For me this year it had to be star wars outlaws. Technicaly Indy might have been the best one, but i really enjoy playing, exploring star wars universe in that game. If they had nailed cutscenes I think this would have been different discussion. Indy can look vers good but I have problem with the time period and environment settings that are not attractive to me which is what immersion is to me.
I was more immersed in HB despite the fact that I was more immersed into it as an interactive movie than a game. It is just next gen in graphics, animation and direction. (4080S)
For me, i'd still vote for Hellblade 2 for how much they pushed the envelope in real time graphics, and not only but specially facial expressions, it feels real, you are in this journey with Senua, you see and feel how she does, all of the tech combined with the brilliant Melina Juergens performance as Senua, made it possible. This kind of immersion is really special and there nothing like it. It's an extreme tailored and well polished experience, as it should be, and since it's their vision from the first game, i think they achieved. The other thing, Hellblade 2 was made by a team with 80 developers, much lower than the average triple A title, so this game has a really special place in my view, and can't be cherished enough.
I agree but even while agreeing, VR games don't tend to have very appealing visuals. Metro Awakening is the best VR game this year for non-Quest 3 and it looks worse than many older VR titles.
Surprised Stellar Blade or Space Marine 2 didn't make the cut even as an honorable mention but Black Myth Wukong and Dragon's Dogma 2 did, with all their problems on console.
Ehh. Stellar blade had some pretty boring looking levels. I played and beat this and wukong multiple times. Stellar is nice. It's not wukong with graphics, though.
Both Massive Entertainment (Star Wars Outlaws) and Machine Games (Indiana Jones) are Swedish developers. Not bad for a country of only ten million people.
@@Dionyzos And DICE, also in Sweden, they are responsible for the tech behind Dragon Age Veilguard. Sweden especially has been very good about tech in video games for a very long time.
"Not bad for a country of only ten million people." Yeah, what a poor underdeveloped country. The struggle must've be hard. Can we get a Nobel peace prize for them already, especially for the average game with performance issues like Outlaws?
I don’t see people’s complaints with Hellblade, it doesn’t try to deceive anyone about what it is, if you go into it knowing what to expect it’s still a great experience and looks absolutely stunning
I think some of the pushback could be due to the fact that it's less mechanically involved for the player compared to the first game. It feels less gamey and more cinematic, and the first game was already pretty cinematic. I think the skewing of that balance irked some people.
It's a great experience, I think it's just a little bit worse than the original. If I rated the first as a 8.5, II is a 7.5-8. will definitely remember my experience with both
Totally agree. Their weekly directs I get because it’s them yapping which is fine. But a yearly video about graphics, every second of this should be relevant footage
I agree that Indy wins, the thing that edges it for me is the fact its high res, RT and 60fps on console, while also supporting full path tracing for PC.
It's not only that. It's also the visual stability of the game. I really think we got to start condemning and taking marks off games that try to push technology at the expense of visual stability.
Hellblade 2 blew my mind. I loved that experience. I haven't been so immersed in a game atmosphere, combined with its story, in a while. Loved that sequel to Hellblade 1.
I love Indy, but Hellblade 2 deserved to win this. They even admit this is basically what PS6 games should look like. It literally looks a full generation better than everything else. Seriously. If PS6 games look like it but are 60fps and have more scope, i would feel perfectly satisfied with next generation of visuals. Also, I feel they should kick that Penny game that John is clearly obsessed with and move Stellar Blade into the top 10. The fact it didn't even make honorable mention is insane. Game looks and runs great.
You guys are missing out on The Talos Principle 2: Some of the best Lumen UE5 Graphics & Lighting, amazing World & Level Design and phenomenal Artistic Direction. And Talos 2's massive DLC Expansion (2024): Road to Elysium: The visuals are phenomenal - the models, material work, atmosphere, Lumen GI Lighting etc - I played on PS5 Performance Mode and now playing on PS5 Pro on Quality 60 FPS. I can't imagine how amazing the game must look on high end PC with full RT Reflections as well! Please cover The Talos Principle 2+ DLCs in your next PS5 Pro video!
It's from last year though. They talked a bit about it last year when it came out and all their footage was from the starting area of the game (tutorial basically, that doesn't look nearly as good as some of the epic later areas). From which I kinda concluded that this type of highly cerebral puzzle games aren't their cup of tea. 😢
@@kosmosyche DLC is from this year 2024. They also DIDN'T cover it last year and didn't mention it in the top graphics list - and I'm sure it blows mostly of 2023-2024 games out of the water - in visuals design, graphics prowess, tech utilization and artistic vision. Also I think it's important to revisit older games that are Upgraded by the Pro, Talos 2 doesn't have a Pro Enhanced Update yet sadly - but still benefits from Pro Game Boost: Quality Mode at 60 FPS!
Oh and to add to this: I totally agree. They BARELY showed the beginning Egyptian Throwback area that was supposed to look less than realistic because it simulated the SIMULATION that is TALOS 1. IT WAS A THROWBACK. They didn't cover the actual game that only gets progressively better, more stunning and more mind blowing. They didn't go into the Mega Structure, or Anthropic Hills, or the islands and snow areas. They never checked out the amazingly gorgeous, immersive and mind bending DLCs. Even if it's not their type of game - they mentioned freaking Riven, but not Talos 2 - which is my GOTY of 2023-2024 by a long shot (along FF16 in 2023).
@@normanblack4005 for sure man! Playing this right now on PlayStation 5 Pro - after Platinum 100% the main game and beating 2 DLCs out of 3. Now I'm playing on Quality Mode running a smooth solid 60fps! I still want a Pro Enhanced label on this with an actual PS5 Pro Patch Update. Maybe at the Ray Tracing Reflections especially in photo mode. PSSR AI Upscale up to actual 4K! 120 HZ support. Remove of ghosting artifacts etc. The game can look so much better than it already does.
The only thing I don't love about the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's visuals are the characters faces. They're not terrible, but they have that almost cartoony look that their Wolfenstein games have.
Always an interesting video. My personal graphical highlight of the year is Indiana Jones. To support high resolutions, 60 fps and ray tracing all at once on both Series X and S blew me away. And besides that its a damn fun game too!
Shame we couldn't get a HDR option in the video settings... Especially considering it is a best graphics presentation. Prior, DF HDR content spoilt us.
@@helloguy8934 I think the HDR black level is just mismatched, but if you incorrectly set your black level to the limited range while having the game output of the full range, it seems to look perfect. I think they just really screwed up somewhere in the pipeline and accidentally compressed the output to the limited range for hdr. Give it a try if you have a chance
i gotta say purely graphics its HB2 its just so consistent, IJ is great but it has issues with its LOD on effects, it isnt as consistent as HB2 across the platforms. HB2 is just consistent rendering wise its almost flawless. I also disagree that its like a FMV style game. It's a curated linear narrative game with some open-ish areas. We're just fed so many open/semi open games a linear game always gets compared to more open games. Its an unfair comparison.
result xbox won but they give award astro bot again. and still no one buying for xbox for hellbadle indie and stalker 2. its like segasaturn vs ps1 time what ever made xbox doesnt matter.
Hellblade 2 looks good even when running at lower settings for xbox series S. For Indiana jones, at lower settings or when not using path tracing, shadows flicker and pop in. If we compare both games at max settings, Hellblade 2 has higher environment and model detail. Indiana jones still has aggressive lod transitions at max settings which wouldn't happen with nanite in ue5.
@@aquaneon8012 Not much is going on in Hellblade in most scenes so I would say Indiana Jones is more impressive. Great graphics, ray tracing, high resolution, 60fps. Gotta give it to Indiana Jones
Wukong on consoles is far inferior to Horizon. Graphics are full of noise, likely from poor upscaling technology or very low internal resolution. In my opinion, Wukong's graphics deserve a 6.5 on consoles, while Horizon is at least a 9.5.
The fact that Ubisoft is shitting its pants while still having it's games to come on top 3 of DF that too two consecutive years is a testament to how much talent the studio has which is such a shame because the execs are running the company into the ground.
on contrary, its testament to silly community hate bandwagon. DF being professional cant deny that outlaws is decent game with awesome graphics, while youtube clickbaiters pictured it as garbage game with ps3 graphics
Agreed. They might not be putting out great games, but there's undeniably a lot of talent, at least in some areas. The same has been true for Bethesda for a long time. Excellent visual design, bogged down by baffling quality elsewhere.
Ubi open word games have stellar graphics. Last year, Avatar blew me out of my mind. Too bad it's a mediocre game otherwise, but I bought it just to see the lush jungles
@@AJ-xv7oh most games even if they aren’t on this list do too. Bloodborne, Elden ring, many others have issues and are still great games. Maybe you’re just too picky pal. Keep missing out👍
They rewarding unoptimized games like Silent hill 2. Also Star Wars Outlaws second place ? Are you joking. The PC version of Red Dead Redemption looks better than that game.
Have DF realised the Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 has released, with the amount of attention visuals on MSFS 2020 received i expected a bit more coverage.
They are probably waiting for a couple more patches, hopefully it gets a bit of attention from DF next year, as there is plenty there for them to talk about in terms of real-time rendering really pushed to the limits. But yes, I don't think the game was in a finished enough state for them to cover it at the end of this year, so I get why it wasn't here.
I think it released to late for this video, they mentioned how they started brainstorming for the video, but had to wait for Indiana Jones. Probably didn't want to wait for MSFS 2024
Agree with John on SH2, I have a 2000 nits TV and damn the lighting in the game is out of this world. From an artistic perspective the visuals are just beautifully crafted as well which the lighting enhances further. Rarely been as captured by a game's visuals and the atmosphere overall. Have to mention Stellar Blade as well, looks stunning and plays smooth as butter.
I think Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 should've taken Star Wars Outlaw's spot, or at least a honorable mention. It might have a lot of bugs but we're specifically talking graphics, and the graphics are very impressive.
its kinda look like same with mfs 2020. ı still think ace combat 7 look better no ground dteail like mfs but on fly look better. there was aslo another unreal 4 jet game called projet wingman. also notice all this games scale down xbox one ps4 even switch but mfs 2020 not out on those so make game little less known. using always net no demo of game and size all these things make mfs down. mfs 2020 was pc physcal copy 10dvd now with 24 no dvd copy only usb stick for collector editon. not the mention launch problems.
Notice how the vast majority of these games with cutting edge graphics are also the ones with the most unstable performance, I get that good graphics aren't cheap on performance, but when you can't even get low but stable/consistent performance it's just plain bad.... Something's gotta change soon because this issue seems to be getting worse with each year. With nearly every game launch i'm finding myself looking for fixes on nexus mods just to barely make these games playable out the box.
All this to promote/switch to digital only(buy now fix/get later). Physical media/Ver 1.0 in most games is a buggy mess. 1y after is the "final" version of set game, some even had relaunches under the name(Definitive Editions) Sleeping Dogs,Tomb Raider's Reboot Trilogy,etc in some cases 2y like for Cyberpunk 2077. Imagine the "perservation" on Cyberpunk 2077 launch discs for PS4/XboxOne day one no patch,if no online solution will be in the future.
Technical directors nowadays be like: "Make a game to be fully path traced and have THE BEST hair physX". Who carers it will run at 240p upscaled to 8k with frame gen to compensate. Some of those games not only are unstable but are also upscaled into oblivion from 720p looking like a blurry mess. I just finished horizon zero dawn remaster on ps5 pro and the sharpness at 60fps, the asset quality was such a refresh. Astrobot looking like a game this gen should.... DF started this gen from praising "pixel level detail/geometry" on games, while now the pixels are the size of a fridge and all the texturing/modeling hard work devs did disappears. From such a low resolutions you just can't upscale to sharp moving image with current tech - they should stop saying "4k like resolution" unless it's actually that (like with some DLSS examples).Veilguard making the list is such a abomination. Dragon's dogma probably too. Still have silent hill to judge.
I 100%. DF has become a Niche Channel all about cutting edge graphics cost of everything else kinda be damed. I miss the OLD DF that would call out the BUllshit of Software and Hardware.. Like the PS5 Pro actually NOT being worth the Price. It does do $300 better then a PS5 + With NO DISC DRIVE you can do alot Less.
And yet last genration we had Uncharted 4,Red dead redemption 2, Final Fantasy VII remake, and The last of us part 2 which were all the best looking games when they came out and all launched as CONSOLE EXCLUSIVES while running at stable framerates.
1:10:00 I think I might have to pickup Outlaws. It looks good, runs good, the world seems full of little things and fun to explore, yeah, it might not be groundbreaking but it seems like it's a solid 7.5/10, and that's always a fun time.
FF Rebirth can't possibly be 1080p on a base ps5. If it is, then there is a heavy blur filter on top because 1080p doesn't look that low res. Not robust.
Astro Bot is my favorite game in years. It's the main reason I bought a (used) PS5 and to me it was totally worth it. I've been playing video games since the 90s, and in the past few years I slowly stopped caring about graphics - in the past decade, two of my favorite games were Factorio and Minecraft. Astro Bot for me brought back my joy with good graphics! I have a nice mid-range TV and sound system, so 4K / OLED / HDR / 5.1, and this game feels right at home there.
Bad take. If the game can't run smoothly, I don't care how good the graphics are. I'm not going back to playing Hard Drivin' on the Genesis, it was absolutely terrible.
DF are the only ones really complaining about performance, and yet the worst performers wound up getting the most love. Is calling out the hypocrisy not okay all of a sudden?
Hellblade is a pivotal game, even if with little gameplay features. We will see more of good UE5 games, we just need devs to read how Ninja theory did it, and improve on that, wait for another next gen GPUs, and we will be playing really CGI games. If a game actually uses all the latest UE5.5 features and Ninja theory performance tweaks, releases without stutters on the 5090 with the Nvidia branch of UE5 with Hellblade art direction it will be realtime CGI. I played it on a 4080S on 4K with 1000 nit HDR (all max except volumetrics medium) with tweaks to the config to remove black bars (real full screen) and disable chroma aberation, distorsion and film grain. Had to use DLSS Balanced (2,227 x 1,253 pre upscale), with Framegen, and limit FPS to 90 to get a flat-rate frame graph. But it worked well even if the starting FPS is going down to 45, since it is slower paced. With next gen GPUs UE5 could really shine if devs start actually to care about FPS consistency pre release and instead of post release patches. Hope CDPR does good to the Witcher. We need some good UE5 at some point.
Super enjoying this. What I would really like to see: DF speaking out what is the best graphics on console. It can be a bit messy to switch between PC and console in the way that you have. I feel like some games do so much better on pc (e.g. BM Wukong, AW2) and others scale really well on console. I would love your clear vision on that.
I really did love the accessible ray tracing implementation and the immersive artwork of Star Wars Outlaws. The game really looked lovely in letterbox mode. Yea the story sucked but while everyone was complaining about the game, I enjoyed exploring the world.
I wouldn't even say the story sucked, a few scenes had some cringe-worthy writing though. But overall, the open world genre mix was fun and very atmospheric. I liked it more than i thought.
With all my respect to John, and his love for the oldschool (which is mainly why I started following DF to be honest), but Penny has no place in this video. I don't want to offend its creators, many things are subjective, like maybe the character design being unappealing, and colors feeling not bright enough, the sterile environments, and the weird DoF effect, but putting this game among the rest of the video, makes the "Another Phenomenal Year!" part title sound like a joke. Everyone but John was staying there in an awkward silence while John was praising the visuals, but what cracked me up is when he tried to squeeze some words from Alex and it was hard for him to say anything positve lol.
Absolutely agree. This feels like a case of letting the game itself and its development history cloud one's view of the technical aspects. It shouldn't matter that they build it from scratch, it still looks distinctly average and like many other unremarkable 3D platformer throwbacks we've seen over the years.
agree but also astro bot should not be in this video. astro bot first demo was john 2020 video on that time not in graphics of year vide. 4 year later new astro bot look good but not so ahead of that first demo. outcast new begging should be in video. you are using jetpack in that game flying every where unreal open wold game yet work good. should be in honorable mentions.
Except it was given second unanimously by DF. I do think it's a little sad that they've given it two years in a row to movie based videogames, because no matter how good Indiana and Avatar look they'll always be second to the films, whereas Hellblade and Alan Wake both build their own visual designs that help lend to their surrealist quality. Either way, great job DF, thanks for shouting out Riven. My one honorable mention would have to be Harold Halibut, a game that isn't especially technically impressive, but has such high resolution scans of its puppetry and art that it feels like on set but all the puppet strings are invisible. A timeless art style for sure
@@Jamic9 Do you really need more fps on a walking simulator/story based game? Btw we are talking about graphics and this game uses its graphics for storytelling so well that the 30 fps really is justifiable.
@@Mikefiser It's not as necessary but it certainly would help when you're panning the camera around to enjoy the scenery. Or just walking around, moving the camera from side to side.
awesome taste! just finished SH2 which is my goty, what an experience. Now playing SB which im not mad at as goty, right after SH2 for me, it's the whole package, so damn fun, and man it looks stunning.
@MrStrangermoon Astro bot looks fun. I'll probably pick it up eventually when a deep sale eventually happens... Like when it eventually hits the 19.99 PS greatest hits.
before people start getting mad at some of the choices, please note DF is doing a review on the presentation/engine features, not the gameplay. with that said. DA:V has honestly the best hair rendering i have ever seen in a game.
Yay! I did a TH-cam search for this very video, yesterday. I always look forward to their graphics review. The techniques available to devs and how they use them to build game worlds is particularly interesting to me. Digital Foundry, Spawnwave and a few others really have served to fill the voids left by the lack of printed gaming magazines, as well as giving us familiar, consistent places to go that we all depend on for our gaming and tech news. Thanks DF
A very curious thing is why The Callisto Protocol, with its awful stuttering-worse than Silent Hill 2-was in second place in 2022, while Silent Hill 2 isn't in the top 3 because of stuttering on PC. It's not perfect on consoles, but the stuttering is certainly not a major issue there, especially on the PS5 Pro
ive played it on base PS5, a combination of perf/quality mode and both were fine to me, did not detract much from my experience, and what an experience it was ^^
@@FrawgfithAmblose Alex: "This Penny game makes my eyes bleed. Dafuq, John?" I was sensing that he didn't quite agree but was being polite. lol. "Nice depth of field effect, bro." It's a good game, tbf. The devs creating their own engine is the only way John managed to sneak it onto this list though.
EVERYTHING else besides the hair sucks. I guess the one skilled guy that still works at bioware made the hair. The others were inventing new genders...
I feel like Talos Principle 2 was the game that was the most unfairly slighted by DF. They bounced off the first 30 minutes long tutorial puzzles and never properly reviewed the main portion of the game with its beautiful large and dense open areas. Despite me and others commenting about that multiple times, DF have never acknowledged how they have failed to represent the 99% of the original game, either out or ignorance, or because of their unwillingness to admit their mistake. It is still to this day remains one of the most beautiful games I’ve played, but I’m not holding my breath for DF to do it justice, to say nothing about covering the DLC content
@@Shantara11 Seriously, with all due respect, how is the Riven remake on this list while The Talos Principle 2 was ignored last year? Other than John's nostalgia for the original Riven making him notice the remake, I can't see how that makes sense. TTP2 is one of the most beautiful and highest quality games in general this gen. Was my GOTY last year. From such a fairly small team too. Very odd that they never mention it and seemingly just booted up the tutorial area. 😔
Star Wars Outlaws image quality is so blurry, 'ghosty' and 'smeary' with a c!@pton of noise and 'screen boiling' effect (from bad denoising) that I can't believe it made it to the list at all. So what if lightning etc looks good, if the image quality even on 4k native looks like 720p?
49:18 I know people wanted Metaphor (my personal runner up for GotY) and BMW (haven't played it so I can't judge), but Astro Bot really was the most fun I've had playing a game this year.
I still get confused how Indiana Jones looks that good running at 60fps on Xbox Series. Looking at this generation it almost feels like a miracle. And included on Gamepass? Man…
Because games weren't optimized for Series X but for the weaker console which is PS5. Now you have a situation where some games play better on Series X even than on PS5 Pro. Thats just showing how much unused potential was there whole time.
@@nikolagvozdenovic940games werent optimised for xsx? Which cross platform games that ps5 performs better were not optimised? I’d love to know which titles you’re referring to.
@@vigour6786 i am not talking about "Series optimised" I am talking about MAKING game from the ground up for a specific hardware. It's pretty obvious that they used PS5 for most multiplats as benchmark to optimise while not testing/optimising enough for Xbox consoles.
I have been working with CG since the 80's and Indy is indeed a stunner. What an amazing job they did; even pixel peeping. Riven as well in VR. And this channel is amazing, thank you!
26:42 Omg Thank you….. I was looking for the name of that game for so long. I was about to cry when you started talking about it lol. my dad went to his friend house to buy a copy of Riven for me and bro. Men… I’m old. Good old times.! Btw the game was on console by that time. I think it was ps1,sega genesis. I can’t remember which one.
It was ported to PS1 shortly after the PC release. The following year, it was ported to Sega Saturn in Europe only. The Genesis could never be able to handle it, except for maybe with the Sega CD add-on, but Sega had long moved on by then.
there is another game out from 1999 this year Outcast new begging. its kinda re imaginaiton of first game like new river . should be in this video but jonhn already make vidoe for that. my favorite fmv game those times is xfiles and ı think xfiles fmv charaters way better than riven you feel in x files episode not just traviel around. my seconf fmv game was byzantine game. ı also mention they said slient hill 2 orginal was impressive that time ı dont agree that there waas pc exlusive survival horor game out 1999 Nocturne. terminal reaility game that game graphics look like ray tracing today shadows lightings even sh2 reamke or alan wake 2 not beat nocturne yet. check outcast and nocturne they suppose to out sega dreamcast with half life 1 but when dc died they stuck on pc. alone in dark remake also out this year another game those years with that and sh2 remake out this year make only dino crisis and nocturne not remaked from end of 90s. dino crisis remake probably happen capcom and maybe night dive studios relase nocturne again like the thing this year. nocturne engine that time was better looking than unreal and quake engines. such a crime that no one knows.
What are your thoughts on Tekken 8? I know it’s nothing compared to these large scale games but it always felt like a pretty impressive game visually, especially the insane detail in photo mode.
People get real loud when the Series S has performance and porting issues but then get reeeeeeeeal quiet when its able to pull off stuff like Indiana Jones and Hellblade 2. I love how much a little box like that has been able to do this gen! (still wish it had more VRAM tho lol)
ı try to load hell blade 2 with hdd 1050 it kinda worked 20 fps and crashed after arrive on land but with patches ı think be ok. series s realt test is gta6 . if gta 6 play 20 fps something series s no chance to suvive as console if works 30fps stable doest matter even future games not out series s. its great console but no disc drive pointless bcouse you see inside empty enough to put disc drive.
I only played the first 1.5 hours of SH2 and I didn't like the graphics at all. Lumen RT looks terrible even with hardware RT turned on, the reflections and shadows look awful and the shimmering/boiling artifacts are constant. Boggles my mind how no one mentioned it here.
Star Wars outlaws is epic ! ❤ game of the year for me , at 50 years of age , I feel they really captured the essence ! It’s not perfect , but close enough. I feel bad for algorithm zombies who missed out …
Meh… to me (a 52 year old) it’s just yet another Ubisoft open world game that I’ve played a hundred times before… but now with a Star Wars skin. In gameplay terms, it’s identical to Asassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, Far Cry, etc. and does absolutely nothing new or original. Left me cold, I’m afraid… but then so do the Star Wars movies these days.
Indy has been super fun, and is cool to see it take the top spot here this year! Though I find it interesting that from a purely average/mid range hardware graphics output perspective (imo 1440p High Settings Quality or Balanced DLSS) I honestly feel that this may be the first year where last year's pick looks better in most scenes than this year's. Indy can totally still be stunning in many areas (especially with enthusiast hardware), but there's still so many areas in Avatar that feel so ahead of anything else... honestly so un videogame-like in it's presentation. Super excited for the future with both of these games existing!
What John says at 1:07:00 is not true, and you can look up the early DLSS 3 coverage to prove it. Alex specifically said that DLSS 3 Frame Generation works well from ~30-60 even with "weapon reloads right up in the camera frustrum" - DIRECT QUOTE. Rich had also echoed similar sentiments. The problem here is referring blandly to "frame generation" and not making a distinction between Nvidia's implementation and AMD's inferior implementation. But I guess DF doesn't want to directly name AMD's solution as inferior...
A tough call for sure, as all these games allow for such a varied experience of freedom in exploring them and how you can interact with the world. Im very happy to see astrobot here, it makes me super jealous that I dont have a PS5 :( the physics stuff in there asides from being cool to interact with is also soooo visually pleasing. I hope we see that game on PC some day
Hwy guys. Great video as always but next year, can you please include more footage / gameplay in relation to what you guys are talking about? There was a lot of discussion about each game and very rarely any footage to show what you are talking about. It struck me that you were using footage captured previously and not new footage captured to show what you were describing in each game.
@@ygny1116 Please tell me a game from 2010 that looks like Space Marine 2. Draw distance, ai count, ambient occlusion, textures, poly count, etc. Gameplay I agree. It wasn't trying to play like a new gsme.
@ygny1116 a lot better than Bioshock 2, what are you smoking? Way more high res textures and poly count than GOW3 and BF bad company2, way more ai, way more npc action, more destruction than GOW3. Larger environments than either. Better motion capture. Cloth simulation is better.
Not that it deserves a top 10, but it's a shame that the crew overlooked Infinity Nikki in their honorable mentions discussions. It's a fantastic open-world game that uses RTGI, RT shadows, and some RT reflections to make its world absolutely gorgeous. The sheer amount of flowers and environment details leaves me stunned every time i play it- but the vast majority of people who play it aren't going to see this detail as it's primarily mobile-focused, and the mobile version of the game cuts down a massive swath of the environment
@@jamesw884 John has explicitly praised it as a good-looking and technically accomplished game previously, including putting it on his top 10 games of the year just a few days -ago!
Only thing "person" missing from this year's "best graphic's in gaming" video is none other than Richard Leadbetter! Appreciate his take on Graphics Technology.
Tiny Glade as a competitive city-building, real-time strategy game would be really something. If I were the dev this game would be a good base for that as their next game.
At this point, cyberpunk is a master ship. They made a 180 degrees turn with this game. It just took them 4 years. And more tweaking to come in January. I play with full pathtracing and it looks photorealistic. Still the best looking game to date; and the Witcher 3's new coat of paint delivers in spades too.
A curated game awards show whose primary goal is to make money, which comes directly off of advertising which means they need the highest viewer count possible which forces them to appeal to the largest and most fervent userbase?
"Curated game awards show" are also personal lists from whatever crew rates them. I think a lot of the gaming public is either mentally a child or literally a child, that's the main reason seemingly everyone is always shouting about trivial nonsense in this space.
It's perfectly ok to criticize their choices on their terms, this isn't an entirely subjective list, it's based on concrete material properties like framerate and lighting quality, etc. It's a good list but some of the comments critiquing it are correct imo. DF didn't even review Flight Simulator 2024, and one could argue it should win the #1 spot. Tekken 8, Stellar Blade, and Space Marine 2 all have good arguments for them over many of the "honorable mentions" even judging by DF's own reviews!
Indiana Jones would probably also be my pick. It takes the cake for me by being so optimized that it can even run at 60 on consoles and lower end PC hardware with such fidelity. Graphics is the symbiosis of tech and art style and The Great Circle really nailed it
Not surprised Indy Jones won. It looks the most impressive and performs twice as fast as most other UE5 titles. idTech delivers max immersion.
For me this year it had to be star wars outlaws. Technicaly Indy might have been the best one, but i really enjoy playing, exploring star wars universe in that game. If they had nailed cutscenes I think this would have been different discussion. Indy can look vers good but I have problem with the time period and environment settings that are not attractive to me which is what immersion is to me.
ue5 is an everything engine that does everything as poorly as possible while making idiots think it's the best thing since sliced bread.
I was more immersed in HB despite the fact that I was more immersed into it as an interactive movie than a game.
It is just next gen in graphics, animation and direction. (4080S)
For me, i'd still vote for Hellblade 2 for how much they pushed the envelope in real time graphics, and not only but specially facial expressions, it feels real, you are in this journey with Senua, you see and feel how she does, all of the tech combined with the brilliant Melina Juergens performance as Senua, made it possible. This kind of immersion is really special and there nothing like it. It's an extreme tailored and well polished experience, as it should be, and since it's their vision from the first game, i think they achieved.
The other thing, Hellblade 2 was made by a team with 80 developers, much lower than the average triple A title, so this game has a really special place in my view, and can't be cherished enough.
It’s not a gamey game tho, not even a video game. It’s an immersive graphical experience in the format of a game.
I feel like the 2023 video just dropped yesterday. This year went by fast 😅
Literally kinda scary feeling tbh doesn't feel 5 minutes ago I was watching 2023 list
Indeed. Happy and Peaceful New Year to you all 🫂
@@dolan_plzSame to you.
Yea agreed! Father time gotta let go of the pedal just a bit Lol 😁
You're getting old. It happens.
Would love if John did a VR category as well next year.
💯 %. VR is the most incredible advancement in gaming (and I'm OLD), yet it doesn't get nearly enough the coverage it deserves.
I agree but even while agreeing, VR games don't tend to have very appealing visuals. Metro Awakening is the best VR game this year for non-Quest 3 and it looks worse than many older VR titles.
And most PS4 games.
Yes, and don’t let oliver creep in please
This would be amazing! PC VR has been my most enjoyable gaming experience this year.
Astro's playful physics was a personal highlight. Felt like being a hyperactive child in a ball pit.
It's mental stims everywhere, all the time. I love it.
looking like "old cgi" was a perfect comparison!
Yeah it was a great experience!
The physics and the feedback you get on the Dual Sense are so satisfying.
Cope.
Surprised Stellar Blade or Space Marine 2 didn't make the cut even as an honorable mention but Black Myth Wukong and Dragon's Dogma 2 did, with all their problems on console.
Nearly all the games here had performance issues, seems to be that games with good graphics these days come tandem with bad performance.
"with all their problems on console"....... ask about this 98% of pc owners without 4080/4090 only playing old decde or budgets equipments
Ehh. Stellar blade had some pretty boring looking levels. I played and beat this and wukong multiple times. Stellar is nice. It's not wukong with graphics, though.
Stellar Blade and Gran Blue Fantasy should have been at least mentioned. I don't even know how Outlaws made the list at all.
I mean console is irrelevant in these discussions. The point is highest end graphics potential on PC
Both Massive Entertainment (Star Wars Outlaws) and Machine Games (Indiana Jones) are Swedish developers. Not bad for a country of only ten million people.
The Scandinavians are doing well, there's also Remedy in Finland
@@Dionyzos And DICE, also in Sweden, they are responsible for the tech behind Dragon Age Veilguard. Sweden especially has been very good about tech in video games for a very long time.
"Not bad for a country of only ten million people."
Yeah, what a poor underdeveloped country. The struggle must've be hard. Can we get a Nobel peace prize for them already, especially for the average game with performance issues like Outlaws?
Star Wars OUTFLAWS !!??
Japanese know the game mechanics but they could spend extra Dev Time with graphics.
I don’t see people’s complaints with Hellblade, it doesn’t try to deceive anyone about what it is, if you go into it knowing what to expect it’s still a great experience and looks absolutely stunning
Agreed. I loved playing Hellblade II from begining to end. it was an experience piece and deserves to be in this list for sure.
Masterpiece. Kids will scream and hate everything that goes against their brainrot brains, 2 sec attention span and zero emotional maturity.
I think some of the pushback could be due to the fact that it's less mechanically involved for the player compared to the first game. It feels less gamey and more cinematic, and the first game was already pretty cinematic. I think the skewing of that balance irked some people.
It's a great experience, I think it's just a little bit worse than the original. If I rated the first as a 8.5, II is a 7.5-8. will definitely remember my experience with both
@@vertegrasI'm @ an 8 with it myself
You should include more footage. Hearing you explain about some scene looking really good and not having any game footage is meh.
Totally agree. Their weekly directs I get because it’s them yapping which is fine. But a yearly video about graphics, every second of this should be relevant footage
@@Pardudesome developers block them from using their own footage, or footage after a certain point.
@@Armataan The games are already out so why would they block them from showing their graphics!?? makes no sense!
I agree that Indy wins, the thing that edges it for me is the fact its high res, RT and 60fps on console, while also supporting full path tracing for PC.
It's not only that. It's also the visual stability of the game. I really think we got to start condemning and taking marks off games that try to push technology at the expense of visual stability.
I'm no longer impressed by graphics if this is the best current gaming has to offer.
@@joefawley9264i showed a screenshot to my wife. She said: "that's a game?!". You clearly didn't grow up playing Wolfenstein on a 386.
@@joefawley9264 in a few years PT (path tracing) will become much more accessible and then graphics will make their final leap.
@@Root_boy I grew up with Sega Genesis. Seems like PS4 could pull off these graphics fine
Hellblade 2 blew my mind. I loved that experience. I haven't been so immersed in a game atmosphere, combined with its story, in a while. Loved that sequel to Hellblade 1.
I love Indy, but Hellblade 2 deserved to win this. They even admit this is basically what PS6 games should look like. It literally looks a full generation better than everything else. Seriously. If PS6 games look like it but are 60fps and have more scope, i would feel perfectly satisfied with next generation of visuals.
Also, I feel they should kick that Penny game that John is clearly obsessed with and move Stellar Blade into the top 10. The fact it didn't even make honorable mention is insane. Game looks and runs great.
You guys are missing out on The Talos Principle 2: Some of the best Lumen UE5 Graphics & Lighting, amazing World & Level Design and phenomenal Artistic Direction.
And Talos 2's massive DLC Expansion (2024): Road to Elysium: The visuals are phenomenal - the models, material work, atmosphere, Lumen GI Lighting etc - I played on PS5 Performance Mode and now playing on PS5 Pro on Quality 60 FPS. I can't imagine how amazing the game must look on high end PC with full RT Reflections as well!
Please cover The Talos Principle 2+ DLCs in your next PS5 Pro video!
Talos 2 is a gem of a game, and it is a visual treat.
It's from last year though. They talked a bit about it last year when it came out and all their footage was from the starting area of the game (tutorial basically, that doesn't look nearly as good as some of the epic later areas). From which I kinda concluded that this type of highly cerebral puzzle games aren't their cup of tea. 😢
@@kosmosyche DLC is from this year 2024. They also DIDN'T cover it last year and didn't mention it in the top graphics list - and I'm sure it blows mostly of 2023-2024 games out of the water - in visuals design, graphics prowess, tech utilization and artistic vision.
Also I think it's important to revisit older games that are Upgraded by the Pro, Talos 2 doesn't have a Pro Enhanced Update yet sadly - but still benefits from Pro Game Boost: Quality Mode at 60 FPS!
Oh and to add to this: I totally agree. They BARELY showed the beginning Egyptian Throwback area that was supposed to look less than realistic because it simulated the SIMULATION that is TALOS 1. IT WAS A THROWBACK.
They didn't cover the actual game that only gets progressively better, more stunning and more mind blowing. They didn't go into the Mega Structure, or Anthropic Hills, or the islands and snow areas. They never checked out the amazingly gorgeous, immersive and mind bending DLCs. Even if it's not their type of game - they mentioned freaking Riven, but not Talos 2 - which is my GOTY of 2023-2024 by a long shot (along FF16 in 2023).
@@normanblack4005 for sure man! Playing this right now on PlayStation 5 Pro - after Platinum 100% the main game and beating 2 DLCs out of 3. Now I'm playing on Quality Mode running a smooth solid 60fps! I still want a Pro Enhanced label on this with an actual PS5 Pro Patch Update. Maybe at the Ray Tracing Reflections especially in photo mode. PSSR AI Upscale up to actual 4K! 120 HZ support. Remove of ghosting artifacts etc. The game can look so much better than it already does.
Where is Space Marine 2? The quality mode on the Pro and PC is some of the best graphics of the year.
Cope.
The only thing I don't love about the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's visuals are the characters faces. They're not terrible, but they have that almost cartoony look that their Wolfenstein games have.
Thank you all for the hard work and dedication over the years
Always an interesting video. My personal graphical highlight of the year is Indiana Jones. To support high resolutions, 60 fps and ray tracing all at once on both Series X and S blew me away. And besides that its a damn fun game too!
Shame we couldn't get a HDR option in the video settings... Especially considering it is a best graphics presentation. Prior, DF HDR content spoilt us.
May have been because some of the showcased games (like Wukong and Astro Bot) don't support HDR. Who knows though, maybe that wasn't the reason.
@@molsen7549 Astro bot doesnt have HDR really? That game is a pure tech showcase how can they forget HDR?
@@rejectxzit has hdr, but it isn't that great
@@helloguy8934 I think the HDR black level is just mismatched, but if you incorrectly set your black level to the limited range while having the game output of the full range, it seems to look perfect. I think they just really screwed up somewhere in the pipeline and accidentally compressed the output to the limited range for hdr. Give it a try if you have a chance
i gotta say purely graphics its HB2 its just so consistent, IJ is great but it has issues with its LOD on effects, it isnt as consistent as HB2 across the platforms. HB2 is just consistent rendering wise its almost flawless. I also disagree that its like a FMV style game. It's a curated linear narrative game with some open-ish areas. We're just fed so many open/semi open games a linear game always gets compared to more open games. Its an unfair comparison.
Graphics : hellblade 2 sets new standards in gaming.
Illumination/path tracing: Indiana jones is goat
result xbox won but they give award astro bot again. and still no one buying for xbox for hellbadle indie and stalker 2. its like segasaturn vs ps1 time what ever made xbox doesnt matter.
@@MrStrangermoonthis is about game graphics not a console war.
Hellblade 2 looks good even when running at lower settings for xbox series S. For Indiana jones, at lower settings or when not using path tracing, shadows flicker and pop in.
If we compare both games at max settings, Hellblade 2 has higher environment and model detail. Indiana jones still has aggressive lod transitions at max settings which wouldn't happen with nanite in ue5.
@@aquaneon8012 you want struggle all games unreal . god no.
@@aquaneon8012 Not much is going on in Hellblade in most scenes so I would say Indiana Jones is more impressive. Great graphics, ray tracing, high resolution, 60fps. Gotta give it to Indiana Jones
Hellblade 2 is a new level in real time graphics.
Real time walking simulstor with very little gameplay and it's only like 5 hours lol. If it had more going on it'd be more impressive
Fake game.
It's a new level in linearity, invisible walls, and copy-paste combat too.
Wukong on consoles is far inferior to Horizon. Graphics are full of noise, likely from poor upscaling technology or very low internal resolution.
In my opinion, Wukong's graphics deserve a 6.5 on consoles, while Horizon is at least a 9.5.
The fact that Ubisoft is shitting its pants while still having it's games to come on top 3 of DF that too two consecutive years is a testament to how much talent the studio has which is such a shame because the execs are running the company into the ground.
on contrary, its testament to silly community hate bandwagon. DF being professional cant deny that outlaws is decent game with awesome graphics, while youtube clickbaiters pictured it as garbage game with ps3 graphics
Agreed. They might not be putting out great games, but there's undeniably a lot of talent, at least in some areas. The same has been true for Bethesda for a long time. Excellent visual design, bogged down by baffling quality elsewhere.
You are just a hater, and this video proves it.
Ubi open word games have stellar graphics. Last year, Avatar blew me out of my mind. Too bad it's a mediocre game otherwise, but I bought it just to see the lush jungles
They mostly have good artists. But their game direction and game design in general is...ehh
Another solid year of gaming. Despite what the people who are determined to hate everything say.
One reason why I love this channel. The fan base (mostly) isn’t a bunch of hateful clowns.
Almost every single game mentioned in this video has some kind of performance issues. Some of them unplayable. You keep consuming though 👍🏻
@@AJ-xv7oh most games even if they aren’t on this list do too. Bloodborne, Elden ring, many others have issues and are still great games. Maybe you’re just too picky pal. Keep missing out👍
They rewarding unoptimized games like Silent hill 2. Also Star Wars Outlaws second place ? Are you joking. The PC version of Red Dead Redemption looks better than that game.
@@randydonovan7844early 2000s developers didn't have the luxury to ship incomplete unoptimized games.
Have DF realised the Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 has released, with the amount of attention visuals on MSFS 2020 received i expected a bit more coverage.
FS2024 would've been top spot for sure if they had included it.
There are a LOT of games that get missed by DF for no good reason. Scheduling and time I guess.
They are probably waiting for a couple more patches, hopefully it gets a bit of attention from DF next year, as there is plenty there for them to talk about in terms of real-time rendering really pushed to the limits. But yes, I don't think the game was in a finished enough state for them to cover it at the end of this year, so I get why it wasn't here.
I think it released to late for this video, they mentioned how they started brainstorming for the video, but had to wait for Indiana Jones. Probably didn't want to wait for MSFS 2024
FS2024 is a mess is why
Agree with John on SH2, I have a 2000 nits TV and damn the lighting in the game is out of this world. From an artistic perspective the visuals are just beautifully crafted as well which the lighting enhances further. Rarely been as captured by a game's visuals and the atmosphere overall. Have to mention Stellar Blade as well, looks stunning and plays smooth as butter.
I think Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 should've taken Star Wars Outlaw's spot, or at least a honorable mention. It might have a lot of bugs but we're specifically talking graphics, and the graphics are very impressive.
they didn't even review it though ...
its kinda look like same with mfs 2020. ı still think ace combat 7 look better no ground dteail like mfs but on fly look better. there was aslo another unreal 4 jet game called projet wingman. also notice all this games scale down xbox one ps4 even switch but mfs 2020 not out on those so make game little less known. using always net no demo of game and size all these things make mfs down. mfs 2020 was pc physcal copy 10dvd now with 24 no dvd copy only usb stick for collector editon. not the mention launch problems.
So nice to see Xbox fans finally have a great year ❤
Next year will be a good year for Microsoft as well. Lots of good stuff that will be launching on gamepass day one.
That is definitely a brand
Notice how the vast majority of these games with cutting edge graphics are also the ones with the most unstable performance, I get that good graphics aren't cheap on performance, but when you can't even get low but stable/consistent performance it's just plain bad.... Something's gotta change soon because this issue seems to be getting worse with each year. With nearly every game launch i'm finding myself looking for fixes on nexus mods just to barely make these games playable out the box.
All this to promote/switch to digital only(buy now fix/get later).
Physical media/Ver 1.0 in most games is a buggy mess.
1y after is the "final" version of set game, some even had relaunches under the name(Definitive Editions) Sleeping Dogs,Tomb Raider's Reboot Trilogy,etc in some cases 2y like for Cyberpunk 2077.
Imagine the "perservation" on Cyberpunk 2077 launch discs for PS4/XboxOne day one no patch,if no online solution will be in the future.
Still, they actually made sure to honor the game that IS well optimized as a winner, and good on them for that reason.
Technical directors nowadays be like: "Make a game to be fully path traced and have THE BEST hair physX". Who carers it will run at 240p upscaled to 8k with frame gen to compensate. Some of those games not only are unstable but are also upscaled into oblivion from 720p looking like a blurry mess. I just finished horizon zero dawn remaster on ps5 pro and the sharpness at 60fps, the asset quality was such a refresh. Astrobot looking like a game this gen should.... DF started this gen from praising "pixel level detail/geometry" on games, while now the pixels are the size of a fridge and all the texturing/modeling hard work devs did disappears. From such a low resolutions you just can't upscale to sharp moving image with current tech - they should stop saying "4k like resolution" unless it's actually that (like with some DLSS examples).Veilguard making the list is such a abomination. Dragon's dogma probably too. Still have silent hill to judge.
I 100%.
DF has become a Niche Channel all about cutting edge graphics cost of everything else kinda be damed.
I miss the OLD DF that would call out the BUllshit of Software and Hardware..
Like the PS5 Pro actually NOT being worth the Price. It does do $300 better then a PS5 + With NO DISC DRIVE you can do alot Less.
And yet last genration we had Uncharted 4,Red dead redemption 2, Final Fantasy VII remake, and The last of us part 2 which were all the best looking games when they came out and all launched as CONSOLE EXCLUSIVES while running at stable framerates.
Gonna have to go with Crysis for the 18th year in a row.
Them characters models look rough nowadays
@@00-JT Yup
The original Crysis was barely the best-looking game release of 2007.
This is ridiculous@@VariantAEC
@@GustavoFil350 that year also had COD4, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Uncharted and Halo 3.
1:10:00 I think I might have to pickup Outlaws. It looks good, runs good, the world seems full of little things and fun to explore, yeah, it might not be groundbreaking but it seems like it's a solid 7.5/10, and that's always a fun time.
I'm waiting for them to release their planned updates like the stealth update and then I'll jump in on sale
@@chettlar212 They did.
@@Eifoz I thought they had something planned for january?
FF Rebirth can't possibly be 1080p on a base ps5. If it is, then there is a heavy blur filter on top because 1080p doesn't look that low res. Not robust.
Yes. It's the upscaler doing a poor job. Really bad upscalers like fsr1 can do that.
Sorry john but that penny game should not be on the list.
Is about best graphics not about effort.
Agreed with Indy and HB2, either could have taken the #1 spot and I would have been fine.
Astro Bot is my favorite game in years. It's the main reason I bought a (used) PS5 and to me it was totally worth it. I've been playing video games since the 90s, and in the past few years I slowly stopped caring about graphics - in the past decade, two of my favorite games were Factorio and Minecraft. Astro Bot for me brought back my joy with good graphics! I have a nice mid-range TV and sound system, so 4K / OLED / HDR / 5.1, and this game feels right at home there.
You have to play more games lol
No game should be played at 30fps, this needs to be the 2025 trend.
The video is titled "Best Graphics" not "Best Performance" people. You guys act like they don't know how these run when they covered them.
Chill out.
This is a silly comment, considering that they explicitly discuss performance throughout... And for the record motion fluidity is part of graphics!
Bad take. If the game can't run smoothly, I don't care how good the graphics are. I'm not going back to playing Hard Drivin' on the Genesis, it was absolutely terrible.
With so many effects relying on temporal data, performance matters for how they look :v
DF are the only ones really complaining about performance, and yet the worst performers wound up getting the most love.
Is calling out the hypocrisy not okay all of a sudden?
No Stellar Blade or Space Marine 2. Yeah.
And of course everyone is finding something to complain about...
I think it’s a fine enough list
No stellar blade? Its jaw dropping on ps5 pro. best visuals of the yr imo
It looks good but some of the stuff on pc with maxed out settings is just jaw dropping
Funny
Hellblade is a pivotal game, even if with little gameplay features. We will see more of good UE5 games, we just need devs to read how Ninja theory did it, and improve on that, wait for another next gen GPUs, and we will be playing really CGI games.
If a game actually uses all the latest UE5.5 features and Ninja theory performance tweaks, releases without stutters on the 5090 with the Nvidia branch of UE5 with Hellblade art direction it will be realtime CGI.
I played it on a 4080S on 4K with 1000 nit HDR (all max except volumetrics medium) with tweaks to the config to remove black bars (real full screen) and disable chroma aberation, distorsion and film grain. Had to use DLSS Balanced (2,227 x 1,253 pre upscale), with Framegen, and limit FPS to 90 to get a flat-rate frame graph. But it worked well even if the starting FPS is going down to 45, since it is slower paced. With next gen GPUs UE5 could really shine if devs start actually to care about FPS consistency pre release and instead of post release patches.
Hope CDPR does good to the Witcher. We need some good UE5 at some point.
Super enjoying this. What I would really like to see: DF speaking out what is the best graphics on console. It can be a bit messy to switch between PC and console in the way that you have. I feel like some games do so much better on pc (e.g. BM Wukong, AW2) and others scale really well on console. I would love your clear vision on that.
I really did love the accessible ray tracing implementation and the immersive artwork of Star Wars Outlaws. The game really looked lovely in letterbox mode. Yea the story sucked but while everyone was complaining about the game, I enjoyed exploring the world.
I wouldn't even say the story sucked, a few scenes had some cringe-worthy writing though. But overall, the open world genre mix was fun and very atmospheric. I liked it more than i thought.
I picked up Outlaws at BB on sale and have really been enjoying it don’t really understand all the hate
@johnwoesthoff2259 it's just culture war bullshit. Game is good. Not stellar but good
@ I’m over both sides of that argument just trying to get my game on when off work
@@ApologyforPepology Better than Jedi Survivor? Was planning on getting it.
Alex rocking that Dream Theater shirt
With all my respect to John, and his love for the oldschool (which is mainly why I started following DF to be honest), but Penny has no place in this video. I don't want to offend its creators, many things are subjective, like maybe the character design being unappealing, and colors feeling not bright enough, the sterile environments, and the weird DoF effect, but putting this game among the rest of the video, makes the "Another Phenomenal Year!" part title sound like a joke. Everyone but John was staying there in an awkward silence while John was praising the visuals, but what cracked me up is when he tried to squeeze some words from Alex and it was hard for him to say anything positve lol.
I don't think it's should be one the list either. Could have filled it with something more impressive
Absolutely agree. This feels like a case of letting the game itself and its development history cloud one's view of the technical aspects. It shouldn't matter that they build it from scratch, it still looks distinctly average and like many other unremarkable 3D platformer throwbacks we've seen over the years.
Yeah, you can see it in Alex's and Oliver's eyes, too, they understand that it's not a serious choice. Oh well, let John have his retro toy.
100 percent agreed
agree but also astro bot should not be in this video. astro bot first demo was john 2020 video on that time not in graphics of year vide. 4 year later new astro bot look good but not so ahead of that first demo. outcast new begging should be in video. you are using jetpack in that game flying every where unreal open wold game yet work good. should be in honorable mentions.
Hellblade 2 has no equal , everybody else fighting for second .
It's the first title that can actually meet the quality level set by the Matrix Awakens demo
Except it was given second unanimously by DF. I do think it's a little sad that they've given it two years in a row to movie based videogames, because no matter how good Indiana and Avatar look they'll always be second to the films, whereas Hellblade and Alan Wake both build their own visual designs that help lend to their surrealist quality. Either way, great job DF, thanks for shouting out Riven.
My one honorable mention would have to be Harold Halibut, a game that isn't especially technically impressive, but has such high resolution scans of its puppetry and art that it feels like on set but all the puppet strings are invisible. A timeless art style for sure
To be honest, I was completely underwhelmed by the game. Basically it's a walking simulator and one that only runs at 30 fps on console.
@@Jamic9 Do you really need more fps on a walking simulator/story based game? Btw we are talking about graphics and this game uses its graphics for storytelling so well that the 30 fps really is justifiable.
@@Mikefiser It's not as necessary but it certainly would help when you're panning the camera around to enjoy the scenery. Or just walking around, moving the camera from side to side.
59:05 can't believe Rich is gone...🙏
Rich no longer in the here and now
Is gone! What do u mean by that dude. Is gone
What ?
Next Df Direct:...."Somehow Rich has returned."
@MrMeow-xl7pd ok! Got it
I hope they eventually add full RT shadows and reflections to bodies of water to indiana jones so it can look even more incredible.
It will need a mako reactor from Midgar to run
Think that if they fixed the stuttering and framerate inconsistency in Wukong, it would be my #1. It’s a shame about the performance problems.
Are you playing on console or pc?
Excellent top three. All very much deserved.
silent hill 2 remake is just incredible, my goty right next to stellar blade
awesome taste! just finished SH2 which is my goty, what an experience. Now playing SB which im not mad at as goty, right after SH2 for me, it's the whole package, so damn fun, and man it looks stunning.
2 Xbox games 😊
3 stalker 2 also. xbox won kinda but outside of df they give astro bot goty.
@MrStrangermoon Astro bot looks fun. I'll probably pick it up eventually when a deep sale eventually happens... Like when it eventually hits the 19.99 PS greatest hits.
@@MrStrangermoon The is best graphics, not best game
before people start getting mad at some of the choices, please note DF is doing a review on the presentation/engine features, not the gameplay.
with that said. DA:V has honestly the best hair rendering i have ever seen in a game.
Genuinely surprised that Stellar Blade didn't get honorable mention at least.
Because it’s crap.
Probably becuase this is a PC max settings graphics comparison. Stellar blade is not on PC yet. We might see it featured next year.
Agreed. Stellar blade is a beautiful game.
Yay! I did a TH-cam search for this very video, yesterday. I always look forward to their graphics review. The techniques available to devs and how they use them to build game worlds is particularly interesting to me. Digital Foundry, Spawnwave and a few others really have served to fill the voids left by the lack of printed gaming magazines, as well as giving us familiar, consistent places to go that we all depend on for our gaming and tech news. Thanks DF
The snow drop engine in Star wars Outlaws is outstanding. The Raytracing is crazy
A very curious thing is why The Callisto Protocol, with its awful stuttering-worse than Silent Hill 2-was in second place in 2022, while Silent Hill 2 isn't in the top 3 because of stuttering on PC. It's not perfect on consoles, but the stuttering is certainly not a major issue there, especially on the PS5 Pro
ive played it on base PS5, a combination of perf/quality mode and both were fine to me, did not detract much from my experience, and what an experience it was ^^
FFVII Rebirth... The game suffers from insane pop-in. While static images look great, the experience falls apart when moving across the map.
I was just waiting for the moment someone to disagree and say they think one of them looked like crap.
penny big "take it away from this list because it is awful looking"
@@FrawgfithAmblose Alex: "This Penny game makes my eyes bleed. Dafuq, John?"
I was sensing that he didn't quite agree but was being polite. lol. "Nice depth of field effect, bro."
It's a good game, tbf. The devs creating their own engine is the only way John managed to sneak it onto this list though.
Avatar graphics still goated!
DA:V has the best hair I have ever seen in a game.
That's where they were focusing on. At least they got one thing right
All that blight must have conditioner in it
EVERYTHING else besides the hair sucks. I guess the one skilled guy that still works at bioware made the hair. The others were inventing new genders...
The Talos Principle 2 Dlc
I feel like Talos Principle 2 was the game that was the most unfairly slighted by DF. They bounced off the first 30 minutes long tutorial puzzles and never properly reviewed the main portion of the game with its beautiful large and dense open areas. Despite me and others commenting about that multiple times, DF have never acknowledged how they have failed to represent the 99% of the original game, either out or ignorance, or because of their unwillingness to admit their mistake.
It is still to this day remains one of the most beautiful games I’ve played, but I’m not holding my breath for DF to do it justice, to say nothing about covering the DLC content
@@Shantara11 Another masterpiece in visuals but being a different style in 2.5D is: Trine 5. And Trine 4 as well with the dlc.
@@Shantara11 Seriously, with all due respect, how is the Riven remake on this list while The Talos Principle 2 was ignored last year? Other than John's nostalgia for the original Riven making him notice the remake, I can't see how that makes sense.
TTP2 is one of the most beautiful and highest quality games in general this gen. Was my GOTY last year.
From such a fairly small team too. Very odd that they never mention it and seemingly just booted up the tutorial area. 😔
Star Wars Outlaws image quality is so blurry, 'ghosty' and 'smeary' with a c!@pton of noise and 'screen boiling' effect (from bad denoising) that I can't believe it made it to the list at all. So what if lightning etc looks good, if the image quality even on 4k native looks like 720p?
Well deserved for HB2, best looking game in history in terms of graphics.
AW2 not being in the honorable mentions at least is weird.
Alan Wake 2 is a 2023 game.
49:18 I know people wanted Metaphor (my personal runner up for GotY) and BMW (haven't played it so I can't judge), but Astro Bot really was the most fun I've had playing a game this year.
All smart and good people wanted AstroBot for GOTY😊
I still get confused how Indiana Jones looks that good running at 60fps on Xbox Series. Looking at this generation it almost feels like a miracle. And included on Gamepass? Man…
Because games weren't optimized for Series X but for the weaker console which is PS5. Now you have a situation where some games play better on Series X even than on PS5 Pro. Thats just showing how much unused potential was there whole time.
@@nikolagvozdenovic940games werent optimised for xsx? Which cross platform games that ps5 performs better were not optimised? I’d love to know which titles you’re referring to.
@@vigour6786 i am not talking about "Series optimised"
I am talking about MAKING game from the ground up for a specific hardware.
It's pretty obvious that they used PS5 for most multiplats as benchmark to optimise while not testing/optimising enough for Xbox consoles.
@@nikolagvozdenovic940The weaker console is not PS5, is Series S
@@nikolagvozdenovic940 which games were benchmarked and primarily optimised for ps5 rather than xsx?
I have been working with CG since the 80's and Indy is indeed a stunner. What an amazing job they did; even pixel peeping. Riven as well in VR. And this channel is amazing, thank you!
26:42 Omg Thank you….. I was looking for the name of that game for so long. I was about to cry when you started talking about it lol. my dad went to his friend house to buy a copy of Riven for me and bro. Men… I’m old. Good old times.!
Btw the game was on console by that time. I think it was ps1,sega genesis. I can’t remember which one.
It was ported to PS1 shortly after the PC release. The following year, it was ported to Sega Saturn in Europe only.
The Genesis could never be able to handle it, except for maybe with the Sega CD add-on, but Sega had long moved on by then.
@ oh I see. It’s been so long tho. Ty
there is another game out from 1999 this year Outcast new begging. its kinda re imaginaiton of first game like new river . should be in this video but jonhn already make vidoe for that. my favorite fmv game those times is xfiles and ı think xfiles fmv charaters way better than riven you feel in x files episode not just traviel around. my seconf fmv game was byzantine game. ı also mention they said slient hill 2 orginal was impressive that time ı dont agree that there waas pc exlusive survival horor game out 1999 Nocturne. terminal reaility game that game graphics look like ray tracing today shadows lightings even sh2 reamke or alan wake 2 not beat nocturne yet. check outcast and nocturne they suppose to out sega dreamcast with half life 1 but when dc died they stuck on pc. alone in dark remake also out this year another game those years with that and sh2 remake out this year make only dino crisis and nocturne not remaked from end of 90s. dino crisis remake probably happen capcom and maybe night dive studios relase nocturne again like the thing this year. nocturne engine that time was better looking than unreal and quake engines. such a crime that no one knows.
What are your thoughts on Tekken 8? I know it’s nothing compared to these large scale games but it always felt like a pretty impressive game visually, especially the insane detail in photo mode.
Missed honorable mention of Visions of Mana, just an insanely beautiful game
@@beardalaxythey have Astro Bot and anime games on their list
People get real loud when the Series S has performance and porting issues but then get reeeeeeeeal quiet when its able to pull off stuff like Indiana Jones and Hellblade 2. I love how much a little box like that has been able to do this gen! (still wish it had more VRAM tho lol)
Two best looking games of the year run great on the console too, which is funny.
The system is still garbage.
@@ZackSNetwork It's fair enough console considering how small and cheaper it is than the SX and PS5.
@@ZackSNetworkit's still better than alot of lower end pc it also beats rog all z1 extreme quite alot
ı try to load hell blade 2 with hdd 1050 it kinda worked 20 fps and crashed after arrive on land but with patches ı think be ok. series s realt test is gta6 . if gta 6 play 20 fps something series s no chance to suvive as console if works 30fps stable doest matter even future games not out series s. its great console but no disc drive pointless bcouse you see inside empty enough to put disc drive.
Great video guys. Very genuine and this was a blast. 😃👍
bot?
If you only play Playstation, it's steller blade/Tekken. If you have perspective and game everywhere, it is hell blade and Indy
I only played the first 1.5 hours of SH2 and I didn't like the graphics at all. Lumen RT looks terrible even with hardware RT turned on, the reflections and shadows look awful and the shimmering/boiling artifacts are constant. Boggles my mind how no one mentioned it here.
Star Wars outlaws is epic ! ❤ game of the year for me , at 50 years of age , I feel they really captured the essence ! It’s not perfect , but close enough.
I feel bad for algorithm zombies who missed out …
Meh… to me (a 52 year old) it’s just yet another Ubisoft open world game that I’ve played a hundred times before… but now with a Star Wars skin. In gameplay terms, it’s identical to Asassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, Far Cry, etc. and does absolutely nothing new or original. Left me cold, I’m afraid… but then so do the Star Wars movies these days.
@@happyspaceinvader508There's no way in hell you actually played the game. It's the least Ubisoft game that Ubisoft has made in years.
@@happyspaceinvader508 Did you actually play it?
Indy has been super fun, and is cool to see it take the top spot here this year! Though I find it interesting that from a purely average/mid range hardware graphics output perspective (imo 1440p High Settings Quality or Balanced DLSS) I honestly feel that this may be the first year where last year's pick looks better in most scenes than this year's. Indy can totally still be stunning in many areas (especially with enthusiast hardware), but there's still so many areas in Avatar that feel so ahead of anything else... honestly so un videogame-like in it's presentation. Super excited for the future with both of these games existing!
Wow. Lots of butt hurt comments 😅. Go play games. Go on... shoo!
Who would have thought that film based game will be such a high quality, but it speaks about people from Machine Games.
id Tech engine! 😎
What John says at 1:07:00 is not true, and you can look up the early DLSS 3 coverage to prove it. Alex specifically said that DLSS 3 Frame Generation works well from ~30-60 even with "weapon reloads right up in the camera frustrum" - DIRECT QUOTE. Rich had also echoed similar sentiments. The problem here is referring blandly to "frame generation" and not making a distinction between Nvidia's implementation and AMD's inferior implementation. But I guess DF doesn't want to directly name AMD's solution as inferior...
It’s not that deep
Hellblade 2 is definetly the visual / technical Best looking Game ever made. But i am missing cod BO6 in that list. Looks also phenomenal.
I played Hellblade 2 on a 4K screen and my jaw was constantly dropping. Closet I have come to playing a movie.
if you want hellblade 2 like graphics and play as bo6. answer is battlefront 2015. plus better than cod have vehicles and heros.
A tough call for sure, as all these games allow for such a varied experience of freedom in exploring them and how you can interact with the world. Im very happy to see astrobot here, it makes me super jealous that I dont have a PS5 :( the physics stuff in there asides from being cool to interact with is also soooo visually pleasing. I hope we see that game on PC some day
No mention of Space Marine 2, Stellar Blade or Tekken 8
Space Marine 2 looks great no shot best graphics of the year
Certainly considered but purposefully not included, the latter two are in Johns game of the year video
They play more than just PS5. They have perspective
Space marine 2 is a sub 1080p game. It's mediocre looking at best
@@KingBookerT1987 Mhm, but Penny is truly a graphics breakthrough right?
Hwy guys. Great video as always but next year, can you please include more footage / gameplay in relation to what you guys are talking about? There was a lot of discussion about each game and very rarely any footage to show what you are talking about. It struck me that you were using footage captured previously and not new footage captured to show what you were describing in each game.
Im suprised Space Marine 2 didnt make the cut.
It looks great not smazing but pushes the noc count to 11
That game looks like it came out in 2010 graphically, and 2005 gameplay wise.
is that a good or a bad thing.
@@ygny1116 Please tell me a game from 2010 that looks like Space Marine 2. Draw distance, ai count, ambient occlusion, textures, poly count, etc.
Gameplay I agree. It wasn't trying to play like a new gsme.
@@devonmarr9872 Looks little better than Bioshock 2, GOW3 and BF bad company 2 and etc, with lots less interactivity.
@ygny1116 a lot better than Bioshock 2, what are you smoking?
Way more high res textures and poly count than GOW3 and BF bad company2, way more ai, way more npc action, more destruction than GOW3. Larger environments than either. Better motion capture. Cloth simulation is better.
Not that it deserves a top 10, but it's a shame that the crew overlooked Infinity Nikki in their honorable mentions discussions. It's a fantastic open-world game that uses RTGI, RT shadows, and some RT reflections to make its world absolutely gorgeous. The sheer amount of flowers and environment details leaves me stunned every time i play it- but the vast majority of people who play it aren't going to see this detail as it's primarily mobile-focused, and the mobile version of the game cuts down a massive swath of the environment
How is stellar blade not in this discussion?
Maybe they just didn't care for it, maybe it's not as good-looking as people think it is
@@jamesw884 John has explicitly praised it as a good-looking and technically accomplished game previously, including putting it on his top 10 games of the year just a few days -ago!
Super video. I agree with the top two wholeheartedly. Amazing visuals in both, but very different games.
This is literally the highlight of the year. The festive period wouldn't be complete without the df "best graphics" list
Thank you DF for a fantastic year full of wonderful content, discussions and passion. Happy new year to all of you.
Nothing comes close to Hellblade 2.
battlefront 2015
Cygni was really slept on this year. Especially by John.
Happy Gaming 2025!!!
Only thing "person" missing from this year's "best graphic's in gaming" video is none other than Richard Leadbetter! Appreciate his take on Graphics Technology.
No Tekken 8 mention? 😢
Tiny Glade as a competitive city-building, real-time strategy game would be really something.
If I were the dev this game would be a good base for that as their next game.
Returning to Cyberpunk 2077 this year and it keeps winning!
At this point, cyberpunk is a master ship. They made a 180 degrees turn with this game. It just took them 4 years. And more tweaking to come in January.
I play with full pathtracing and it looks photorealistic. Still the best looking game to date; and the Witcher 3's new coat of paint delivers in spades too.
i didn't like the combat, felt weightless to me. That was at release though, maybe it's better or maybe it's intended that way
I am so so so happy that three different engines are represented in the top 3. Great return to form for the industry.
I think everyone needs to calm down a little bit. These are just personal lists from the digital foundry crew. Not some curated game awards show.
A curated game awards show whose primary goal is to make money, which comes directly off of advertising which means they need the highest viewer count possible which forces them to appeal to the largest and most fervent userbase?
"Curated game awards show" are also personal lists from whatever crew rates them. I think a lot of the gaming public is either mentally a child or literally a child, that's the main reason seemingly everyone is always shouting about trivial nonsense in this space.
It's perfectly ok to criticize their choices on their terms, this isn't an entirely subjective list, it's based on concrete material properties like framerate and lighting quality, etc. It's a good list but some of the comments critiquing it are correct imo. DF didn't even review Flight Simulator 2024, and one could argue it should win the #1 spot. Tekken 8, Stellar Blade, and Space Marine 2 all have good arguments for them over many of the "honorable mentions" even judging by DF's own reviews!
Just because we are critical doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate their contributions. Lists like this will always have discussion and rebuttal.
Indiana Jones would probably also be my pick. It takes the cake for me by being so optimized that it can even run at 60 on consoles and lower end PC hardware with such fidelity. Graphics is the symbiosis of tech and art style and The Great Circle really nailed it
I thought Hunt Showdown was visually more impressive than Stalker 2. That latest version of the CryEngine V just looked spectacular, vs UE5.