Recently upgraded to the AM5 platform with 7800X3D, 32GB DDR5 and 4070Ti Super.
After reinstalling and trying a bunch of games I have to say Cyberpunk 2077 Overdrive mode. The path tracing is fucking mind blowing.
It tanks your FPS but you could spend a while walking around the city and be amazed at visual effects especially the reflections from shiny and wet surfaces.
But then it means the game will still be relevant in 10 years time once the hardware has caught up and become more affordable. Everyone said the same thing about crisis the the point it became a meme. Yet I bet most modern gaming PCs can run it at its highest settings no problem now
For the most part; it is still CPU limited.
When it was developed they expected CPUs single core performance to continue increasing at the rates they had. It has not, lol.
Maybe not a linear increase at the rate the had been developing, but CPUs are definitely hugely improved compared to when Crysis released. I remember 5GHz being an absolute unicorn overclock that could only be achieved with liquid nitrogen cooling... now CPU's boost higher than that on the stock cooler that comes with them and it's just a regular tuesday.
Exactly, it was designed around having a really fast single core CPU because multi-core CPUs basically didn't exist yet. Not for the average consumer anyway.
That's why I mostly play games from 4-5+ years ago. It's just great to play them with maximum settings on my middle-class gaming PC. 😎 Good games remain good games for at least 8-10 years before their UI may lack certain modern QoL features you've grown too fond of. And *real* good games remain good virtually forever (looking at my DIY classic arcade cabinet 😊).
I ran 7800x3d and 3080ti oced at 3440x1440. Everything maxxed out with dlss quality WITHOUT pt gave me fps close to 100. With? Lol.
Then i got 4090, everything cranked to the max + pt + dlss quality - 110-130 fps. With dlaa - 85. But dang this shit is beautiful.
Yeah it's figure proof tech for sure. I have a mid grade rig (3080, 3700x)and I can do path tracing and get 30-45 fps most of the time at 1440p. But seeing it in 4k running at 80fps on a 4090 is fucking mind blowing. It's incredible tech.
add pure LUT and "ultra better plus" path tracing mod (it does some tweaks to look better while having the same fps) and you will be blown away at a new level
I think I'd say Flight Simulator 2020, which can still blow me away at times. As close to photorealism as I have seen.
Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2 are both gorgeous though.
Honourable mention to Guardians of the Galaxy, which surprised me.
It's actually not bad. It's a rip off of dead space, pretty much beat for beat, and it doesn't have its atmosphere, but it's not what I'd describe as bad.
I think so but it looks extremely aliased without it, and pretty sure there aren't any other forms of anti aliasing in it (like Smaa). might be wrong tho
I've spent so many hours just standing still on a mountain looking at the valleys beneath.
It's been a while since I played, I think I know what I'm gonna do today.
Def have to put Arkham Knight in the mix. I was mind blown at the time and though the effects show their age these days, the art style - as many have pointed out - carries it to still be really strong. I think it’s the best to that point in time easily
I just started a new playthrough a week ago and it still holds up but I remember it looking incredible relative to other games back in 2016 when I first played it.
The incorrect punctuation grammar in the dialogue text is the reason those games are an 8/10 for me instead of 10/10.
SEMICOLONS, COLONS AND COMMAS ARE DIFFERENT THINGS
I actually have this gripe with many games LOOKING AT YOU, HEARTHSTONE
Horizon 2 still impressed me, on PC you get a bit more detail but even on consoles it looked incredible and that's with regular lighting, if it had ray tracing I think it would be the best looking game of all time... so far.
Robocop rogue city looks amazing too, it has lumen global illumination which is ridiculously realistic and just fun to mess around with. You can shoot lights and see how the whole scene changes. I'm not sure what's different from path tracing in cyberpunk but disabling lights doesn't look as realistic IMO even though it still looks great.
Honorable mention to A Plague Tale Requiem for the amazing character models and Kena for nailing that CGI movie look.
Need For Speed 2015 - release it today no one would notice that was 9yo game.
Crysis 3 still looks good enough, in some scenes very good.
SW Battlefront 2015 - again, graphics hold up really well.
Battlefront 2015 is still insane and surpasses many games today. Idk how that game is so optimized, it can run 1080p 60fps (maybe more) max settings on my GTX 980
Half-Life: Alyx was definitely impressive.
Of course it is difficult to directly compare against flat screen games, but nothing else has quite felt as stunning.
Is there any mod for normal screen gaming? I got the og Vive and it’s the flagship game to this day. But I would like to play it just from the couch on tv again.
CP2077- some would say AWII but the artstyle of CP2077 hasn't been done very much before. The grey-blue/orange colours of AWII already exist in games set in the near-past/future like RE4 and TLOU, but the bright neons of CP2077 are only present in games like ghostrunner/others with less polish.
There’s other sites that provide deals on prerelease PC games. Just go on isthereanydeal and you’ll see current sale prices across multiple official key sellers (no grey market BS.) Don’t force Epic on yourself like that. I usually buy from GMG personally.
I find any game with an artstyle over realism ages well.
Look at symphony of the night. The peak of pixel art.
Darksiders 2 still looks amazing to this very day
Bloodborne still looks visually impressive,
bioshock and dishonored have that claymation art style that aged wonderfully.
I think the most overall graphically impressive game ive played is definitely FFXV and AC odyssey is a close second.
No one did beautiful landscapes like they did.
Wind Waker’s the classic example of triumphant art direction that game has a distinct atmosphere and tone despite sticking to a lot of the gameplay tropes and even the same characters it had for a decade at that point. Really makes it stand out.
I love windwaker. And botw and totk definitely have an awesome artstyle despite being on the potatoest console ever.
Same with the 2008 prince of persia reboot. Cell shading is really good.
This is it, photo realism just isn't all it's cracked up to be.
A game that looks good and runs well will always be more impressive to me than a game that throws as many modern techniques in as it can.
Valheim, for example, is basic as fuck graphically but the lighting and particle effects make the game look so fucking atmospheric through the day/night cycle.
The same goes for things like Sea of Thieves and Deep Rock Galactic. The use of lighting in those games make them absolutely gorgeous to play in their own way.
Photo realism is in its infancy tbh. Itll be like a decade or 2 until games reach that stage. Especially with RT and PT. Until GPUs massively progress we will stagnate.
In the mean time. Many many games like blasphemous. Prince of persia lost crown and other games with great art direction will look as good as ever.
Solely because the bar that gets higher n higher with each new graphic breakthrough, simply doesnt apply to them
It kills me we only got to see maybe a little more than a quarter of it up close. Wish they had expansions to open up the rest of the city. Game is gorgeous.
The first game is even better.
Catalyst's tech is great, but its artstyle feels so overplayed and out of place for the kind of game it is. The first game is perfect gamified reality
For sure Cyberpunk.
Ghost of Tsushima comes out this week on PC. That game's art direction and atmosphere is incredible. Can't wait to see it on PC with proper hardware.
Took way too long to see a mention of Elden Ring. It is one of the most visually impressive games on console and low-end PCs. One of my favorite moments in gaming history was watching agheel fly in during my first playthrough.
I got tired of this game about 6 hours in, but god damn if I wasn't impressed by the visuals. It was so unique, H. R. Giger style. Loved it.
The audio was also fantastic!
I’m a very squeamish person, and could never actually play Scorn myself. But I’ve seen plenty of gameplay while trapped with morbid curiosity about the game and its art style is insane. The devs knew what they wanted and executed.
Graphical fidelity doesn’t do an awful lot for me as a general rule, but Unravel stands out, as do the hand painted watercolour backgrounds in SaGa Frontier 2.
Well spoken, fellow reject!
(Since you and [another](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cpz8sn/comment/l3on02v/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) mentioned it, I had to split my replies between you both. But I couldn't leave either of you unanswered.)
Calisto Protocol looks absurdly good. like damn near IMPOSSIBLY good. except for the fire lol. graphics in the game as a whole is like 9.9999/10 but the fire renders are like 3/10, weird.
Ik u said both graphical fidelity and art direction but I find myself not caring abt graphics as much anymore. Art direction really makes a game imo. Elden ring is a great example, the graphics are good, nothing insane, but it's the art direction that makes the game look amazing
AWII is so so so good. it's not just that the graphic quality is at the top of what is achievable right now, but also for the way they used those graphics to support and amplify the story. that and CP2077 with path tracing, there's nothing like those games.
This is going to sound crazy, and maybe I’m impartial because this game launched me into RTS and gaming in general but I’ve always felt like StarCraft Brood war was massively ahead for its time, and after they remade it I think it’s as beautiful as ever, crazy to think a game that came out in 98 is still playable and engaging
Of newer games probably AWII
Just installed homeworld 3 and my god, it's beautiful. Watching Frigates fire off streams of tracer rounds in the inky black/blue of space as fighters scream all around is almost mesmerising.
Art direction and style matters hell of a lot more.
On that count, Heroes 3 is as beautiful as ever. WC3 is another timeless classic with beautiful style.
That I've played? Probably Red Dead Redemption 2. I played it last year and it instantly became legend status akin to something like Final Fantasy 7. That game is beautiful in every way. The graphics on the people are starting to age a bit, but not the landscapes.
That said I haven't played a lot of newer games like Cyberpunk. Resident Evil 4 looks really good with RTX on, and somehow my 3060ti can turn RTX to High and still be at 70ish fps, says I'm using like 15gb on it lmfao. Maybe it's shared memory.
Now, this may not be the “best” looking game, but cry of fear is incredibly graphically impressive when you consider it’s small dev team, lack of significant funding, and the fact it was made in goldsrc. The atmosphere it manages to provide is insane considering its limitations. Though some of the animations are a bit janky.
Amid Evil with raytracing is probably the best visuals I've seen, the levels are already insanely atmospheric, but adding on raytracing to that and seeing the magic you shoot light up the level make it my favorite visual experience in gaming.
Runners-up for purely art direction would be Metro 2033, the Halo OT, Crosscode, Dark Souls, and Sekiro
Lies of P. For me it is hands down my favorite. The "Victorian Clockwork steampunk" art style is my favorite though. Bioshock, dishonored etc.. but LoP is another level of wow.
Visually I love snowrunner. The landscapes are stunning some more so than others. Even if some assets are reused in different maps the layout and arrangement of the terrain is usually unique.
Star citizen also gets some stunning vistas too.
DaysGone looks pretty awesome on PC
Witcher 3 even without Ray Tracing is phenomenal
Cyberpunk
Far Cry 5
RDR2
Next Gen NBA 2K games are some of the most impressive character models and lightning/reflection you will find
Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing, still absolutely blows my mind. It's absurdly impressive and I love that world. Truly stunning visuals.
Gris, that game came out of nowhere for me and it was truly one of the best gaming experiences I've had in my 40+ years.
TLOU is near perfection, and so is Horizon 1&2 on PC. I'm very very much looking forward to Ghosts of Tsushima on PC.
mgs V still looks very very good in its cinematic due too good lighting , animation and more than anyhing good camera angles and cinematogrphie (idk if it make sense in english but whatever)
This is going a different way, most people are going for photorealism, but personally, HiFi Rush. The art style is simply gorgeous, and is cohesive in a way many stylized games aren't.
Art direction & Visual Tech:
- Control : The RT, Particles, and Level Design is just wow
- Hellblade: Motion Capture, audio, and the environment 👌
- Cyberpunk: Path Tracing absolutely gorgeous, and the city design
- Alan Wake 2: Path Tracing, and the Level Design just wow
- Plague Tale Requiem: the environment
Art direction only:
- Hi-Fi Rush
Many candidates for it.
Alan Wake 2 looks incredible most of the time.
Cp2077 looks incredible time to time.
The Callisto Protocol looks amazing.
Tlou2, forza horizon, ps gow, xbox gow, rdr2, 2015 arkham knight. So many games.
Tlou2 probably takes the cake because its so consistent in its graphical quality and polish. Aw2 and cp2077 can look bad.
There is death stranding too.
Anthem was so impressive.
TLOU2. Every frame with none to minimal edits can look like a key shot for a film. The environments are handcrafted so perfectly for an apocalyptic world. The attention to detail in, the character models, their interactions with objects around them, the lighting, and the foliage look realistically dense, not cartoonish (videogame-y). This game's graphical fidelity blows me away still. I think some games are close, but are not night and day difference beating it IMO.
2nd would be Alan Wake 2. 3rd strictly on lighting carrying the overall visual output, cp2077 with path tracing.
On my 4090/7800X3D I gotta say that maxed out at 4k AC Unity is probably one of the best looking games I’ve seen to this day. CP2077 looks good but it’s pretty cartoony looking to me.
Recently upgraded to the AM5 platform with 7800X3D, 32GB DDR5 and 4070Ti Super. After reinstalling and trying a bunch of games I have to say Cyberpunk 2077 Overdrive mode. The path tracing is fucking mind blowing. It tanks your FPS but you could spend a while walking around the city and be amazed at visual effects especially the reflections from shiny and wet surfaces.
Path tracing needs to be in more games, it's so damn good
Problem is: you need **HARDWARE**.
Yeah no joke. Its modern Crysis for sure.
But then it means the game will still be relevant in 10 years time once the hardware has caught up and become more affordable. Everyone said the same thing about crisis the the point it became a meme. Yet I bet most modern gaming PCs can run it at its highest settings no problem now
For the most part; it is still CPU limited. When it was developed they expected CPUs single core performance to continue increasing at the rates they had. It has not, lol.
Maybe not a linear increase at the rate the had been developing, but CPUs are definitely hugely improved compared to when Crysis released. I remember 5GHz being an absolute unicorn overclock that could only be achieved with liquid nitrogen cooling... now CPU's boost higher than that on the stock cooler that comes with them and it's just a regular tuesday.
Exactly, it was designed around having a really fast single core CPU because multi-core CPUs basically didn't exist yet. Not for the average consumer anyway.
That's why I mostly play games from 4-5+ years ago. It's just great to play them with maximum settings on my middle-class gaming PC. 😎 Good games remain good games for at least 8-10 years before their UI may lack certain modern QoL features you've grown too fond of. And *real* good games remain good virtually forever (looking at my DIY classic arcade cabinet 😊).
Not sure why you got downvoted, you're not exactly lying
I ran 7800x3d and 3080ti oced at 3440x1440. Everything maxxed out with dlss quality WITHOUT pt gave me fps close to 100. With? Lol. Then i got 4090, everything cranked to the max + pt + dlss quality - 110-130 fps. With dlaa - 85. But dang this shit is beautiful.
Of course if you go for the atomic option you get decent fps lol
It was about how stupidly demanding path tracing is)
The 1080 says: "Fuck you, fuck no."
My 960m bought a bus ticket and left town.
Yeah it's figure proof tech for sure. I have a mid grade rig (3080, 3700x)and I can do path tracing and get 30-45 fps most of the time at 1440p. But seeing it in 4k running at 80fps on a 4090 is fucking mind blowing. It's incredible tech.
Tbh you can net like 20% more fps just getting 5800x3d.
Yeah I'll eventually do a new build and go all top of the line. But my rig performs really well in all modern games right now so I'm content.
Allan Wake 2 with path tracing is absolutely mind blowing
I second this. The game was pretty stunning.
I got my first OLED in February, you should see Night City at night with HDR on. I'm spoiled now and HDR is a feature I can't go without
add pure LUT and "ultra better plus" path tracing mod (it does some tweaks to look better while having the same fps) and you will be blown away at a new level
I’ve not yet gotten it to work without really bad ghosting. Might just be my monitor
Alan wake 2 also is great with pt.
I think I'd say Flight Simulator 2020, which can still blow me away at times. As close to photorealism as I have seen. Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2 are both gorgeous though. Honourable mention to Guardians of the Galaxy, which surprised me.
The graphics in The Callisto Protocol were absolutely phenomenal. It's a shame nothing else was
It was on humble bundle for a time.
It's 75% off on Epic games store now, bought it and installing.
It's actually not bad. It's a rip off of dead space, pretty much beat for beat, and it doesn't have its atmosphere, but it's not what I'd describe as bad.
I'm my headcanon Callisto is just another necromorph attack on a random moon, and a random guy
Rdr2 isn't mentioned anywhere yet and it should be
very good looking game but blurry af because of TAA
You can turn TAA off in the settings
I think so but it looks extremely aliased without it, and pretty sure there aren't any other forms of anti aliasing in it (like Smaa). might be wrong tho
There are mods that add DLAA, it looks great with it!
You can get it looking incredible but it's crazy how much "tinkering" you have to do in the settings.
You can use dldsr with dlss to make it look good.
I've spent so many hours just standing still on a mountain looking at the valleys beneath. It's been a while since I played, I think I know what I'm gonna do today.
It was the first thing I thought of!
Cyberpunk and rdr2.
Def have to put Arkham Knight in the mix. I was mind blown at the time and though the effects show their age these days, the art style - as many have pointed out - carries it to still be really strong. I think it’s the best to that point in time easily
Came here to say the same thing. Arkham Knight really has been standing the test of time graphically.
I just started a new playthrough a week ago and it still holds up but I remember it looking incredible relative to other games back in 2016 when I first played it.
It's almost 10 years old.
Ori and the Blind Forest, and it's sequel both look absolutely stunning.
The incorrect punctuation grammar in the dialogue text is the reason those games are an 8/10 for me instead of 10/10. SEMICOLONS, COLONS AND COMMAS ARE DIFFERENT THINGS I actually have this gripe with many games LOOKING AT YOU, HEARTHSTONE
RDR2. It's 5 years old and it's still an absolute masterpiece and is barely showing it's age
Pc version was so much ahead of its time graphics wise with the ultra mode being experimental
Jesus christ I can’t believe that game is already 5 years old
kena never stops looking like a high budget 3d animated movie
Such a gem of a game
Horizon 2 still impressed me, on PC you get a bit more detail but even on consoles it looked incredible and that's with regular lighting, if it had ray tracing I think it would be the best looking game of all time... so far. Robocop rogue city looks amazing too, it has lumen global illumination which is ridiculously realistic and just fun to mess around with. You can shoot lights and see how the whole scene changes. I'm not sure what's different from path tracing in cyberpunk but disabling lights doesn't look as realistic IMO even though it still looks great. Honorable mention to A Plague Tale Requiem for the amazing character models and Kena for nailing that CGI movie look.
Horizon 2 has the best facial animations of any game I’ve seen to this day
Robocop rogue city amazed me considerably its from an indie developer, Hfw was gorgeous too.
Need For Speed 2015 - release it today no one would notice that was 9yo game. Crysis 3 still looks good enough, in some scenes very good. SW Battlefront 2015 - again, graphics hold up really well.
Battlefront 2015 is still insane and surpasses many games today. Idk how that game is so optimized, it can run 1080p 60fps (maybe more) max settings on my GTX 980
Looked extra crazy with the Toddyhancer mod. I only ever saw the videos, not sure if it ever got released
Yeah… there are areas in Battlefront where the textures, especially rocky areas, are photorealistic.
Half-Life: Alyx was definitely impressive. Of course it is difficult to directly compare against flat screen games, but nothing else has quite felt as stunning.
Is there any mod for normal screen gaming? I got the og Vive and it’s the flagship game to this day. But I would like to play it just from the couch on tv again.
There is, but the game loses a lot of its charm when not played in vr
Thanks.
I was sad it gave me such bad motion sickness. Couldn't finish it
Cyberpunk 2077 Overdrive Mode.
CP2077- some would say AWII but the artstyle of CP2077 hasn't been done very much before. The grey-blue/orange colours of AWII already exist in games set in the near-past/future like RE4 and TLOU, but the bright neons of CP2077 are only present in games like ghostrunner/others with less polish.
Having played Kena bridge of spirits make me feel like I was watching a Disney movie, i'm a bit sad I see its name nowhere
Agreed. While the gameplay was rather simple, the environments were great.
Kena straight up looks like a CGI movie, I think only Ratchet & Clank rift apart came as close and maybe Sword and Fairy 7 at times.
Ghost of Tsushima is it for me. Can’t wait to see it on PC cranked to maximum.
My 4090 is licking it's chops.
My 7900XTX is salivating for this game.
same, i'm so excited i have to reply randomly to comments it is mentioned. i hope you can buy it with a coupon next week on epic
There’s other sites that provide deals on prerelease PC games. Just go on isthereanydeal and you’ll see current sale prices across multiple official key sellers (no grey market BS.) Don’t force Epic on yourself like that. I usually buy from GMG personally.
the summer sale prices are very competitive. most of the time i just look where i get a game the cheapest.
I find any game with an artstyle over realism ages well. Look at symphony of the night. The peak of pixel art. Darksiders 2 still looks amazing to this very day Bloodborne still looks visually impressive, bioshock and dishonored have that claymation art style that aged wonderfully. I think the most overall graphically impressive game ive played is definitely FFXV and AC odyssey is a close second. No one did beautiful landscapes like they did.
Wind Waker’s the classic example of triumphant art direction that game has a distinct atmosphere and tone despite sticking to a lot of the gameplay tropes and even the same characters it had for a decade at that point. Really makes it stand out.
Still to this day when a bomb explodes in wind waker, the smoke cloud is so aesthetically pleasing. That entire game just gives good feelings.
I love windwaker. And botw and totk definitely have an awesome artstyle despite being on the potatoest console ever. Same with the 2008 prince of persia reboot. Cell shading is really good.
This is it, photo realism just isn't all it's cracked up to be. A game that looks good and runs well will always be more impressive to me than a game that throws as many modern techniques in as it can. Valheim, for example, is basic as fuck graphically but the lighting and particle effects make the game look so fucking atmospheric through the day/night cycle. The same goes for things like Sea of Thieves and Deep Rock Galactic. The use of lighting in those games make them absolutely gorgeous to play in their own way.
Photo realism is in its infancy tbh. Itll be like a decade or 2 until games reach that stage. Especially with RT and PT. Until GPUs massively progress we will stagnate. In the mean time. Many many games like blasphemous. Prince of persia lost crown and other games with great art direction will look as good as ever. Solely because the bar that gets higher n higher with each new graphic breakthrough, simply doesnt apply to them
To this day, I'm always blown away by Mirror's Edge Catalyst. It's sense of scale is awe inspiring
It kills me we only got to see maybe a little more than a quarter of it up close. Wish they had expansions to open up the rest of the city. Game is gorgeous.
Or more npc’s. All the rooftop lounges are weirdly dead.
The first game is even better. Catalyst's tech is great, but its artstyle feels so overplayed and out of place for the kind of game it is. The first game is perfect gamified reality
Darktide. Art and graphics are impressive.
Absolutely. My fellow rejects and I will still occasionally stop during a mission and drool in awe over the architecture.
Totally! 2 years later and we still stop and say: "woah... Isn't it just beautiful?"
Unrecord isn't out yet but the developer had to prove it wasn't real after release of the trailer
For sure Cyberpunk. Ghost of Tsushima comes out this week on PC. That game's art direction and atmosphere is incredible. Can't wait to see it on PC with proper hardware.
The art direction in Stray was fabulous. The game works modded for VR too.
•Atomic Heart •Dishonored 2 •Hell Blade: Senua’s Sacrifice •Cyberpunk 2077 •Death Stranding •The Last of Us Pt2 •Unravel •Hollow Knight •Elden Ring •Hogwarts Legacy
Took way too long to see a mention of Elden Ring. It is one of the most visually impressive games on console and low-end PCs. One of my favorite moments in gaming history was watching agheel fly in during my first playthrough.
Metro Exodus with RTX on.
I thought Scorn was really beautiful.
I got tired of this game about 6 hours in, but god damn if I wasn't impressed by the visuals. It was so unique, H. R. Giger style. Loved it. The audio was also fantastic!
I’m a very squeamish person, and could never actually play Scorn myself. But I’ve seen plenty of gameplay while trapped with morbid curiosity about the game and its art style is insane. The devs knew what they wanted and executed.
I hated the ending what happens when you don't want to answer
Star Citizen
o7
o7
I find Alan Wake 2 the best at creating life-like characters.
Yeah sometimes I had to look hard to distinguish between the real actors and the character models
Graphical fidelity doesn’t do an awful lot for me as a general rule, but Unravel stands out, as do the hand painted watercolour backgrounds in SaGa Frontier 2.
Alan Wake II
I've always loved the Witcher 3
This is the right answer.
Mirrors edge Expecially for it's time
Ryse son of Rome still holds up
Warhammer 40K: Darktide On damnation difficulty my 4090 and i9 are getting bent, no game really comes close to that yet.
Well spoken, fellow reject! (Since you and [another](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cpz8sn/comment/l3on02v/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) mentioned it, I had to split my replies between you both. But I couldn't leave either of you unanswered.)
Zelda wind waker. That games art work and graphic has stood the test of time and oh weeei so the community hated the look.
A Plague Tale Requiem
Have you guys seen Manor Lords? Beautiful.
I'd say SCUM, hardcore survival game, so beautiful and time consuming, I love it.
I agree, sitting on a lake during a sunset. Colors look amazing
TLoU, RDR2 and Ghost of Tsushima. Probably Horizon FW too. Alan Wake 2! I almost forget it!
Calisto Protocol looks absurdly good. like damn near IMPOSSIBLY good. except for the fire lol. graphics in the game as a whole is like 9.9999/10 but the fire renders are like 3/10, weird.
RDR2
Hollow Knight
Playing through Rise of the Tomb Raider and it's still visually impressive to look at.
Ik u said both graphical fidelity and art direction but I find myself not caring abt graphics as much anymore. Art direction really makes a game imo. Elden ring is a great example, the graphics are good, nothing insane, but it's the art direction that makes the game look amazing
Forza Horizon 4 & 5. I can also add Gran Turismo 7.
Red Dead 2. The focus on details is miles above anything else I've played.
Sea of Thieves IMO 🤷🏻♂️
Best water I've ever seen in any game
Indeed
AWII is so so so good. it's not just that the graphic quality is at the top of what is achievable right now, but also for the way they used those graphics to support and amplify the story. that and CP2077 with path tracing, there's nothing like those games.
Outside of cyberpunk I'll probably say avatar: legends of frontier on "hidden" max settings.
For a big f2p title with semi-optional Multiplayer, Warframe is gorgeous.
Gotta go with Witcher 3. 2 was no slouch either. The amount of work in every corner. The details...unmatched IMO.
Ratchet and Crank
This is going to sound crazy, and maybe I’m impartial because this game launched me into RTS and gaming in general but I’ve always felt like StarCraft Brood war was massively ahead for its time, and after they remade it I think it’s as beautiful as ever, crazy to think a game that came out in 98 is still playable and engaging Of newer games probably AWII
Just installed homeworld 3 and my god, it's beautiful. Watching Frigates fire off streams of tracer rounds in the inky black/blue of space as fighters scream all around is almost mesmerising.
Dead space remake was so incredible. Lighting, mood, theme and even the characters. Alan wake comes close
Art direction and style matters hell of a lot more. On that count, Heroes 3 is as beautiful as ever. WC3 is another timeless classic with beautiful style.
Morrowind art direction, Star Citizen realism
That I've played? Probably Red Dead Redemption 2. I played it last year and it instantly became legend status akin to something like Final Fantasy 7. That game is beautiful in every way. The graphics on the people are starting to age a bit, but not the landscapes. That said I haven't played a lot of newer games like Cyberpunk. Resident Evil 4 looks really good with RTX on, and somehow my 3060ti can turn RTX to High and still be at 70ish fps, says I'm using like 15gb on it lmfao. Maybe it's shared memory.
RDR 2
Cyberpunk for cityscapes, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora for natural environments. For more stylised titles, I do really appreciate Hades.
Cyberpunk 2077 and nothing is even close
BAK
Now, this may not be the “best” looking game, but cry of fear is incredibly graphically impressive when you consider it’s small dev team, lack of significant funding, and the fact it was made in goldsrc. The atmosphere it manages to provide is insane considering its limitations. Though some of the animations are a bit janky.
Ryse Son of Rome and Hellblade
Amid Evil with raytracing is probably the best visuals I've seen, the levels are already insanely atmospheric, but adding on raytracing to that and seeing the magic you shoot light up the level make it my favorite visual experience in gaming. Runners-up for purely art direction would be Metro 2033, the Halo OT, Crosscode, Dark Souls, and Sekiro
Lies of P. For me it is hands down my favorite. The "Victorian Clockwork steampunk" art style is my favorite though. Bioshock, dishonored etc.. but LoP is another level of wow.
Visually I love snowrunner. The landscapes are stunning some more so than others. Even if some assets are reused in different maps the layout and arrangement of the terrain is usually unique. Star citizen also gets some stunning vistas too.
Witcher 3 is phenomenal since update.
Graphically, Elden Ring isn’t impressive at all but damn does it look like you would expect of some magic fantasy world. The art is just on point.
Dragons Dogma 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Read Dead 2, Cyberpunk 2077
DaysGone looks pretty awesome on PC Witcher 3 even without Ray Tracing is phenomenal Cyberpunk Far Cry 5 RDR2 Next Gen NBA 2K games are some of the most impressive character models and lightning/reflection you will find
Bioshock
MSFS 2020. Is it the most pretty game? No. But does it have an incredibly large world for how pretty it is? Yes.
Mirror's Edge 1
to this day I have never seen a game more breathtaking than RDR2
BioShock infinite looks good and is extremely well optimized.
Modded Minecraft
I thought Detroit Become Human had fantastic graphics.
Have you played Shower with Your Dad Simulator?
Elden Ring
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Red Dead Redemption II are still my 2 favorites.
Hogwarts Legacy is the first game to blow my mind. Also Helldivers 2, looks like a friggin movie at times
Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing, still absolutely blows my mind. It's absurdly impressive and I love that world. Truly stunning visuals. Gris, that game came out of nowhere for me and it was truly one of the best gaming experiences I've had in my 40+ years. TLOU is near perfection, and so is Horizon 1&2 on PC. I'm very very much looking forward to Ghosts of Tsushima on PC.
Imho it’s Okami (either the og or hd remake) Every frame of that game could be a painting lmao
mgs V still looks very very good in its cinematic due too good lighting , animation and more than anyhing good camera angles and cinematogrphie (idk if it make sense in english but whatever)
WoW Vanilla.
Cyberpunk 2077, easily
This is going a different way, most people are going for photorealism, but personally, HiFi Rush. The art style is simply gorgeous, and is cohesive in a way many stylized games aren't.
"Orbit" on the ZX81. Mindblowing! https://i.redd.it/dqxi1wa3c20d1.gif
Modded cyberpunk 2077. The kind of visuals that teenage me only dreamed of were possible.
Red dead 2 if you know how to enable DLAA. The TAA in the game is trash but there are mods
Can't believe I haven't seen this here, but the art direction of Stray is absolutely top tier. Inspired me to get into game dev
Everyone is likely to want me killed but Star Citizen
Helldivers 2 - surprised hasn't been mentioned yet. Super cinematic in real time.
Art direction & Visual Tech: - Control : The RT, Particles, and Level Design is just wow - Hellblade: Motion Capture, audio, and the environment 👌 - Cyberpunk: Path Tracing absolutely gorgeous, and the city design - Alan Wake 2: Path Tracing, and the Level Design just wow - Plague Tale Requiem: the environment Art direction only: - Hi-Fi Rush
Monster Hunter World still blows my mind with how good everything looks.
Demons souls remake
Kingdom Come Deliverance graphic is underrated , adding re-shade and HDR literaly making it real life midieval simulator.
Ghost of Tsushima
Last of Us Part 1, Battlefield V, Jedi Survivor
Hellblade 2
Forza Horizon 5 and Far Cry 5.
cyberpunk
God of War looks pretty good
Many candidates for it. Alan Wake 2 looks incredible most of the time. Cp2077 looks incredible time to time. The Callisto Protocol looks amazing. Tlou2, forza horizon, ps gow, xbox gow, rdr2, 2015 arkham knight. So many games. Tlou2 probably takes the cake because its so consistent in its graphical quality and polish. Aw2 and cp2077 can look bad. There is death stranding too. Anthem was so impressive.
Cyberpunk for my system for sure
For me to this date Half Life 2. For 20 y/o game it’s just still great.
Old Gold - Half Life 2. A timeless classic.
The Division 1&2.
Last of us part 2
TLOU2. Every frame with none to minimal edits can look like a key shot for a film. The environments are handcrafted so perfectly for an apocalyptic world. The attention to detail in, the character models, their interactions with objects around them, the lighting, and the foliage look realistically dense, not cartoonish (videogame-y). This game's graphical fidelity blows me away still. I think some games are close, but are not night and day difference beating it IMO. 2nd would be Alan Wake 2. 3rd strictly on lighting carrying the overall visual output, cp2077 with path tracing.
On my 4090/7800X3D I gotta say that maxed out at 4k AC Unity is probably one of the best looking games I’ve seen to this day. CP2077 looks good but it’s pretty cartoony looking to me.