Key findings
- Photorealism in video games is banal.
- A true artistic direction of graphics allows for more visually appealing and timeless games compared to photorealism.
- Most game genres don’t necessarily benefit from pure photorealism, as art direction is key to creating visually appealing experiences.
There is a certain group of gamers who seem to believe that the peak of video game graphics will come the day when video game graphics become inseparable from real life, but as with all media, realism is not necessarily the essence of video games. Even if the technology for photorealistic graphics is perfected, that does not mean that the art of video games will reach its peak.
What does photorealism actually mean?
In the truest sense of the word, photorealism simply means “realistic lighting.” When you take a photo or video with a camera, real photons enter the lens and form the image on the film or camera sensor, in the same way that your eyes form an image on your retina. So when your brain sees a photo, you perceive it as an image of a real object. Light, shadows, and textures all look and behave the way your brain expects in real life.
Simulating the effects of light in rendered computer graphics is fundamental to tricking your brain into thinking it’s seeing something real and not something generated by a computer. While you may not consciously know why something looks strange, your brain is trained by your life experience and billions of years of evolution to know what real light looks like.
Game developers have come up with countless “tricks” to make video games look more realistic, because simulating how real light works (e.g. ray tracing) in real time was too computationally intensive. Today, at least at the high end, modern GPUs are capable of rendering graphics with full ray tracing in real time and at playable frame rates. This has brought games closer to full photorealism than ever before. Combined with advances in 3D materials and simulations of water, fur, and other complex systems, photorealism in games doesn’t seem that far away after all.
Photorealism is banal
The thing is that true photorealism is inherently mundane. If you want to see photorealism, look out the window. Even when we watch videos of real places, those images have been edited to alter and enhance the color and lighting. Rarely do media creators aim to put on screen what the eye sees. Just compare the behind-the-scenes footage of a film like The Matrix to the final product and you will see that all the magic of cinema has been lost.
These media are “photorealistic” in the sense that they show us (by and large) a scene illuminated with real light, but not only is the lighting carefully staged, the post-production is also artistic, not realistic.
This is even more important for video games where the character has control over the camera. That is why every direction you go in a game like Horizon Forbidden West is like a painting. Just look at the mods for Cyberpunk 2077 that make the game more photorealistic. Yes, it is technically impressive to look at, but it makes the game fewer visually appealing, nothing more.
The highlight of graphics is artistic freedom
There’s a common rumor in the video game world that games with good “art direction” age much better than games that try to achieve a more realistic look. One reason for this is that the best realistic graphics of the present day quickly look ridiculous as technology advances, but of course that will become irrelevant when we reach true photorealism because improvements on that front will stop. In fact, there are already people who think that the jump from, say, the PS4 to the PS5 isn’t particularly big. Now it’s Is a huge jump, but most people feel that the overall images generated by both systems are quite similar. Not like the jump from PlayStation to PlayStation 2!
For me, the point of advancing graphics technology is not to achieve photorealism. It is to enable artists to bring whatever they envision to the screen. If that vision includes photorealism, then so be it. On the other hand, if it is something like Ratchet & Clank where ray tracing effects were used to polish the game’s nearly flawless CG cinematic aesthetic, that’s just as legitimate.
Despite its technical limitations, Nintendo regularly releases games on the Nintendo Switch that are much more visually appealing than boring, realistic-looking games on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Likewise, I would much prefer to watch the original animation Lion King than the photorealistic CG remake, which loses exactly 100% of the artistic appeal of the original and all the spice of the storytelling. Unfortunately, people throw money at these photorealistic snorefests, whether in games or movies, but the most interesting works don’t care much about the mundane.
Few games should pursue photorealism
I would argue that for most game types and most visual directions, photorealism is probably not the way to go. Some games, such as Cancel recording or Gran Turismo are prime examples of photorealism implemented where it should be.
Likewise, realistic military shooters and simulators of all kinds benefit from photorealism. However, most games do not fall into these categories, and while they can certainly benefit from advanced graphics technology, pure photorealism can never replace artistic direction.
