The graphical chase is one of the most virulent races in all the games industry, as one of the very few tangible marks of progression across an otherwise largely esoteric art form. How do you really measure how fun a game is compared to how games of that genre type used to be ten years ago? How do you gauge success as a measurement of skill within a world governed largely by luck? How do you know that the industry is improving it's craft at just a glance? Why, you can look at the graphics, of course! The graphical fidelity of the best in our industry is a tale-tail hint at just how much horse power is kicking within the engines of some of our most beloved games and I'm sure I am not the first to scroll by a particularly slick looking product page and was drawn by the spectacle of it all. It's an easy selling pitch, provided you can crank out such graphics to begin with.
In the relative few years that the technology has been around, fidelity has soared in it's mastery to points beyond what most through possible only a scant few console generations ago. I used to collect hobbyist gaming magazines that dreamed, misty eyed, about the heights of the industry- and the kinds of fidelity they were touting were about as advanced as Detroit Become Human achieved. Nowadays I think there are games which surpass even that, and actually have gameplay/ challenging narratives to boot! (No offense David Cage. You just could've tried a bit more.) Nowhere is this more apparent than with the path tracing technology which has, for the first time ever, given us the ability to render static material in a matter utterly indistinguishable from life.
Humans- not so much- but textures? Oh yeah! Metals, stone, masonry, pavement, puddles, wood- the secret to nailing them all this time was realistic light that catches and bounces and refracts and enriches- pathtracing is that final step to photorealism that games have been chasing for the past five years now. And it's tech beyond our means. Or rather, it's tech beyond current means. When it first launched as preview technology for Cyberpunk 2077, the thing was out of playable range for even the most advanced of hardware. I tried it out at 1080p, figuring my set-up had no problem running Ultra Cyberpunk at it's base- needless to say I almost had to turn off my whole computer in order to force the program to close- your average player isn't going to be enjoying the benefits of Pathtracing for the next few years at least.
But that doesn't mean the technology is in any danger of slowing down. Dragon's Dogma 2 recently launched with dormant and unfinished Pathtracing inside of the shipped game- not quite ready for public consumption by there within the hidden settings. Showing that developers are thinking about the tech, they're maybe even considering future proofing games by prepping it's implementation maybe as soon as a single console generation down the line. But here's a question I think bears asking in situations like these, where we're on the plinth just before that impossible zenith. The question that everybody hates to ask for how it seemingly undermines us all in our greatest moments- what then?
The race towards fidelity is a linear path- games can only strive towards the path of growing more true to life, and those that try to be 'realistic but stylised' are often noted for their 'quirky art direction' but never taken seriously as true avenues for future expression. Always Call of Duty wants to know how they can make their war torn streets feel more real, GTA wants to push the boundaries of booty-out car riding Floridians, Cyberpunk wants to figure out exactly how many surfaces they can bounce light off before their player's computers turn into actual explosives and detonate. What happens when we reach that graphical ceiling?
Graphics have already grown into something of a compounding problem in game development, with the development of assets taking up more and more of standard budgeting, reducing the creative scope of some of the most visionary ideas out there- and the general trend towards 'realism' does somewhat limit how wild modern developed games can really get. On the absolute other end of the spectrum, you'll find many indie games like to ride the coat-tail of nice looking, but decidedly 'antiquated' art styles that are much more manageable to develop within. Even Baldur's Gate, a gorgeous as the game looks, doesn't step on the toes of the industry at it's top most- and that is the higher tier of the indie space as it is. What about the others?
What about Blasphemous and it's 16 Bit call back visuals, within which a vast otherworldly psycho-religious twisted scape is formed? That game veered in another direction entirely! Or the recent Zelda games with the cell shaded majesty so light-weight that they can run deftly on a Nintendo Switch? Are any of these games graphical disappointments? Of course not, they're expressive, they're alternative, they are 'honestly' more visually memorable than the top most graphical 'masterpieces'. What is better remembered? The cutting edge fidelity of Modern Warfare 2 (new version), or the shadowy majesty of the impeccably crafted Hallownest from Hollow Knight? And which will continue to date whilst the other grows more beloved?
The next time the talking point is raised about how expensive it is to develop games, perhaps an eye might be cast to what exactly time and money is being spent upon. And if a significant chunk of those resources are being fed into 4-8k textures that the team aren't even going to bother compressing before launch, then maybe there's something of a buffer to cut back on before you start chopping down the employee roster like usual. Maybe great games don't need to blur the edge between reality and fiction in order to be great. Maybe visuals have become something of a crutch for great game design. And maybe Ubisoft should be criminally sanctioned for the brain-rot they've inspired in the open world development space. Valid points all, I say!
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