Comment by ahartmetz

SSAO is cheap, doesn't work that well and looks terrible if overdone, as many games did 10-15 years ago. The simple workaround is to dial down the SSAO so that it's maybe weaker than ambient occlusion in reality, but also not noticeably wrong or overdone. Fortunately, the settings often allow that. Problem mostly solved!

It's a common pattern that newly possible (usually due to hardware) effects are overdone for the wow / up-to-date look effect.