Psychonauts!!

There are several games who we're just "this looks like reality" when they released who have aged well too. Half-life 2 (even without the updates) being the first one I think of, but I also think the first Far Cry and Crysis look amazing even now. Good design will age well no matter, the only thing that goes away is the immediate excitement of how impressively real it looks for the ones that went for that, but they still stir something inside people who experience them for the first time decades later.

When reflections became a thing in graphics, they were the new hotness. But unfortunately they're overused because people seem to think that reflections are the best indicator of graphical realism. They're a factor for sure, but overly reflective isn't the same as realistic reflections

This works for a tech demo if you want to show off a new rendering engine or a new GPU. But yeah, if you base the whole game around that, it's like those movies with more CGI than plot.

In this world, there is no dust or dirt and everything looks like an early 2000’s Apple product.

I mean, effects like these have their time and place as well. Looking for a sci-fi setting in a distant future where these robots coming fresh out the factory like that? Cool. But I get your sentiment, if everything just looks like this because it just can and no conceptual thought goes into it, it’s crap.

Hah. Remember in the Xbox 360 era when everything looked like it was wrapped in saran wrap? I hated that so much. It's like - some if not most objects are not that reflective. Yes light bounces off of things, but it's such an "all or none" solution. Things in real life are so much more diffused.

I wish they'd make more games that have unique art styles.

Similarly Schedule I. Tyler optimized TF out of the very unrealistic graphics in that game, and is only hiring an artist so that the expansion looks pretty.

Anyone who says photorealism and stylized art are mutually exclusive needs to play Clair Obscur, then delete their comment

Plague tale (requiem in particular) is also ridiculously beautiful on mid range GPUs. I couldn't believe my graphic card was able to do that. It's a shame games reviews and screenshots don't account for average setups because that's what most of us have and some developers deserve praise to make it work for us.

something that often looks "photorealistic" today will look really dated in a few years

Check the overall vibe of game cube games VS ps2/xbox. N64 VS PS1. Colourful pretty games stand the test of time way better than realism.

Agreed, it really depends on the game. Battlefield with Art Stylized graphics would look terrible, just like how if Final Fantasy was done with Realistic graphics would be weird.

Yes, you only have to replace your GPU with about 800 000 artists (assuming the take four hours to draw a frame)

There's a guy in my computer doing that for me

It's a shame that "In The Valley Of Gods" is unlikely to happen anymore.