When I was a youngling, graphics improved quickly and that made older games look worse by every year. What initially looked amazing and “life-like” turned dated in just a couple of years, however it seems graphics has plateaued in the last ten-ish years.
I would say that we reached the point of diminishing returns around next-gen GTA V / MGS V. Not that you can’t see the difference between those and modern games, but it’s nowhere the leap from San Andreas to GTA IV.
I recently started playing MGS V again and I’m shocked at how good it still looks, compare it to RDD 2 and you would probably need a side by side comparison to see the extra detail.
We have finally reached a point where old games dont get less immersive because our baseline in visual fidelity keeps increasing, or if it does it’s atleast a lot slower.
From a game design perspective, realistic graphics are not the right way to go, almost ever.
Players need big, bold, exaggerated, unambiguous visual cues.
Yeah, we need to see a big red glowing guy to know he’s the bad dude. We need gigantic oversized, conspicuously obvious doors and portal ways. We need obvious paths stomped out on the ground so we know where is a legal place to go and what is worthwhile. We need the special thing we’re supposed to pick up to have a giant glowing pink halo. The bad guys are all supposed to be in the same obvious purple uniform.
Realistic graphics are the crutch of the clueless game designer.