Realistic or Cartoony?

"Triplis;c-17918661" wrote:

"Beardedgeek;c-17918652" wrote:
There is a reason why WoW is still relevant in 2021. The art style (upgraded as it is) has aged very well, while games that looked "AWESOME" back then looks incredibly bad now.

I wonder though, is it really because of "realistic art style" that some games graphics don't age well, or is it because they were realistic art style in a time when models still had to be very noticeably blocky... very low polygon count and low texture? I mean, Skyrim is like 10 years old now and it still looks good to me (granted, it gets help from mods and the Special Edition update)... but those things only do so much to help, it's not like they are changing the entire graphical engine and what it can handle. And then you have a game like TS4, where mods can help it look more realistic, but they can only do so much to change how cartoony it looks. So even given the opportunity to improve on that front, it is much more limited in what you can do with it.

It seems to me that after a point, the degrees of graphical photo realism are becoming less distinguishable from game to game. Like to the point you almost need a side by side illustration to really make the point that there's improvement. With a side by side, it can be stark to see, but without it, maybe you wouldn't think about it that much. I suspect lighting is part of what contributes to this. It seems like harsh lighting can effectively wash out higher res textures, making it less distinguishable when a game is taking advantage of them.

It depends on how Realistic your Realistic is.
Skyrim is getting old, but not as old as FO3 or NV. But somewhere there is a line where realism ages "better". Of course it is easier in games without humans like racing games; Forza Horizon 3 still looks awesome, but it is easier to make detailed renders of dead objects like cars, obviously.

The BIG key except for old blocky "realistic" graphics is the Uncanny Valley. Skyrim and FO3 and 4 all avoids that, while Oblivion (and Sims 3) definitely has it.
Assassins Creed and Mass Effect definitely avoids it.

That said it is still easier to make a well defined cartoony art style stay "good looking" over the years; Skyrim looks good for being so old, it doesn't actually look good while Sims 4 still look damn fantastic exactly because the art style is exactly that: stylized and on point. It's the same reason why heavily stylized animated movies like say Frozen or Big Hero 6 looks so much better than Monster University, because although MU had "photo realistic backgrounds" (room renders etc) the actual animation was pretty bad.
And of course why hand drawn cartoons never get old.