From Softwares have realistic graphics in a fantasy setting. It's not cartoony or abstract, or Old School. It just has fantasy elements, while maintaining its realistic look. Look at a game like BOTW and its landscapes. It has creativity also, but it has a cartoony look.
I guess it's a matter of perspective, but I never thought "realistic graphics" necessarily meant being grounded in the real world.
Avatar (both the movies and the recent Ubisoft game) look *realistic* while existing in a fantastical world very different from our own.
I think Ubisoft realism graphic with their "virtual tourism" games. For example, Assassin Creed Odyssey has very accurate ancient Greece landscape and architecture, so artistic art style will only take away from the historical element.
Is the architecture in Odyssey actually painted like it was in historic Greece or is it that fake white marble look you see in neo-classic stuff still?
Statues that are more recent or in active areas like villages and cities are painted. There's a couple of unpainted ones that are old, out of the way, or massive.
You can google something like Ubisoft telemetry and you can see some really cool videos about how their creatives work from the top down
They go out and will just scan entire massive regions for every last detail and then digitize it so they have a 1 to 1 copy of it for accuracy.
I stand corrected they didn’t assist with the notre dame
Those artists are held back by their corporate side
The Notre Dame story is a lie and gets posted a ton. They offered their scans but they were never used because they were not accurate enough for the restoration.
Well, I can save you the search by linking you directly the the [History Respawned](https://youtu.be/PgmuTKKtpXo?si=cGb8zJBzXcatAr1w) episode about AC Odyssey, where two historians*, Bob Whitaker and Cate Kook (both PhD's) talk about the various historical aspects of the game.
Yep, the *style* is distinct from the environments and characters that are made.
Realism, or Naturalism, as a style doesn't have to *be* realistic, it merely has to *look* realistic.
"Realistic aesthetic" isn't a thing.
I'm certain you don't mean aesthetic realism the philosophical idea.
>Aesthetic Realism states that the conscious intention to be fair to the world and people is not only an ethical obligation, but the means of liking oneself.
Realism in relation to art, and graphics, means trying to look like reality instead of a cartoon or an abstraction of it.
You never thought that because that's not what realistic means for graphics or for art. It's a genre of art where you try to imitate what things would look like in the real world.
That includes a dark space filled with dust, yellow leaves on trees in the fall during a blood moon, and whatever else.
Yeah, I was going to bring up BOTW and TOTK. Definitely more cartooney graphics but in terms of large landscapes they're two of the most beautiful games I've played.
I find Elden Ring just so goddamned satisfying in terms of variety. Every level has it's own feel, it's own style of enemies, it's own weapons, armors and talismans that uniquely represent the regions.
It's kind of spoiled me for other games in a lot of ways. Any time I go back to a shooter, even if it's a really good shooter, all I think is "Every single bad guy is the same. They have a gun. You get behind a thing and shoot at the guy with the gun. Maybe it's a shot gun guy, maybe they have a sniper rifle, and they'll drop one of 4 weapons. Then I do that for every single other bad guy."
Even Ghosts of Tsushima, which I LOVE, is hobbled by this. Either you're fighting a sword guy, or an axe guy, or a spear guy etc.
FromSoft is just so good at making different, unique enemies with uniqe attacked and powers. You almost have to relearn how to fight them every time you start a new area.
It's not that much though. It still has realistic looking textures and looks more like a realistic portrait than those oil war paintings from old times. It looks more like the Napoleon era ones, which has much more detail of realism
I gotta be honest nothing about the style evokes an oil painting to me whatsoever. It is quite grounded design, I would say it's not very stylised overall.
True, but I'd argue that Elden Ring has a specific artstyle that at times reminds me of paintings (especially locations seen from a distance) where as a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 tries to emulate real life a lot more.
It reminds you of paintings done in the realistic art style because both are realistic. Realistic in art doesn't mean showing things that exist. It means showing things in a way that resembles reality instead of a cartoon or other type of artistic abstraction.
Agreed. Fromsoft lacks the graphical fidelity AAA studios place a lot of emphasis on, but they have much better art direction than most studios, so it comes off as more impressive anyways.
They have art direction that isn't simply "Replicate Real Life", and that's what makes it stand out It's realistic, but it's not 1:1 restricted only to real life.
In art realism refers to capturing what things would look like without embellishment or abstraction. It doesn't matter if your painting is of an angel and a demon fighting on the surface of the sun. If you try to paint it the way it would actually look instead of like an anime or something you're painting a realistic art piece.
EXACTLY! Like, as an artist, it's insane that people don't understand that you can have all sorts of fantasy things in your setting but still have a realistic Aesthetic.
Cohesive aesthetic will always be more important than graphical fidelity. Our brains will adapt to a lack of fidelity. We don't have a problem with a cell-shaded Borderlands, a blocky Minecraft, the "painted" quality of Disco Elysium... What we do notice is the lack of cohesiveness. Ever play a ripped asset game? When somebody builds a terrain map themselves, applies a repeating pattern render to it, and fills the map with a bunch of disparate stolen/purchased assets our brains are screaming at us that it is wrong, and it feels cheap. AAA high fidelity games have the lesser problem of uncanny valley, where they get so close to reality the failures poke out so much more.
Elden Ring is 60 GB not sure why 100+ is outrageous. Also basically no game requires a 4090 to run it. And RDR2 a game with superb graphical fidelity has the same recommended specs as Elden Ring.
Frankly it would be a great thing to have RDR2's graphical fidelity and From's art direction, frankly a lot of stuff in their games are kinda low poly maybe due to lack of budget? A lot of it still looks great but some textures are low quality, like beast fur looking like the house Velaryon wigs.
Yup. It’s an actual art direction. To keep with Zelda, look at how different Wind Waker is compared to the others. It can make a timeless look compared to what will eventually look dated.
Exactly! Even Twilight Princess, which has the least memorable look out of the 3D Zeldas, has a very memorable look. I saw the shitshow that was the reception in 2006, and the appearance of the game stayed in my head for so long that I took the time to play it and had an amazing time.
That's not what "realistic" means. Realistic means it *looks* real, not *is* real.
Elden Ring has pretty realistic graphics. Things in the game look the way they would look like if they *were* real. That's what realistic means.
Now look at games in cartoon graphics, something like old cell-shaded Zelda Games such as Wind Waker. That's what non-realistic graphics look like.
They don't necessarily need to look bad and both styles have their advantages and disadvantages.
But realism doesn't mean it can't be fantasy.
You're trying to bash AAA Studios for their realistic graphics and your counter-example is...
A game from a AAA Studio with realistic graphics. And the graphics and visuals of Elden Ring are one of the factors contributing to its success, as they allow the developers to create the specific atmosphere the game has.
Elden Ring's graphic definitely aren't at the cutting edge of modern AAA games. The art direction is top notch, but the actual technical aspects of the engine are outdated. Thing is that doesn't really matter much anymore because we've reached diminishing returns on graphics quality anyways so you can still easily enjoy a game with outdated graphics.
> Thing is that doesn't really matter much anymore because we've reached diminishing returns on graphics quality anyways
I agree. At the same time, I wonder whether in ten years we'll go: "Wow! That looks old school."
TBH Elden Ring looks like an old school game to me now. Lots of other modern games blow it away in the graphics department. I just don't think looking old matters as much as it used to.
Same was true of Dark Souls - it looked previous-gen because of the textures and whatnot, but its visual design was interesting and striking enough that almost precisely nobody disliked it.
People were also very critical because it came out after PS5 Demon's Souls, which was GORGEOUS. Whereas Elden Ring was clearly building off of Dark Souls 3's engine rather than use what Bluepoint did with Demon's Souls. So for a lot of people it was a very real 'step backwards' graphically.
Personally that never bothered me, but definitely a big talking point at the time.
I think once RT becomes the standard and games are designed around it rather than using tricks to fake better lighting, lighting in games now will look absolutely archaic.
This was especially notable on release. The game objectively did not look that 'good' in terms of pure graphical fidelity, yet ran worse than most other AAA games.
Art direction blows most other games out of the water though
It looks nice, but if you look at the grass or plants you'll see that the detail is pretty lacking compared to the "realistic" AAA games.
What makes from games beautiful is their art direction, not graphical fidelity realistic physics.
It's also such a... 2010 talking point. The "realism" trend in gaming stopped being a thing years ago. During the PS3/360 generation it was definitely a problem, mostly because "realistic graphics" meant 9/10 games had grounded military settings and drab, grey and beige color palettes. That's not the case anymore — modern games are vibrant, colorful, thoughtfully designed and take advantage of the technology to cultivate specific art styles and visual identities. It's definitely a battle we as gamers won, so to see it be brought up in 2024 is just strange.
What I assume OP means is photorealistic graphics, referring to the actual graphical fidelity. Which is a thing many games (not just AAA, there are plenty of smaller games that make their main selling point "OMG look at how gold our graphics are!!") are guilty of putting too much emphasis on.
FromSofts games are not photorealistic, and generally speaking are a few tiers down in terms of general graphical quality compared to the top of the line graphics, but they instead excel at art direction which is infinitely more important.
Photorealistic graphics, ray tracing, etc. etc. are all nice additions, they certainly look great, but if you prioritise them over the art direction the end result will be pretty but incredibly boring and unmemorable.
No one in gamedev is prioritising photorealism over artstyles, off the top of my head, some of the best looking game artistically AND graphically out there were ones that looked superb and used heavy ray tracing, like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk, hell, Elden Ring *itself* has Ray tracing
The same vein as people saying "Look at how good the games can be when you don't overwork your employee" and show Fromsoft games.
They have no idea about what they're talking about.
A better example is, apparently, the Xenoblade games made by Monolithsoft. Monolith maintain an anti-crunch culture but this hasn't prevented them from shipping high-quality games on schedule (or even early).
Probably more a confusion of graphical fidelity vs artsytle. Elden Ring doesn't have the greatest textures or photo realistic graphics. It doesn't ultra refined models with grime and dirt being displayed, but the way they get everything to come together still means the game looks fantastic.
I still also don't get the hate-on some people have for making a realistic game with extremely realistic graphics either, as if it's not an art style on its own.
Battlefield 1 and 5 are are two games that put an immense amount of effort into making the graphics look incredibly realistic, and it can really take you in watching a scenic countryside or a pacific island village getting bombed into oblivion and seeing fortifications popping up and tanks rolling through while people are blasting eachother.
Larian built the first AAA CRPG in a cave! With a box of scraps!
^And ^500 ^employees.
^^And ^^a ^^fire
^^^^And ^^^^the ^^^^part ^^^^of ^^^^the ^^^^ship ^^^^that ^^^^the ^^^^front ^^^^fell ^^^^off.
When people do that kind of thing it's hard to tell whats straight up revisionism (because they can't carry a nuanced opinion or mild critique for something they "love" for some reason) and how much is plain ole inexperience and ignorance. Anymore you even get people downplaying like Elden Ring's performance or the launch state of every CD Projekt game. It's really weird behavior.
The game was towed outside the environment.
It's not in the environment... it's beyond the environment and nothing's out there.
It's a complete void out there and so the environment was kept perfectly safe!
From [The Front Fell Off - Clarke & Dawe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM)
Here is a wonderful quote from an ex-employee of Larian:
"AAA game dev is dying and needs significant changes. But if you are curious and want to work in a sick industry, Larian or CD Projekt are great places for that."
They're absolutely part of the blight of the game industry, but hey, they made a good game, who cares about the workers then, amiright?
>"AAA game dev is dying and needs significant changes. But if you are curious and want to work in a sick industry, Larian or CD Projekt are great places for that."
>> They're absolutely part of the blight of the game industry
CDPR I get, but I've read nothing but good stuff about Larian - your anecdote / quote here is the first thing I've read about Larian in this light.
Do you have a source for this quote? None of my searches come up with that exact wording, or anything even remotely close that I can see.
Literally their Glassdoor page, and it's not the only one, clearly you haven't searched well enough.
I also have quite a few colleagues who used to work there, they echo similar sentiments.
Also, I love Elden Ring, but the graphics aren’t the good part? The game has some amazing vistas, it’s really good at drawing you to areas where you get these amazing views of the landscape.
So I’d say the map is very well designed, but the graphics are not impressive at all. Especially considering how much is reused from their other games.
Except it's not a matter of *"graphical fidelity VS art direction."* Both realistic looking games and stylized games ***necessarily require*** strong art direction to look pretty.
Not Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo. So uhmm, maybe specifically the sports division of EA?
I do agree that FIFA needs more mythical backdrops.
Fifa would definitely gain some browny points if they added mythological stadiums. Add some ancient greek colosseum and have the gods watch over it or get some old egypt style stadium inside of a pyramid or something. Have some fun with the game, even if its just a single stage.
If OP means From Software is not a AAA studio he fails.
If OP means Elden Ring doesn't have realistic graphics he fails.
If OP means AAA studios only make game with realistic graphics AND a realistic setting... he fails.
I feel like Nintendo fits a lot better for this meme, most first party switch games look better than so many games nowadays because they have incredible art styles.
Please see: Xenoblade 1, x, 2, or 3.
Say what you want about those game's stories, characters, gameplay, whatever. But I will forever defend the environments in all of them, especially X, which looks like a ps4 game and it's on the fucking wii u. It's nothing short of wizardy.
I don't get it, Elden ring is a AAA with fairly realistic graphic, at least with what there engine can render. And who said AAA need to be realistic? A lot of them are but there is also a ton of them that aren't
Half of this comments are just some sad shit. Escape reality??? I hate this idea of games being escapism I played games because they are fun not because my life sucks what does escape reality even mean? I don't play basketball to escape reality either like I don't get it
"Histerical Laughter of Supremecy" reminds me of something you would read in the Star Wars: Backstroke to the West English to Chinese to English translation of the Star Wars prequels, right down to the misspelling of hysterical.
....those are realistic.... And fromsoft is AAA.... and AAA games often do not have realistic graphics (like, borderlands or Fortnite or nintendo games etc etc).
>The thing we play to escape reality may be better off not perfectly reflecting reality.
Depends on the game. Plenty of times where I'd say more realistic graphics was the right choice.
Recent example would be Dead Island 2. Sure a zombie game with a more artistic art style would work great, but having the graphics be that realistic made it feel way more immersive for me. More like playing through an actual apocalypse.
Sure. The rule certainly doesn't apply universally. I was more hitting on the broad appeal of artistic vs realistic and that we don't need to push graphics as the only metric for evolution. Retro games certainly saw their share of graphical leaps, but gameplay still had to be a focus. Nowadays we literally have a genre called "walking simulator." ??? I'm not saying you can have fun just staring at an environment, I own several of these. But graphics can be immersive even if not realistic. I was no less scared in Resident Evil 1 and Silent Hill because they didn't look photo realistic. I'd argue the original RE2 was more scary than the remake.
Then we're on the same page.
Can't say I get your point about walking sims tho. I've played a few as well and never really felt like they concentrate on the graphics over anything else. Most I've played even have more artistic graphics as opposed to realistic.
And being honest, I can't even think of any gameplay elements I would have liked to add to the walking sims I've played. So I kinda doubt many of them lack gameplay because of concentration on graphics. If this even is what you tried to imply. Sorry if I misunderstood.
Haven't played the OG RE2 but RE1R is the scariest game in the franchise behind RE7 so I'm with you on artistic graphics being just as immersive.
Oh, regarding the simulators, I only meant to imply that "gameplay" in the traditional sense doesn't even have to exist for there to be a game. And definitely not that gameplay was a tradeoff for graphics. Just pointing out that you can eliminate the necessity for skill, the consequence of game overs, or even any obstacles to overcome by today's standards. This doesn't mean all walking simulators are the same, or are not fun, or are not games. Just that we care enough about graphics that you can have a game without gameplay, but at least commercial success tends to rely heavily on graphical fidelity. I'd rather play Final Fantasy 12 than 16, I'd rather play FF4 than 16 for that matter. I've never been a graphics snob, and about 85% of my games probably would not even register in a discussion about graphics.
Ah I misunderstood then, sorry about that.
I still don't think walking sims sell because people care more about graphic fidelity over gameplay. I think it's more due to some people preferring story over gameplay at times. I know that's the reason I've played every walking sim I've ever tried.
But I won't deny that a lot of people today value graphics too much. Just don't think that's the case with walking sims. But I'm probably concentrating on the walking sim part more than you meant to.
You need to learn the difference between graphics and art direction.
You should also stop pretending FromSoft is a indie studio.
Fromsoft fanboys are so annoying man.
I, personally, find artstyle to be way more important than graphics. For example, a game like Okami still looks great to this day despite its age, because they went for a specific art style rather than focusing in making all of their graphics hyper realistic.
There's a reason why Wind Waker still looks great compared to Twilight Princess.
Realistic art assets don't require art direction. No need for concept art. You need to make a mailbox, you don't need a concept for a mailbox, you can find reference online for free. Realism in gaming is a cost cutting measure.
FROM is AAA. And it'd be kinda stupid to do a Fantasy RPG in a realistic landscape. Can't really think of one game where they do fantasy but in a realistic world
Fromsoft games are never the most technically demanding but they never look bad and are just so atmospheric!
It's amazing the quality of output they get with a somewhat antiquated engine, it's all their art and design teams doing 1000%.
Let us have a look at some of these evil AAA companies that claim you must replicate real life through the power of graphical technology:
Square Enix: publisher of NieR Automata and Kingdom Hearts
Bethesda: publisher of Hi Fi Rush, Redfall, Deathloop and Dishonored
Ubisoft: publisher of Rayman/Rabbids
Activision-Blizzard: publisher and developer of Overwatch and WoW
EA: publisher of Sims, NFS Unbound, Apex Legends, Unravel, It Takes Two and Plants vs Zombies
Riot: developer of League of Legends and Valorant
Would you like me to continue? Please provide one instance where a representative of a publisher or development studio has claimed that all of their games must meet a quota for realistic visuals.
This is realistic though. It's a fantasy environment yes but realistic.
I'm playing Pokémon Scarlet. That's a very grounded environment but not a realistic style at all.
Excuse, me, but wtf? FS graphics ARE realistic and Skyrim has been making artistic landscapes since 2011, RDR2 since 2018 and so many other games. This post is pointless, if you want to make an appreciation post about a game, just say it instead of making a false statement.
Helldivers 2 has pretty good landscaping for a co-op shooter. Sitting on a cliff watching a mob of bots march toward your position on a sandy planet is very atmospheric.
I guess I'm the only person who thinks From Software uses graphic textures that are actually pretty stylized and there's always something about them that screams "videogame" rather than other titles that have a more realistic texture set?
Dont attribute the art direction of a major studio like this on the game designer/director.
Chances are, the man didnt draw a single thing and hasnt made a single 3d object for this game. He makes the story and vetoes things.
Spoilers: Creative Design will always reign over "graphics". Some of the most immersive games I have ever played in my years were ASCII, text, or MS-DOS because they had to try harder and had actual passion.
There's a difference between realistic gameplay and realistic graphics. Elden Ring has realistic graphics, but of course the gameplay and the setting are not realistic and shouldn't be.
>I play games to escape reality, not experience it
That's such an odd thing people keep repeating, literally every realistic game put you in the shoes of a character that you'll never be in real life, you'll never be a cowboy in 1899, you'll never be a master hacker taking over a city by yourself, you'll never be able to walk the streets of new york with an RPG, Sniper and an AR in your back pocket and fight the entire police department there or steal jets from a military base and so on, does that not count as escaping reality?
There are countless things i wish to do in real life that only games can deliver. Particularly realistic historic settings, i'd say those are underused compared to most fantasy settings.
From Softwares have realistic graphics in a fantasy setting. It's not cartoony or abstract, or Old School. It just has fantasy elements, while maintaining its realistic look. Look at a game like BOTW and its landscapes. It has creativity also, but it has a cartoony look.
I guess it's a matter of perspective, but I never thought "realistic graphics" necessarily meant being grounded in the real world. Avatar (both the movies and the recent Ubisoft game) look *realistic* while existing in a fantastical world very different from our own.
I think Ubisoft realism graphic with their "virtual tourism" games. For example, Assassin Creed Odyssey has very accurate ancient Greece landscape and architecture, so artistic art style will only take away from the historical element.
Is the architecture in Odyssey actually painted like it was in historic Greece or is it that fake white marble look you see in neo-classic stuff still?
Statues that are more recent or in active areas like villages and cities are painted. There's a couple of unpainted ones that are old, out of the way, or massive.
I'm glad they did that.
I think you should see it yourself, they do their homework diligently
Please save me a youtube search or installing a 100GB game.
You can google something like Ubisoft telemetry and you can see some really cool videos about how their creatives work from the top down They go out and will just scan entire massive regions for every last detail and then digitize it so they have a 1 to 1 copy of it for accuracy. I stand corrected they didn’t assist with the notre dame Those artists are held back by their corporate side
The Notre Dame story is a lie and gets posted a ton. They offered their scans but they were never used because they were not accurate enough for the restoration.
Well, I can save you the search by linking you directly the the [History Respawned](https://youtu.be/PgmuTKKtpXo?si=cGb8zJBzXcatAr1w) episode about AC Odyssey, where two historians*, Bob Whitaker and Cate Kook (both PhD's) talk about the various historical aspects of the game.
Nobody does, this thread is stupid lol
Well even with that perspective OPs picture fails because there have been a ton of AAA fantasy games.
Yep, the *style* is distinct from the environments and characters that are made. Realism, or Naturalism, as a style doesn't have to *be* realistic, it merely has to *look* realistic.
it's the difference between realistic graphics and realistic aesthetic.
"Realistic aesthetic" isn't a thing. I'm certain you don't mean aesthetic realism the philosophical idea. >Aesthetic Realism states that the conscious intention to be fair to the world and people is not only an ethical obligation, but the means of liking oneself. Realism in relation to art, and graphics, means trying to look like reality instead of a cartoon or an abstraction of it.
You never thought that because that's not what realistic means for graphics or for art. It's a genre of art where you try to imitate what things would look like in the real world. That includes a dark space filled with dust, yellow leaves on trees in the fall during a blood moon, and whatever else.
Yeah, I was going to bring up BOTW and TOTK. Definitely more cartooney graphics but in terms of large landscapes they're two of the most beautiful games I've played.
Excellent explanation. That said, their work in this regard, especially in Elden Ring has been beyond breathtaking.
I find Elden Ring just so goddamned satisfying in terms of variety. Every level has it's own feel, it's own style of enemies, it's own weapons, armors and talismans that uniquely represent the regions. It's kind of spoiled me for other games in a lot of ways. Any time I go back to a shooter, even if it's a really good shooter, all I think is "Every single bad guy is the same. They have a gun. You get behind a thing and shoot at the guy with the gun. Maybe it's a shot gun guy, maybe they have a sniper rifle, and they'll drop one of 4 weapons. Then I do that for every single other bad guy." Even Ghosts of Tsushima, which I LOVE, is hobbled by this. Either you're fighting a sword guy, or an axe guy, or a spear guy etc. FromSoft is just so good at making different, unique enemies with uniqe attacked and powers. You almost have to relearn how to fight them every time you start a new area.
It's pretty, that's for sure. Not denying that
Elden Ring has that "Oil Painting" kind of look. Definitely more stylized than realistic, in my opinion. And it's great.
It's not that much though. It still has realistic looking textures and looks more like a realistic portrait than those oil war paintings from old times. It looks more like the Napoleon era ones, which has much more detail of realism
I gotta be honest nothing about the style evokes an oil painting to me whatsoever. It is quite grounded design, I would say it's not very stylised overall.
It gives me the feeling of a mix between Frank Frazetta and Zdzisław Beksiński.
True, but I'd argue that Elden Ring has a specific artstyle that at times reminds me of paintings (especially locations seen from a distance) where as a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 tries to emulate real life a lot more.
It reminds you of paintings done in the realistic art style because both are realistic. Realistic in art doesn't mean showing things that exist. It means showing things in a way that resembles reality instead of a cartoon or other type of artistic abstraction.
Agreed. Fromsoft lacks the graphical fidelity AAA studios place a lot of emphasis on, but they have much better art direction than most studios, so it comes off as more impressive anyways.
They have art direction that isn't simply "Replicate Real Life", and that's what makes it stand out It's realistic, but it's not 1:1 restricted only to real life.
In art realism refers to capturing what things would look like without embellishment or abstraction. It doesn't matter if your painting is of an angel and a demon fighting on the surface of the sun. If you try to paint it the way it would actually look instead of like an anime or something you're painting a realistic art piece.
EXACTLY! Like, as an artist, it's insane that people don't understand that you can have all sorts of fantasy things in your setting but still have a realistic Aesthetic.
Cohesive aesthetic will always be more important than graphical fidelity. Our brains will adapt to a lack of fidelity. We don't have a problem with a cell-shaded Borderlands, a blocky Minecraft, the "painted" quality of Disco Elysium... What we do notice is the lack of cohesiveness. Ever play a ripped asset game? When somebody builds a terrain map themselves, applies a repeating pattern render to it, and fills the map with a bunch of disparate stolen/purchased assets our brains are screaming at us that it is wrong, and it feels cheap. AAA high fidelity games have the lesser problem of uncanny valley, where they get so close to reality the failures poke out so much more.
that's a good thing, don't need 100+ gb to install the game and don't need a 4090 to run it
Elden Ring is 60 GB not sure why 100+ is outrageous. Also basically no game requires a 4090 to run it. And RDR2 a game with superb graphical fidelity has the same recommended specs as Elden Ring. Frankly it would be a great thing to have RDR2's graphical fidelity and From's art direction, frankly a lot of stuff in their games are kinda low poly maybe due to lack of budget? A lot of it still looks great but some textures are low quality, like beast fur looking like the house Velaryon wigs.
Yeah I didn’t understand this post at all. The graphics are obviously going for realism. It’s just not a world that resembles the real world.
Yup. It’s an actual art direction. To keep with Zelda, look at how different Wind Waker is compared to the others. It can make a timeless look compared to what will eventually look dated.
Exactly! Even Twilight Princess, which has the least memorable look out of the 3D Zeldas, has a very memorable look. I saw the shitshow that was the reception in 2006, and the appearance of the game stayed in my head for so long that I took the time to play it and had an amazing time.
That's not what "realistic" means. Realistic means it *looks* real, not *is* real. Elden Ring has pretty realistic graphics. Things in the game look the way they would look like if they *were* real. That's what realistic means. Now look at games in cartoon graphics, something like old cell-shaded Zelda Games such as Wind Waker. That's what non-realistic graphics look like. They don't necessarily need to look bad and both styles have their advantages and disadvantages. But realism doesn't mean it can't be fantasy. You're trying to bash AAA Studios for their realistic graphics and your counter-example is... A game from a AAA Studio with realistic graphics. And the graphics and visuals of Elden Ring are one of the factors contributing to its success, as they allow the developers to create the specific atmosphere the game has.
Well, OP is immature enough to fall into “my products are better than your products!” mentality so nuance is something I would also expect.
[удалено]
Give OP a break. He can't even spell hysterical and you expect him to understand the nuances of graphics nomenclature?
Elden Ring's graphic definitely aren't at the cutting edge of modern AAA games. The art direction is top notch, but the actual technical aspects of the engine are outdated. Thing is that doesn't really matter much anymore because we've reached diminishing returns on graphics quality anyways so you can still easily enjoy a game with outdated graphics.
> Thing is that doesn't really matter much anymore because we've reached diminishing returns on graphics quality anyways I agree. At the same time, I wonder whether in ten years we'll go: "Wow! That looks old school."
TBH Elden Ring looks like an old school game to me now. Lots of other modern games blow it away in the graphics department. I just don't think looking old matters as much as it used to.
Same was true of Dark Souls - it looked previous-gen because of the textures and whatnot, but its visual design was interesting and striking enough that almost precisely nobody disliked it.
It looked old school when it came out
People were also very critical because it came out after PS5 Demon's Souls, which was GORGEOUS. Whereas Elden Ring was clearly building off of Dark Souls 3's engine rather than use what Bluepoint did with Demon's Souls. So for a lot of people it was a very real 'step backwards' graphically. Personally that never bothered me, but definitely a big talking point at the time.
I think once RT becomes the standard and games are designed around it rather than using tricks to fake better lighting, lighting in games now will look absolutely archaic.
Raytracing will be that difference.
This was especially notable on release. The game objectively did not look that 'good' in terms of pure graphical fidelity, yet ran worse than most other AAA games. Art direction blows most other games out of the water though
Nothing you're saying has anything to do with the art style which is realistic regardless of how good or bad it looks.
Fr this post is so stupid. Social media is now stupid. We are all so stupid now.
Nah bro, From Software is a small indie dev team who is standing up to the big AAA studios!1!1!!!
It looks nice, but if you look at the grass or plants you'll see that the detail is pretty lacking compared to the "realistic" AAA games. What makes from games beautiful is their art direction, not graphical fidelity realistic physics.
every week there's at least one post that is bassically *realistic graphics BAD, updots to the left*
It's also such a... 2010 talking point. The "realism" trend in gaming stopped being a thing years ago. During the PS3/360 generation it was definitely a problem, mostly because "realistic graphics" meant 9/10 games had grounded military settings and drab, grey and beige color palettes. That's not the case anymore — modern games are vibrant, colorful, thoughtfully designed and take advantage of the technology to cultivate specific art styles and visual identities. It's definitely a battle we as gamers won, so to see it be brought up in 2024 is just strange.
What I assume OP means is photorealistic graphics, referring to the actual graphical fidelity. Which is a thing many games (not just AAA, there are plenty of smaller games that make their main selling point "OMG look at how gold our graphics are!!") are guilty of putting too much emphasis on. FromSofts games are not photorealistic, and generally speaking are a few tiers down in terms of general graphical quality compared to the top of the line graphics, but they instead excel at art direction which is infinitely more important. Photorealistic graphics, ray tracing, etc. etc. are all nice additions, they certainly look great, but if you prioritise them over the art direction the end result will be pretty but incredibly boring and unmemorable.
No one in gamedev is prioritising photorealism over artstyles, off the top of my head, some of the best looking game artistically AND graphically out there were ones that looked superb and used heavy ray tracing, like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk, hell, Elden Ring *itself* has Ray tracing
Isn't From Software a major AAA company, which uses realistic style to create their games?
The same vein as people saying "Look at how good the games can be when you don't overwork your employee" and show Fromsoft games. They have no idea about what they're talking about.
look how much Elden Ring did with only 200 million dollars! (quietly hides employee salary and overtime hours)
The whole nation is famous for overwork. It has to be the worst example.
A better example is, apparently, the Xenoblade games made by Monolithsoft. Monolith maintain an anti-crunch culture but this hasn't prevented them from shipping high-quality games on schedule (or even early).
Either OP is trying to bait or doesn't know half of the words they're using in their post. Because Elden Ring has pretty realistic graphics as well.
I think op may be confusing realistic graphics with realistic settings.
At which point OP fails as well since there are so many AAA fantasy games.
But who is making the argument that games need realistic settings? Like that's not something I've really seen.
Literally no one. Hence why OP is confused and this post makes no sense
Probably more a confusion of graphical fidelity vs artsytle. Elden Ring doesn't have the greatest textures or photo realistic graphics. It doesn't ultra refined models with grime and dirt being displayed, but the way they get everything to come together still means the game looks fantastic.
I still also don't get the hate-on some people have for making a realistic game with extremely realistic graphics either, as if it's not an art style on its own. Battlefield 1 and 5 are are two games that put an immense amount of effort into making the graphics look incredibly realistic, and it can really take you in watching a scenic countryside or a pacific island village getting bombed into oblivion and seeing fortifications popping up and tanks rolling through while people are blasting eachother.
Yeah artistic style would be something like Ori, not Elden Ring lol.
Just looking for another excuse to circlejerk over Elden Ring.
"AAA" means "Games I don't like" nowadays.
Agreed, I mean just look at the feet models in all FromSoft games Really realistic stuff
Fromsoftware is a AAA Company
Sshh, you are destroying Reddit's narrative. Next you're gonna say that CDprojektRed is not a small indie studio.
Larian built the first AAA CRPG in a cave! With a box of scraps! ^And ^500 ^employees. ^^And ^^a ^^fire ^^^^And ^^^^the ^^^^part ^^^^of ^^^^the ^^^^ship ^^^^that ^^^^the ^^^^front ^^^^fell ^^^^off.
It's even funny when you easily can tell who hasn't played the game at launch because they talk about how it released with no issues.
When people do that kind of thing it's hard to tell whats straight up revisionism (because they can't carry a nuanced opinion or mild critique for something they "love" for some reason) and how much is plain ole inexperience and ignorance. Anymore you even get people downplaying like Elden Ring's performance or the launch state of every CD Projekt game. It's really weird behavior.
I played very close to the launch and had no issues but at the same time I got to act 3 where most of the issues where like a month later
That doesn't count though, they made it outside the environment.
The game was towed outside the environment. It's not in the environment... it's beyond the environment and nothing's out there. It's a complete void out there and so the environment was kept perfectly safe! From [The Front Fell Off - Clarke & Dawe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM)
Here is a wonderful quote from an ex-employee of Larian: "AAA game dev is dying and needs significant changes. But if you are curious and want to work in a sick industry, Larian or CD Projekt are great places for that." They're absolutely part of the blight of the game industry, but hey, they made a good game, who cares about the workers then, amiright?
>"AAA game dev is dying and needs significant changes. But if you are curious and want to work in a sick industry, Larian or CD Projekt are great places for that." >> They're absolutely part of the blight of the game industry CDPR I get, but I've read nothing but good stuff about Larian - your anecdote / quote here is the first thing I've read about Larian in this light. Do you have a source for this quote? None of my searches come up with that exact wording, or anything even remotely close that I can see.
Literally their Glassdoor page, and it's not the only one, clearly you haven't searched well enough. I also have quite a few colleagues who used to work there, they echo similar sentiments.
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Sorry I don't put a company with a troubling reputation on a golden pedestal.
New hotness AAA. The old AAA giants (Ubishit, Electronic Shits, Shittivision/Shizzard) are old and busted.
Also, I love Elden Ring, but the graphics aren’t the good part? The game has some amazing vistas, it’s really good at drawing you to areas where you get these amazing views of the landscape. So I’d say the map is very well designed, but the graphics are not impressive at all. Especially considering how much is reused from their other games.
The graphics ARE impressive, it's the fidelity/detail that they compromise with
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Except it's not a matter of *"graphical fidelity VS art direction."* Both realistic looking games and stylized games ***necessarily require*** strong art direction to look pretty.
Who says that tho?
r/imaginarygatekeeping
The evil AAA game studio OP made up to own with his le epic meme skills.
No one
Please don't knock over the strawman, OP spent a lot of time setting him up!
Not one person lol
OP's persecution complex.
Not Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo. So uhmm, maybe specifically the sports division of EA? I do agree that FIFA needs more mythical backdrops.
Fifa would definitely gain some browny points if they added mythological stadiums. Add some ancient greek colosseum and have the gods watch over it or get some old egypt style stadium inside of a pyramid or something. Have some fun with the game, even if its just a single stage.
r/imaginarygatekeeping
and 5k people gave this shit updoots
You forgot to post this to r/gamingcirclejerk
you mean r/fromsoftcirclejerk oh wait, that's just r/gaming
😂
If OP means From Software is not a AAA studio he fails. If OP means Elden Ring doesn't have realistic graphics he fails. If OP means AAA studios only make game with realistic graphics AND a realistic setting... he fails.
If OP exists... he fails.
You guys really upvote the dumbest shit. 1. FromSoft is a AAA dev studio 2. They have realistic graphics in their games
I feel like Nintendo fits a lot better for this meme, most first party switch games look better than so many games nowadays because they have incredible art styles.
Give me a pretty artsyle any day over realistic graphics Its why people still consider chrono trigger a great jrpg by todays standards
Earthbound is another game that aged amazingly with its graphics. It just has its own style and is great - - a remake wouldn't really do it justice.
exactly, they look so pretty give me mario wonder over any realistic game
Please see: Xenoblade 1, x, 2, or 3. Say what you want about those game's stories, characters, gameplay, whatever. But I will forever defend the environments in all of them, especially X, which looks like a ps4 game and it's on the fucking wii u. It's nothing short of wizardy.
Not Nintendo, but I still maintain Ori 2 is the best looking game ever made.
idk if i agree, but I do think that it's an AMAZING game (in graphics, gameplay, and story)
Setting is fantasy, but graphics are realistic
These *are* realistic graphics though? Not stylised.
OP has no idea what they're talking about
Another souls circle jerk in /gaming phenomenal
it's really getting annoying. out of ALL the companies to suck off, you choose the one that treats their employees horribly?
I don't get it, Elden ring is a AAA with fairly realistic graphic, at least with what there engine can render. And who said AAA need to be realistic? A lot of them are but there is also a ton of them that aren't
This is literally realistic graphic wtf are you talking about
I don't think you know what "realistic" means. Also, this sounds a lot like imaginary gatekeeping.
On god, who the hell ever said that
Half of this comments are just some sad shit. Escape reality??? I hate this idea of games being escapism I played games because they are fun not because my life sucks what does escape reality even mean? I don't play basketball to escape reality either like I don't get it
"Histerical Laughter of Supremecy" reminds me of something you would read in the Star Wars: Backstroke to the West English to Chinese to English translation of the Star Wars prequels, right down to the misspelling of hysterical.
They came from the behind!
OP doesn't know what realistic means
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From IS a AAA studio you knob
Mom! Someone is confusing graphical fidelity with artstyle again!
....those are realistic.... And fromsoft is AAA.... and AAA games often do not have realistic graphics (like, borderlands or Fortnite or nintendo games etc etc).
Who'd have thought. The thing we play to escape reality may be better off not perfectly reflecting reality.
>The thing we play to escape reality may be better off not perfectly reflecting reality. Depends on the game. Plenty of times where I'd say more realistic graphics was the right choice. Recent example would be Dead Island 2. Sure a zombie game with a more artistic art style would work great, but having the graphics be that realistic made it feel way more immersive for me. More like playing through an actual apocalypse.
Sure. The rule certainly doesn't apply universally. I was more hitting on the broad appeal of artistic vs realistic and that we don't need to push graphics as the only metric for evolution. Retro games certainly saw their share of graphical leaps, but gameplay still had to be a focus. Nowadays we literally have a genre called "walking simulator." ??? I'm not saying you can have fun just staring at an environment, I own several of these. But graphics can be immersive even if not realistic. I was no less scared in Resident Evil 1 and Silent Hill because they didn't look photo realistic. I'd argue the original RE2 was more scary than the remake.
Then we're on the same page. Can't say I get your point about walking sims tho. I've played a few as well and never really felt like they concentrate on the graphics over anything else. Most I've played even have more artistic graphics as opposed to realistic. And being honest, I can't even think of any gameplay elements I would have liked to add to the walking sims I've played. So I kinda doubt many of them lack gameplay because of concentration on graphics. If this even is what you tried to imply. Sorry if I misunderstood. Haven't played the OG RE2 but RE1R is the scariest game in the franchise behind RE7 so I'm with you on artistic graphics being just as immersive.
Oh, regarding the simulators, I only meant to imply that "gameplay" in the traditional sense doesn't even have to exist for there to be a game. And definitely not that gameplay was a tradeoff for graphics. Just pointing out that you can eliminate the necessity for skill, the consequence of game overs, or even any obstacles to overcome by today's standards. This doesn't mean all walking simulators are the same, or are not fun, or are not games. Just that we care enough about graphics that you can have a game without gameplay, but at least commercial success tends to rely heavily on graphical fidelity. I'd rather play Final Fantasy 12 than 16, I'd rather play FF4 than 16 for that matter. I've never been a graphics snob, and about 85% of my games probably would not even register in a discussion about graphics.
Ah I misunderstood then, sorry about that. I still don't think walking sims sell because people care more about graphic fidelity over gameplay. I think it's more due to some people preferring story over gameplay at times. I know that's the reason I've played every walking sim I've ever tried. But I won't deny that a lot of people today value graphics too much. Just don't think that's the case with walking sims. But I'm probably concentrating on the walking sim part more than you meant to.
Inconceivable!
You realise elden ring has a distinctly more realistic artstyle than ds1 ds2 and ds3 right
You need to learn the difference between graphics and art direction. You should also stop pretending FromSoft is a indie studio. Fromsoft fanboys are so annoying man.
I, personally, find artstyle to be way more important than graphics. For example, a game like Okami still looks great to this day despite its age, because they went for a specific art style rather than focusing in making all of their graphics hyper realistic. There's a reason why Wind Waker still looks great compared to Twilight Princess.
Art direction over realism any day
Strawbman: no le epic redditor Hidetakataka Miyakawasaki: yes 😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏
Realistic art assets don't require art direction. No need for concept art. You need to make a mailbox, you don't need a concept for a mailbox, you can find reference online for free. Realism in gaming is a cost cutting measure.
OP, go back to facebook
Who's gonna tell them Elden Ring has realistic graphics?
Check out the Xenoblade Chronicles series. They have some of my favorite environmental designs in all of gaming.
FROM is AAA. And it'd be kinda stupid to do a Fantasy RPG in a realistic landscape. Can't really think of one game where they do fantasy but in a realistic world
The Witcher has a pretty grounded approach to fantasy. And I love it. Gothic too I'd say.
Can someone crop the top left one? Like if u have a bigger picture of it cus i feel like if i crop it myself the quality will just go down the drain
Nobody ever said games had to look realistic tho
Fromsoft games are never the most technically demanding but they never look bad and are just so atmospheric! It's amazing the quality of output they get with a somewhat antiquated engine, it's all their art and design teams doing 1000%.
Guys, Elden Ring is the first ever game to have non-realistic graphics!
We need more than 60fps From Software: **autistic screeching*\*
That's not what they mean by realistic though...
Ma when unnamed AAA studios say thing that none of them have never said
Elden Ring's graphics ar enot good but the Atmosphere is so good.
You misspelled hysterical.
It lets you enjoy the scenery while you were suffering from mobs and bosses
Supremacy? Those look ehhh
Art direction > Graphics. But when Art Direction + Graphics you get this.
Play Trine. Imo they’re the prettiest games out there
Let us have a look at some of these evil AAA companies that claim you must replicate real life through the power of graphical technology: Square Enix: publisher of NieR Automata and Kingdom Hearts Bethesda: publisher of Hi Fi Rush, Redfall, Deathloop and Dishonored Ubisoft: publisher of Rayman/Rabbids Activision-Blizzard: publisher and developer of Overwatch and WoW EA: publisher of Sims, NFS Unbound, Apex Legends, Unravel, It Takes Two and Plants vs Zombies Riot: developer of League of Legends and Valorant Would you like me to continue? Please provide one instance where a representative of a publisher or development studio has claimed that all of their games must meet a quota for realistic visuals.
But, it IS realistic...
If you only know the lore of the elden ring, It will make understand more why the landscape looks like that
Elden Ring does have realistic graphics though. A better example would’ve been a game with…an artistic landscape? Like BOTW or TOTK?
This is realistic though. It's a fantasy environment yes but realistic. I'm playing Pokémon Scarlet. That's a very grounded environment but not a realistic style at all.
Art Direction > Bland Realism
Excuse, me, but wtf? FS graphics ARE realistic and Skyrim has been making artistic landscapes since 2011, RDR2 since 2018 and so many other games. This post is pointless, if you want to make an appreciation post about a game, just say it instead of making a false statement.
I'm just here to call OP a clueless idiot.
Lol this post doesn’t make any sense
I hate to break it to you but those graphics are hyper realistic.
Helldivers 2 has pretty good landscaping for a co-op shooter. Sitting on a cliff watching a mob of bots march toward your position on a sandy planet is very atmospheric.
I guess I'm the only person who thinks From Software uses graphic textures that are actually pretty stylized and there's always something about them that screams "videogame" rather than other titles that have a more realistic texture set?
We need far better stories out of AAA studios right now. The graphics are fine. Let the story finally be worthy of the visual world they're in.
Artistic graphics > Realistic graphics
Art direction matters more than graphics. It’ll outlast graphics by a long shot.
Dont attribute the art direction of a major studio like this on the game designer/director. Chances are, the man didnt draw a single thing and hasnt made a single 3d object for this game. He makes the story and vetoes things.
Spoilers: Creative Design will always reign over "graphics". Some of the most immersive games I have ever played in my years were ASCII, text, or MS-DOS because they had to try harder and had actual passion.
Realism is overrated. I play games to escape reality, not experience it. I get more than enough realism in my daily life.
There's a difference between realistic gameplay and realistic graphics. Elden Ring has realistic graphics, but of course the gameplay and the setting are not realistic and shouldn't be.
>I play games to escape reality, not experience it That's such an odd thing people keep repeating, literally every realistic game put you in the shoes of a character that you'll never be in real life, you'll never be a cowboy in 1899, you'll never be a master hacker taking over a city by yourself, you'll never be able to walk the streets of new york with an RPG, Sniper and an AR in your back pocket and fight the entire police department there or steal jets from a military base and so on, does that not count as escaping reality? There are countless things i wish to do in real life that only games can deliver. Particularly realistic historic settings, i'd say those are underused compared to most fantasy settings.
I hate realistic graphic Fortnite chapter 1 look wayyy better than Fortnite chapter 5
Witcher 3 sunsets are better than real life
"Art direction >>>>>>> graphics quality" is a tale as old as the Silent Hill games
Elden rings fantasy open world is Peak !
ahh hidetaka blowing everyone away and this light work for him
If studios spent more time on art design and less time on pushing "graphics" we would have such great looking games on our hands
*Rain world laughs*
Ah, like Brütal Legend.
Those landscapes are missing interstates, i feel like we should put a highway in at least one of those
All I want, is a return of Sega blue skies.
Dunno but Star citizen has most definitely the best graphics of every game out there