
As triple-A titles accelerate towards a disturbing level of photorealism, we’ve seen a resurgence in retro-styled and cel-shaded games. Why are more and more developers so keen to move against the realistic grain?

All available May 5.
I think the only game here for me is Nine Sols. Was always interested in that game.
Good month for me, I wanted that particular footy game and thought it might be due. Anyway who cares, shame about the site I'll miss the comment sections. All the best everyone.
Naughty Dog was reportedly divided on the controversial fate of Joel in The Last of Us Part 2 during the game's development.
I think it was good decision, if he was still alive, he would have been a mascot just like Kratos, drake and many others. These old dudes gotta die for new characters to take center stage with their own storyline. They keep dragging the emotional baggage into many sequels and eventually the story just turns into absolute shit show.
Honestly as much as I loved the game, they could have just not killed him off.
I get it creator vision and all but killing a character that made you millions is just wrong imo. At least have him go down fighting.

Square Enix launches Final Fantasy X 25th anniversary site, revealing new Nomura art, books, music releases, and merchandise.
Look I know VIII has its issues and all that but how on earth can the do big anniversary events with new artwork and merchandise for VII, IX and X yet VIII got sweet f*** all.
They could have given it something during its 25th anniversary yet all it got was a single Happy Anniversary post on their social media.
I don´t think striving for life like graphics diminishes creativity. I think it even forces the developers to create a unique aesthetic so that they differentiate themselves from other games. Look at Infamous, it looks preety good, but I recognise it the minute I see it, same with Destiny and the Order, or FFXV for that matter. Lifelike graphics may be applied to otherwordly situations, and might even bolster the imersion in a world that would be completely detached from ours.
Graphics have little effect on creativity, People do. If your game doesn't focus on improved / unique mechanics, new story ideas for the medium, etc... then that's a lack of creativity from the developer, not graphics.
The only time graphics takes away from creativity is if the hardware isn't capable of performing the task needed for a something in-game, because the graphics are taking too much processing power, which I don't think most devs. would stand for.
Compare stylized games like wind waker or team fortress to skyrim or Twilight princess to see whether nor not photorealism helps in the end. Wind Waker is ten years old and even the normal version looks better than plenty of games that come out today.
Even in the old days, some games attempted to look as realistic as possible while others embraced a different artwork.
Not all games strive towards photorealism, and most who seek to buck the trend tend to reap the rewards ala Minecraft and Borderlands.
Lets worry about that when games are actually near photo realism. Very few next gen games actually look good. And if they look good, there are huge sacrifices to performance or resolution to obtain it