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[deriks]

I think is Horizon

Wtf is Bayonetta doing in this list?!

 

[Hobbygaming]

Say what you want about Horizon Forbidden West (great game imo) but in no world is the game ugly

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Gorgeous and mad respect for what these artists and programmers create for us, any platform. I wonder what sort of tricks and techniques are similar and what varies wildly between Sea of Thieves years ago vs current day HFW, with respect to water/environmental systems?



Unreal and the like seem to be approaching some pretty insane libraries and plugins these days, probably not long before it's all sliders and toggles over the massive, combined effort for such in game systems.

 

[Dusktildawn48]

Art design: Elden Ring far and away.
Just pure graphics: Horizon and Plague Tale. Followed by GoW.

 

[remember_spinal]

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Horizon Forbidden West. Tho I haven't gotten a chance to see GOW Ragnarok in person (yet; game won't get here until later this week), I'm still dumbfounded how they got the game to look so good considering it's cross-gen. Even on a base PS4 it looks absolutely stellar.

As a complete visual package I think it takes it for me but GOW Ragnarok could take that from the snippets I've seen (while avoiding spoilers). Teams like GG and SSM are just on a whole different level and their next games being PS5 exclusives will be stunning. However, I would have Plague Tale: Requiem, GT7 and Scorn somewhere in my Top 5 after those two and Elden Ring just outside in 6th.

Gotham Knights doesn't even honestly deserve to be among the choices. What a step back from Arkham Knights that is, visually.

 

[Hobbygaming]

It's a wrap

 

[SF Kosmo]

Probably Forbidden West. Ragnarok and Scorn could maybe take it on pure art direction, but Horizon had the whole package.

Bayonetta is hideous, why is that on here?

 

[EDMIX]

holy shit, GG is on some cocaine with Horizon! If this is how a cross gen game looks by them, I can only imagine how wild Horizon 3 is going to look as a PS5 only title.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Full credit to Sony, PS, devs, HFW etc here, that image quality and art is phenomenal. Super impressive detail. Game and style isn't for me but I can appreciate fine art, this is it.

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

TLOU1

 

[TwinB242]

No love for Dying Light 2? The game was a stunner on PC at max settings with ray tracing enabled.

 

[anothertech]

 

[Vroadstar]

 

[nowhat]

As much as I love the water in horizon and sea of thieves - it bums me out that it’s still not an actual fluid sim situation. When is that gonna be in playable videogames? I’d take it over raytracing any day

It's not that it couldn't be done, but it would be a waste of resources in most instances. Returnal uses fluid simulation for the fog, but it's able to pull it off because the simulation is quite coarse (that is not to dismiss the result, the fog looks great).

 

[PlayofSparta]

Dying Light 2: Stay Human PC Version in native 4k ultra + full RT wins for me.
But that's visuals. The game itself is dogshit.
For art direction Elden Ring for sure.

 

[Hobbygaming]

holy shit, GG is on some cocaine with Horizon! If this is how a cross gen game looks by them, I can only imagine how wild Horizon 3 is going to look as a PS5 only title.

We aren't ready. I can't wait to see the Sony VASG and Naughty Dog game. VASG did amazing work on the Callisto Protocol character models

 

[Hobbygaming]

 

[tommib]

Guess we got a top 5:

1 - Horizon: Forbidden West
2 - God of War: Ragnarok
3 - Plague Tale: Requiem
4 - The Last of Us Part 1
5 - Elden Ring

Now watch an RTX Mod for Quake getting best graphics from Alex Battlefield Earth.

 

[mxbison]

Plague tale requiem (which can rut at 8k60) wipes the floor with forbidden west when it comes to visuals. Same could be said about almost every pc game. A console game being even concidered for best visuals is laughtable.

Plague Tale at 8k still has faces that look like hand puppets when they talk.

Some games might slightly beat Horizon in specific areas but that games looks absolutely stunning everywhere. Easily the best overall.

 

[GymWolf]

Plague tale requiem (which can rut at 8k60) wipes the floor with forbidden west when it comes to visuals. Same could be said about almost every pc game. A console game being even concidered for best visuals is laughtable.

 

[The artful mincer]

This year its horizon but I think ratchet and clank is still the best.

 

[The artful mincer]

Guess we got a top 5:

1 - Horizon: Forbidden West
2 - God of War: Ragnarok
3 - Plague Tale: Requiem
4 - The Last of Us Part 1
5 - Elden Ring

Now watch an RTX Mod for Quake getting best graphics from Alex Battlefield Earth.

Yeah well he can't figure out how to not spoil a game unless you play a black screen for 20 minutes.

 

[GymWolf]

The character rendering in Calisto Protocol is some other shit.

The first 30 minute "leak" I kept marveling at how good the characters look during cutscenes and gameplay.

And that was the peasant version of the game.
Cant wait to see Calisto Protocol maxed out on PC.

I was actually planning on waiting abit to see if the game has shader comp issues.
But now I think ill just be the guinea pig and start a midnight playthrough and get as far as I can before blacking out.

So good.

They even got some character designers from UC4, God of War Ragnarok team to work on this tech.
Next level shit.

I fell like this game is gonna be the new gears 5 where people just posted this fucking pic everywhere to show how good the game looks even if literally everything else doesn't look as good

Spoiler

Joking of course

 

[GymWolf]

Horizon: Forbidden West, its the best looking game ever made.

The amount of detail in the open world is staggering. Its a work of art.

Runner up: TLOU: Part 1. It looks even better than Horizon at times, and the facial animations are a gen ahead of every other game in existence - But I give the edge to HFW for it being open world. Insane what GG did

Lmao. Come on.

It is the only pic where the game look legit graphically good, give them a pass dude

I would not say that tlou is a gen ahead when it comes to facial expressions, they are the best but not a gen away, horizon is pretty fucking good for having a cast like 100x times bigger.




Stuff like guardians of the galaxy had great facial expressions, definitely not a gen away from tlou2.

 

[Roman Empire]

For me: Requiem, Forbidden West, Scorn.

Notable Mention: God of War Ragnarök. It looks better than 2018, especially in the lighting department. But nothing out of this world since it's mainly a PS4 game enhanced (a little) on PS5.

 

[GymWolf]

Imagine if this shit was made only on ps5...imagine not being constricted by a fucking 2013 laptop cpu...

 

[GymWolf]

As much as I rag on Horizon Forbidden West being an utter snoozefest that I didn't finish and have now uninstalled, on pure graphical fidelity it wins out against anything else released.

Also who the hell voted for Gotham Knights? That better be ironically.

You are clearly not a man of culture

Spoiler

 

[Roman Empire]

Imagine if this shit was made only on ps5...imagine not being constricted by a fucking 2013 laptop cpu...

I gave my vote to Requiem but I was torn between it and Horizon. Gotta compliment the devs on their outstanding work with the PS4 hardware, I think hardly anyone in the industry could pull that off without the experience and knowledge the Studio has of the PS4 architecture. If I could, I might end up changing my vote.

 

[Doctor Hades]

God of War and Horizon: Forbidden West are easily the best looking console games released this year but even so their last-gen origins are all too apparent, especially in the former (lots of ducking through caves and under things etc and very restrictive paths) and I still think that the best-looking game this generation was last year's Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart which is still an absolute stunner. I own an Xbox Series X and wish that their was something like those games to show off the impressive hardware but I am still waiting (yes, there are plenty of good games but, for me, it still does not feel like a next-gen console in the same way that the PS5 does).

 

[22:22:22]

Elden Ring was the most lovely to me.

Yeah it's magical looking

 

[Johnny Concrete]

Technically Horizon and Ragnarok are way beyond anything else, but man, I've taken screenshots in Elden Ring that I would like to frame and hang on the wall here.

 

[icerock]

God of War has no business being in this discussion, art design is outstanding but it's hardly pushing any technological envelope compared to other games on the list.

I think this was a pretty meh year when it comes to graphics, if I am being completely honest. Horizon is jaw dropping but I wonder what was the ceiling of that game were it designed for only new hardware? TLOU Remake looked pretty much like TLOU Part II so by ND standards, that was a pitiful effort.

Plagues Tale: Requiem is probably the winner by default as it's tailored for new hardware and looks great. I still feel Ratchet is the best next-gen tech showcase we have 2 years into the gen, followed by Demons Souls. Lighting in that game is nuts.

 

[Balducci30]

It's not that it couldn't be done, but it would be a waste of resources in most instances. Returnal uses fluid simulation for the fog, but it's able to pull it off because the simulation is quite coarse (that is not to dismiss the result, the fog looks great).

I just don’t agree that it would be a waste of resources in most games personally - it’s crazy to me that games look so real these days but then the illusion is totally broken by the static nature of the water and fire and other physics/vfx. Like the energy and what people sacrifice to get Raytracing in their games - could they not prioritize that stuff a bit more? Feels like it’s been completely dropped as a goal - the particles and simulation was the best thing about returnal imo and they won a ton of tech awards

 

[Hobbygaming]

I just saw this shot from Horizon Forbidden West on Twitter

 

[nowhat]

I just don’t agree that it would be a waste of resources in most games personally

OK, "waste of resources" may have been poorly worded - "resources better spent/required elsewhere" would be more what I'm after. Returnal did what it did because that was the aesthetic Housemarque wanted, but I don't think other games doing the same at the expense of visual fidelity otherwise is always the right call.

 

[Fredrik]

Might not be the best but don’t sleep on Scorn for this topic. Holy crap I played a few hours last night and it has blown me away, the start is not showing this game off properly, the art design from second area and forward is off the charts.