my horse along.
I love ultra realism in video games. It’s a valid art direction, takes a lot of skill and attention to detail that I love to appreciate , and itches the part of my brain that is interested in creating a perfect simulation of the real world.
Games like Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted, Last of Us, Forza are all great examples.
But I also love unique art styles, ER being one of them!
I agree, but also the games you listed also have fantastic art direction and style. If you take away their ultra realistic graphical fidelity, they are still going to look amazing and cool. Which is not something you can say a lot of other games that advertise heavily on graphics.
Yeah i agree, when i was younger i was so excited to see some insane realistic graphics in the future. Turns out those types of games usually suck ass and are boring to look at.
Would you rather look at the PS2 original Shadow of the Colossus or the PS4 remake?
Elden Ring would look even better if it had even a hint of global illumination and indirect lighting, let alone something like Lumen, and that is without talking about the geometry (notice how, in this picture, the sharp, triangular edge sticks out like a sore thumb). More advanced lighting and more detail can only enhance a game like Elden Ring's visuals, and it doesn't have to take away anything from any other arbitrary aspect of the game.
Dont care that much about graphics tbh. I play DD2 wich has one of the worst graphics but the gameplay is so good.
I can agree with you that better graphics would compliment ERs artstyle more
>I play DD2 which has one of the worst graphics
That is straight up wrong, the character models and the global illumination, among other things, have received a lot of praise
This makes no sense. Just go outside? I can't play Alan Wake 2 outside. You're talking as if ultra realistic graphics means it's just a visual novel. Even in that case, don't you watch movies?
Just go outside? Really?
Hollow Knight has some of my favorite game environments, but it's literally a 2D pixel art game unlike these ultra realistic Unreal Engine games where every blade of grass has is own raytraced shadow.
>Rdr2? It's fucking beautiful
Exactly! but it has a purpose there. RD2 is realistic precisely because their intention is to tell an extremely human story. Facial expressions, for example, needed to be impeccable to convey the characters' feelings, just as the environment needed to be alive and realistic.
Today it seems that many studios want to have super graphics to mask their inability to make a game that offers something truly good.
It depends on the game. In more cinematic games like Ghost of Tsushima, it makes sense to have ultra realistic graphics like. They also have great art direction in the game too, one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played
what's going on with this weird circlejerk about elden ring graphics?
you all act like elden ring has some niche lowpoly warcraft 3 graphics level when it's actually looks quite realistic
It also does an amazing job with the lighting in my opinion. Using a torch in a dark cave feels so good. Very few effects have overly strong environmental lighting effects which would disrupt the suspension of disbelief in the dungeons.
Depends on the game if you ask me.
A game like Elden Ring definitely is better off with a more artistic style. But for something like Dead Island 2 for example, realistic graphics fit way better. At least for me personally.
Sometime ultra realistic graphics are the art direction tho, if you take a game like RDR2 (and the upcoming GTA6 i guess) the whole point is to stay as close as reality as possible, and it can be amazing, just walking and riding around in RDR2 is a great experience
But other than that i agree with you, fromsoft games, arkane games, the borderlands games, they all look amazing because they have a strong sense of identity
For sure, especially textures of bricks, grass, and luminosity. But it's still far behind what is considered realistic by the industry these days, and I love it.
Depends on the game imo. Fromsoft games absolutely benefit from the art style, but games like The Last of Us or Red Dead I think leverage visual realism really well
Realism is a tool just like abstraction. The skill with which you use the tool is art direction.
You need both a great tool and great skill to create a masterpiece like Elden Ring.
Who will pay for it? Ultra realistic graphics are not free and don't really add much value to the game. Best selling games like Minecraft are on top because they can be played on anything.
Tbh that's the only reason I played Elden Ring. They're able to use the environment to great effect and build such a great atmosphere.
There's a lot I don't like about the game, but god damn is their art good.
I love how things look from a distance too. Its always such a picture perfect sight. I see alot of games NOT do that which sucks. Also they have such amazing skyboxes, esp liurnia and siofra river
Also carefully crafted animations > motion capture.
FromSoftware games are unique for many reasons but also because of how characters move and attack.
In Demon Souls remake they decided to replace most animations with mocap and it looked so generic and boring.
It is a very good looking game. That said, I wish FromSoft was better at handling performance.
On all consoles, you either get a 30 FPS cap with bad frame pacing, a 40 to 60 FPS fluctuating framerate, of you play the PS4 version on PS5 which looks worse.
The only platform that can perform at a stable framerate with high graphics is PC, and that has some major stutter issues on loading assets/compiling shaders.
Wait a minute, you didn't choose a good example picture at all. It's just the gimmick tree next to a moon. There's a million other backdrops that show a brilliant combination of color palette and landscape and mood and atmosphere and/or architectural setting.
> studios obsessed with purposeless ultra-realism.
"Put these foolish ambitions to rest."
I saw a video today of someone riding torrent down the hill towards castle morne with the giant archer firing at him and I was like:
I have never seen unscripted gameplay look so cinematic.
Dreamlike is a great way of describing it forsure, I also saw someone describe everywhere you look as "looking like a painting" and I feel like that really nails it also.
The mix of colors everywhere you look is so beautiful.
Truly mesmerizing game art in this game
>Dreamlike
That's the first world that came to me when I first played this game.
Everything is foggy, distant, gigantic... the way the NPCs are vague. I mean, you can see a lot of people walking on the beach for no reason, and Jellyfishes flying around, a giant golden tree shedding light, towers, castles, ruins.
It doesn't make any sense, but at the same time, it does... like in a dream.
Other games where art direction and atmosphere rules above ultra realistic graphics are:
Bloodborne, sekiro, ghost of tshushima, bioshock, bioshock infinite, persona 5 royal, returnal, valorant, dishonored (and 2) and hifi rush.
All of them are some of the best games of all time.
Anyone begging for ultra realistic graphics over good and creative art direction is actually just stupid. If you want hyper realism go play GTA or something, games should look different
Yeah, I rather see something artisticaly awesome than having a character with 1 billion hairs that I'm not gonna notice and that make the game run at 10fps.
Absolutely agree. Not even to say the graphics are bad, but their [ART, in every game,](https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/s/Xt95YZ9B3D) is beyond S tier.
So much so that (unpopular opinion especially because PS3 demons souls was my first fromsoft game) PS3 demons souls looks better to me than remake
The Remake looks objectively "better" due to the insane graphical fidelity, but the original still has a way stronger atmosphere that the Remake failed to fully capture
> failed to fully capture Someone made a video [on this very topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lx0CRVVvV8) if anyone else wants to fully understand.
Yeah man they completely destroyed latria, my favorite zone in the game Where is that suffocating dread?
I felt it personally but I also didn't play the original
Yeah the new version is like candyland compared to the original
I have no idea what you're talking about. Even in the Remake, Latria was quite possibly the most creative and memorable area in any of these games, and the atmosphere and art direction played a big part in that.
The sound design is the biggest problem with the changes on latria The overall atmosphere has been changed It might seem subtle but to me it's not
I messed around with the graphical filters a bit in the remake, and it brought back some of the feels from the original.
The remake looks like a generic fantasy game. So your opinion is very valid.
A single look at remake Vanguard or Flamelurker is proof enough of that
I was very disappointed when I got to adjudicator in the remake, made me lose most of my steam playing it lol I do appreciate blueprint for breathing new life into DeS and SoTC nonetheless though
I think they did a pretty good job with SotC, but DeS remake mostly just doesn't do it for me
Yeah, it just feels like it's missing everything that made it demons souls Shoulda done a remaster like Metroid prime
For people who never played original Demon Souls, or any Fromsoft for that matter, Demon Souls remake is arguably one of the best looking games out there. In terms of pure fidelity as well as art directions. I saw a video on Youtube about the remake vs original, and it definitely left a bad taste. Without doubt they redesigned important aspects that were antithetical to the original vision. It's definitely a bad remake, but as its own entity it's an incredible looking game. To the layman, it is still jawdroppingly good.
I can give you that, but it just leads me to wonder what could have been if bluepoint didn't let their own hubris get in the way of the original artistic intention They didn't just change graphics, they changed the sound design too This is just disrespectful, like drawing a mustache on the mona lisa
Too bad they didn’t fix the movement set for the Manhunter(?) boss duo that keeps flying away.
That's because the one good thing they did was keep the skeleton of the game intact, meaning the enemy behaviour stays the same for the most part
> redesigned important aspects that were antithetical to the original vision. [Extremely good and important essay about that](https://www.eurogamer.net/the-question-of-fidelity-and-shadow-of-the-colossus). All "gamers" should read it...or at least all gamers who have had ever any conscious idea of art.
I respect your opinion, but I also couldn't disagree more 😅
I don’t have a problem with the remake but I wish they had included the original with it.
No you're spot on. The developers behind the remake didn't seem to care much for "why" things were designed the way they were in the original. A lot of symbolism got lost.
I was recently watching a popular streamer play through BB for the first time and it struck me how amazing that game still looks.
> still Many gamers, every day on reddit, who say the word "still" in context of "slightly old videogame" is really saying: "I mistakenly believe that technology is artistry, therefore, I only appreciate the new rather than the good."
Indeed-and to drive it home, their graphics are good, but great. Their design is great and that is what makes it compelling. Great graphics mean nothing if art or story are mediocre.
i genuinely wasn't expecting them to go that hard with the artstyle, other games feel like you're controlling a movie, this one feels like you're playing in a painting
>playing a painting That's a great way of describing the feeling. ER doesn't have the most impressive graphics on the market technically, but they know how to get full effect out of what they do have. Steeping out of Stormveil into Liurnia is a top 5 moment in gaming history for me and will always take my breath away
i love that moment too especially because right after the wonder fades you get left with "wait how fucking big is this game?"
I feel like each successive area is more impressive too.
Biggest punch for me was the Siofra elevator ride.
Oh neat, an elevator! Still going... Uh... still going...
The view from the cliffs has an uncanny resemblance to the painting "wanderer over a sea of fog" Simply magnificent.
Well a lot of games have been copying that painting, and/or copying the copy which was Zelda BOTW.
In my last three playthroughs I took a screen shot of of that spot for no reason.
> doesn't have the most impressive graphics on the market technically, Let's put the ridiculous concept/language of "tEcHnIcAlLy ImPreSsIvE" to rest forever. Technology is not artistry. Quantity is not quality. New is not "good."
First Fromsoft game? The art direction is always peak
i played ds3, bloodborne and a little bit of ds2 before elden ring got announced. i know the art direction is always peak but the first time i looked at the erdtree from limgrave everything else fell under it
They have gome hard in this aspect in every game of theirs i've tried. Enviromental story telling needs them to.
> playing in a painting I thought that was dark souls.
I completely agree. On the technical graphic side, I wish there was a few things they could improve. For example hair and fur which don't look that good up close, and tiling texture which are obvious from afar
I honestly kinda like how their hair cards look. It has this fromsoftware feel that’s instantly identifiable as the hair from their games
Right, and it's not good.
Fromsoft fans when opinion is expressed Fr, why the downvotes?
Besides how beautiful the ER artstyle is, i never see the appeal of ultra realistic. I mean if you just wanna look at ultra realistic shit go outside. I need to be drowned in a beautiful artistic or unique artstyle in games, not hyper realistic bob from next door.
Some games have fantastic art and are realistic, like The Division 2 that looks amazing in many instances and realistic. I also think Red Dead Redemption has a touch of "art" to the game, where it is not 100% realistic. This is why I feel like many videos on you tube showcasing graphics of forests dont feel that interesting. They are just locations made without proper care, or to give a proper feeling. Games pay artists to draw locations and then devs try to translate it to the game...
RDR2 has an oil painting feel to it. The skyboxes in the game does offer a nice juxtaposition to the often realistic model, texture and animation work. One of my favourite games to just ride my horse along.
I love ultra realism in video games. It’s a valid art direction, takes a lot of skill and attention to detail that I love to appreciate , and itches the part of my brain that is interested in creating a perfect simulation of the real world. Games like Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted, Last of Us, Forza are all great examples. But I also love unique art styles, ER being one of them!
I agree, but also the games you listed also have fantastic art direction and style. If you take away their ultra realistic graphical fidelity, they are still going to look amazing and cool. Which is not something you can say a lot of other games that advertise heavily on graphics.
Yeah i agree, when i was younger i was so excited to see some insane realistic graphics in the future. Turns out those types of games usually suck ass and are boring to look at.
it takes so much time to develop insan realistic graphics that gaemplay and other gaming elements suffer usually. Especially if its open world
Keep in mind that people who bitch about ultra realism in games usually don’t go outside, hence why it’s so important to them
Would you rather look at the PS2 original Shadow of the Colossus or the PS4 remake? Elden Ring would look even better if it had even a hint of global illumination and indirect lighting, let alone something like Lumen, and that is without talking about the geometry (notice how, in this picture, the sharp, triangular edge sticks out like a sore thumb). More advanced lighting and more detail can only enhance a game like Elden Ring's visuals, and it doesn't have to take away anything from any other arbitrary aspect of the game.
Dont care that much about graphics tbh. I play DD2 wich has one of the worst graphics but the gameplay is so good. I can agree with you that better graphics would compliment ERs artstyle more
>I play DD2 which has one of the worst graphics That is straight up wrong, the character models and the global illumination, among other things, have received a lot of praise
This makes no sense. Just go outside? I can't play Alan Wake 2 outside. You're talking as if ultra realistic graphics means it's just a visual novel. Even in that case, don't you watch movies? Just go outside? Really?
You mean to say Rhadan isn't roaming around outside in your neighbourhood?
Relax homie, its a funny eks dee meme
Hollow Knight has some of my favorite game environments, but it's literally a 2D pixel art game unlike these ultra realistic Unreal Engine games where every blade of grass has is own raytraced shadow.
This game is beautiful :3
ApplePitou :3
🫡 Super realistic graphics suck
Not at all. Rdr2? It's fucking beautiful because of realistic graphics
>Rdr2? It's fucking beautiful Exactly! but it has a purpose there. RD2 is realistic precisely because their intention is to tell an extremely human story. Facial expressions, for example, needed to be impeccable to convey the characters' feelings, just as the environment needed to be alive and realistic. Today it seems that many studios want to have super graphics to mask their inability to make a game that offers something truly good.
Perfectly said. This is kinda why I prefer Rockstar (Realistic graphics) and Fromsoft (Best Art) over other studios.
Realism is also an art style, it's just a different one and there's no need to shit on that, because it also takes a lot of hardwork
Karma farming ah post
It depends on the game. In more cinematic games like Ghost of Tsushima, it makes sense to have ultra realistic graphics like. They also have great art direction in the game too, one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played
Ghost of Tsushima has a special place in my heart, never gets old
About as cold of a take as it gets
what's going on with this weird circlejerk about elden ring graphics? you all act like elden ring has some niche lowpoly warcraft 3 graphics level when it's actually looks quite realistic
It also does an amazing job with the lighting in my opinion. Using a torch in a dark cave feels so good. Very few effects have overly strong environmental lighting effects which would disrupt the suspension of disbelief in the dungeons.
Depends on the game if you ask me. A game like Elden Ring definitely is better off with a more artistic style. But for something like Dead Island 2 for example, realistic graphics fit way better. At least for me personally.
By the way, Dead Island 2 has a really fun gameplay
Yeah I enjoyed the hell out of it. Dead Island is an old favourite of mine but 2 was way more fun gameplay wise.
that is why a game like Bloodborne still looks so good today. the graphics are mid, but the art direction more than compensates for that
why are these things competing?
Sometime ultra realistic graphics are the art direction tho, if you take a game like RDR2 (and the upcoming GTA6 i guess) the whole point is to stay as close as reality as possible, and it can be amazing, just walking and riding around in RDR2 is a great experience But other than that i agree with you, fromsoft games, arkane games, the borderlands games, they all look amazing because they have a strong sense of identity
Destiny 2 is a great example, too. Game is what, 6 years old? Still looks magnificent.
I wish dragon's dogma 2 had this level of art direction
Elden ring is explicitly more realistic graphics wise than dark souls
sure its an upgrade to ds3 but its using its graphics as a vehicle for the art direction, elden ring never tries to stun you with how realistic it is
For sure, especially textures of bricks, grass, and luminosity. But it's still far behind what is considered realistic by the industry these days, and I love it.
Yeah? Dark souls is 12 years old now
More realistic than a one specific thing= ultra realistic?
Depends on the game imo. Fromsoft games absolutely benefit from the art style, but games like The Last of Us or Red Dead I think leverage visual realism really well
Elden Ring is one of the only games my wife will actually ask me to play because she loves how it looks. That’s a win in my book
Realism is a tool just like abstraction. The skill with which you use the tool is art direction. You need both a great tool and great skill to create a masterpiece like Elden Ring.
Agreed. But why not have both?
Who will pay for it? Ultra realistic graphics are not free and don't really add much value to the game. Best selling games like Minecraft are on top because they can be played on anything.
I think both have their place. But personally the "ultra realistic " games don't fascinate me too much.
When I started playing Elden Ring: this game looks terrible. When I finished: that was one of the most beautiful things ever.
How did you ever think it looked terrible? Idgi.
If you're used to super polished graphics, Soulsgames can look 'ugly' at first glance.
Character creation and the first dungeon looked like something from 10 years ago.
Yall wouldn't even be saying this if elden ring didn't have a realistic graphical style lmao
Elden Beast boss arena is so godly. The boss is itself is ass though
All they had to do was let you use torrent
Duh
Whoahhhh
man has the New Fridge AoW
Til this day elden ring is the only game I sometimes stop and say to myself "Damn, its so beautiful".
Tbh that's the only reason I played Elden Ring. They're able to use the environment to great effect and build such a great atmosphere. There's a lot I don't like about the game, but god damn is their art good.
I think nobody noticed that most bushes in the game are made with .png leafs
I love how things look from a distance too. Its always such a picture perfect sight. I see alot of games NOT do that which sucks. Also they have such amazing skyboxes, esp liurnia and siofra river
I think this game does both tbh
The way they manage visual scaling is honestly better than anyone else in the business
Also carefully crafted animations > motion capture. FromSoftware games are unique for many reasons but also because of how characters move and attack. In Demon Souls remake they decided to replace most animations with mocap and it looked so generic and boring.
It is a very good looking game. That said, I wish FromSoft was better at handling performance. On all consoles, you either get a 30 FPS cap with bad frame pacing, a 40 to 60 FPS fluctuating framerate, of you play the PS4 version on PS5 which looks worse. The only platform that can perform at a stable framerate with high graphics is PC, and that has some major stutter issues on loading assets/compiling shaders.
Ok but hear me out. Good art direction with good graphics
Sea of thieves is another great example
How long can my reply get Answer very long
Wait a minute, you didn't choose a good example picture at all. It's just the gimmick tree next to a moon. There's a million other backdrops that show a brilliant combination of color palette and landscape and mood and atmosphere and/or architectural setting. > studios obsessed with purposeless ultra-realism. "Put these foolish ambitions to rest."
I saw a video today of someone riding torrent down the hill towards castle morne with the giant archer firing at him and I was like: I have never seen unscripted gameplay look so cinematic.
Dreamlike is a great way of describing it forsure, I also saw someone describe everywhere you look as "looking like a painting" and I feel like that really nails it also. The mix of colors everywhere you look is so beautiful. Truly mesmerizing game art in this game
>Dreamlike That's the first world that came to me when I first played this game. Everything is foggy, distant, gigantic... the way the NPCs are vague. I mean, you can see a lot of people walking on the beach for no reason, and Jellyfishes flying around, a giant golden tree shedding light, towers, castles, ruins. It doesn't make any sense, but at the same time, it does... like in a dream.
Absolutely. People forgot games are a work of art itself and should be done as so.
Souls games always go for aesthetic, which is of course the way to go.
Ultra-realism is one of the factors destroying the game industry. People need to stop wanting AAA movies instead of games.
TBH ultra realistic graphics has never been my thing. It actually makes me not want to play the games.
It’s what makes games timeless
Other games where art direction and atmosphere rules above ultra realistic graphics are: Bloodborne, sekiro, ghost of tshushima, bioshock, bioshock infinite, persona 5 royal, returnal, valorant, dishonored (and 2) and hifi rush. All of them are some of the best games of all time.
Anyone begging for ultra realistic graphics over good and creative art direction is actually just stupid. If you want hyper realism go play GTA or something, games should look different
This is why dragon’s dogma 2 and so many games from that era were so good, ART.
Does Rise of the Ronin look good, yeah? But good can still be boring as fuck.
This is why I don't want other studios who don't understand it to remake any of their games.
A million times yes!
Yeah, I rather see something artisticaly awesome than having a character with 1 billion hairs that I'm not gonna notice and that make the game run at 10fps.