Why do graphics look so bad nowadays?

[Tazor]

Can you please stop trying to appease the Fortnite crowd? I miss the early 2000s. When big leaps in visual fidelity started being made. When we started having games that looked realistic.

But now? Everything must have a weird art style, look pixelated, or have that distinct Fortnite look with overly bright colors and flat textures.

I honestly prefer the look of the old AOE 2 over AOE 4. Something I never thought I would say.

Also, why did they remove soldier skeletons in AOE 2 DE? And why isn't there a mod to fix that after so many years? And why do the moderators get butthurt whenever talk about that missing feature is brought up?

[TheFibrewire]

Gen X age is over, move on. These games are not for AOE players. It's for an audience that actually don't exists, but they think, sprinkling Esports ADHD gameplay and Cartoon graphics will spawn those people automatically out of thin air.

[Jerry]

You're talking about the artstyle, right? Graphics can and usually means something else.

The 'cartoony or artsy' artstyle has longer lasting appeal compared to a more realistic approach that would age poorly. If you are releasing like yearly or so games for a series you can adopt a more realistic approach. But if the waiting period is longer between titles, you want a style that can last years or longer. Look at The Legend of Zelda and it's many artstyles. It's done so because there's a long gap between each game and you can still play the old games because they haven't aged terribly like some other games have. I personally can't play the original FF7 or Diablo 2 because the styles aged poorly.

[G0ll0]

you will find low graphics in game like Valorant ( chinese studio), lol etc, mostly in free games, free games needs to appeal to larger crowds because they are free and need to sell skins, sounds, avatars, heroes etc etc... Relic/Microsoft is doing the same here but charging $60 of course this is a huge mistake, Relic did the same with DOW3, they lower the graphics, they looked like toys, they also removed synckills, removed blood they also get rid of cover system, accuracy system, at the end you had a super generic DOW3 RTS, they sold a little using nostalgia factor then game was abandoned and now days not even 100 people play dow3, what I want to say is this strategy always fail in RTS, we don't like generic game play, or simplified mechanics, RTS is about complex mechanics and deep game play...

When you start seeing Age IV without nostalgia glasses, you will see a generic RTS.

[G0ll0]

My guess with Relic is that they are no longer capable of design good and unique games, they are removing core features of older games because they no longer at good at it, I guess most of the people that made homeworld ( game of the year), Dawn of war ( game of the year) and COH ( game of the year) and not longer and relic... so new relic is about Dawn of war 3 and Age of cartoon 4

[Tazor]

Originally posted by Jerry:

You're talking about the artstyle, right? Graphics can and usually means something else.

The 'cartoony or artsy' artstyle has longer lasting appeal compared to a more realistic approach that would age poorly. If you are releasing like yearly or so games for a series you can adopt a more realistic approach. But if the waiting period is longer between titles, you want a style that can last years or longer. Look at The Legend of Zelda and it's many artstyles. It's done so because there's a long gap between each game and you can still play the old games because they haven't aged terribly like some other games have. I personally can't play the original FF7 or Diablo 2 because the styles aged poorly.

If you want to talk purely about graphics as in polygon count, texture resolution and shadow accuracy, that is also quite bad.

Nothing looks good so far for AOE 4.

[potionjunkie]

Not gonna lie i couldn't care less about a strategy games appearance. I want good gameplay. Fingers crossed that they deliver.

[G0ll0]

For those saying graphics are good.

2005 game The Settlers:

https://ubistatic-a.akamaihd.net/0127/TSA/21-04_12_2018_TS5HE_Guide/09.jpg

AOE IV 2021:

https://i.imgur.com/YBvKBrn.png

Is this is all you can conjure, Relic? should I drop $60 for this?

[G0ll0]

They did no learn with DOW3... when people create games with passion and love, you will see great games that became classics, but when studios go after $$$, with great audience you have age iv

[Mr. No_Effs_Given]

Yep, looks pretty darn bad.

[MegaDerpLord]

Settlers 05, looking pretty good tho.

[Semp]

I showed this screenshot from aoe 4 to my girlfriend and asked to guess what year the game is from and she answered 2003 ))

[flip4552]

maybe for 30 euro

[Tazor]

Everyone gangsta till you get compared to The Settlers from 2005.

[G0ll0]

You can even see sword and axes details in a 2005, look at the weapons in age IV...

[flip4552]

nice lotr reference didnt.
can you get settlers on steam