Control and Resident Evil 2 Remake still look incredible and run well on fairly inexpensive hardware today. We don't need globally illuminated Unreal Engine 5 games with individually modeled nostril hairs on each character that require graphics cards with prices in the three digit range
Graphics should just be kept at late PS4 level for the foreseeable future to keep games as accessible as possible
I think photo-realism is nice and all, but I think devs shouldn't focus too much on it. I'm not saying they should avoid it. Just don't obsessive over it, or see it was the main selling point of a game.
I really do appreciate the impressive work that devs have put into games, whether the graphics are on the higher end or lo-fi 8bit or 16bit style.
Personally, I really like cel shaded games, and that's been around a long time already. When I see something that "looks" like a cartoon, my mind naturally thinks of fun. 😃
I wonder how much of the push for absurd fidelity photorealism is by the game devs, as opposed to the publishers/upper management?
Imo a lot of the effort is coming out of film animation and doctorate mathematicians, but I don't doubt Unreal is funding a lot of that research