Comment by Jtarii
16 hours ago
I think it was just studios competing with each other in the 2010s to see who could make the biggest most ambitious game worlds. Leading to ballooning dev costs and then a feedback loop of higher production costs leading to safer design decisions.
There was also a heavy emphasis on games being "cinematic" which necessitates photorealistic rendering.
AAA games have been pretty artless for a while now baring a couple exceptions.
It’s especially the “cinematic” bit that got me. It’s technically impressive, but isn’t as visually interesting as what lower budget games have been doing with less polygons and more inspiration.
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