Thank you!

@lucasgawor1059 your mother

thank you! an hour long video on this is ridiculous lol

​@@Ben-ts7utit really isn't if you've the attention spam to even care about why they chose what they did

👍🙌

Decima engine baby.

The reason it looks so good, is the large amount of fog that hides the draw distance, so things closer, look much better.

@@mash2481not even remotely true

@@mash2481 Stop trolling and come back when you actually played the game or at least saw videos.

And let's remember it still runs on PS4. I switched to it from Plague Tale Requiem (found the gameplay to be boring for me) and was just astonished just how crazy good it looks on PS4 Pro.

I think the problem comes from the fact that ray tracing is being slapped on top of rasterized lighting. When artists have worked hard to make their rasterized presentation look pleasing then raytracing passes are just iterative improvements. Right now consoles and most pc setups aren't powerful enough to present fully path traced lighting solutions without rasterization, but that's the ideal goal for the future of realtime rendering.

word. It looks insane on PS4 Pro

@@charoleawood facts.

RT is AMAZING when done right, but hardware is still not quite there to really take advantage of it, in the mean time games like HFW and A Plague Tale are very welcome!

I'd much rather prefer HDR over raytracing anyway

Agreed. What I like about them is that they listened to criticism and went out of their way to improve the graphics, even though the game was perfectly playable from launch. Sony/Polyphony Digital could learn a lot from Guerilla in hkw they're treating Gran Turismo 7, where the graphics were DOWNgraded after launch, and all criticism is ignored.

@@macsmith2013 gt7 looks great but the game doesn’t have ray tracing during gameplay

Mind bottling

The Callisto Protocol beats any other game!

@@Knives9 Mind-boggling occurs when a mind is overwhelmed; mind-bottling occurs when friends aren't kind enough to correct other friends on their improper use of common English phrases. Or the joke flew right on over me.

So I was playing HFW on my standard PS4 (not PRO) and there was some kind of checkerboard/dithering artifacts and they completely fixed it, that's amazing.

@@Serandi1987 No it doesn't

I absolutely loved Innocence and had such high expectations for Requiem, I was kinda worried it wouldn't meet them. It did. Best game I've played this year.

Is it true you guys never did an actual graphics video for Driveclub? All I see is framerate tests. Such a beautiful looking game, even by today's standards..

Underplayed? Hmm I thought launching in Game Pass really gave it a big push. For it being a budget title from an indie studio... It has been getting it's praises and I know everyone on my Xbox friends list was binge playing it!

@@RL_Stine_88 I've not seen any stats but people don't seem to be talking about it as much as say Elden Ring or God of War. I've not played either of them, but surely Requiem is good enough to be spoken about as much.

Sorry to be that guy, but IMO, If anything, it's talked about way too much as if it's some incredible game. It absolutely belongs in discussions about best graphics, no question there, you can make a solid(ish) point for including it when discussing something like best story or best narrative, but as an actual game...nah, I really don't get why the Plague Tale series is considered so amazing. Both of these are essentially glorified walking simulators (or interactive movies, if you will) where you walk through pretty areas and repeat a handful of pretty basic gameplay mechanics over and over.

What’s nutty to me about that game is for those who do use fast travel on PS5, it’s essentially instant no matter how far you’re traveling. What a technical marvel that game is.

Felt the same way, even flying felt wrong because so much beauty in the landscape was passed over too fast

Same for me. Whenever i wanna escape the world, I jump into horizon FW and just go for a walk and see where the wind takes me.

Same here. I also made the hud dynamic and was free roaming. I started flying and fast travel when i wanted to get the plat. I almost wish this game had no story and just put you in the world to experience it.

Agreed! Still waiting for Forbidden West to come to PC, but even while replaying Zero Dawn, I'm barely using fast travel at all because traversing the breathtaking environments is such a huge part of the experience.

To drive home this point even more, I've been playing path traced quake 1. The only update is the lighting, no texture or material work, and yet it feels completely new and provides a very engaging and different experience to any other version of quake 1. I think once Nvidia remix is out we are going to see a raytrace revolution.

Lighting is EVERYTHING. I love that gif that goes around where a light sources lights a woman's face from different angles, colors, and intensities and she looks VERY different on a regular basis.

@@abramjessiah Oh, not just Nvidia RTX. As RT capable graphics cards proliferate we're going to see old classics remade and relaunched with definitive RT versions.

There's nothing more important in graphics than lighting. MGS V, and Zelda BoTW prove this. Poor textures and geometry but still look gorgeous all thanks to the lighting. Also Metro Exodus. Though it has amazing shaders and the textures aren't bad by any means, it's RTGI is what makes it one of the best looking games ever Oh wait, much better examples of why lighting is so important are Minecraft and Quake 2 RTX. Especially minecraft. that game looks straight up bad without RT, but with it it looks incredible.

@@HugoStiglitz88 Yep! Doom 3’s visuals hold up pretty well thanks to its incredible lighting.

The reason why they don't give you 60fps mode is because they completely failed to optimize CPU performance on either console or PC. Therefore they give you some very minor RT features to "justify" what is essentially a CPU bottleneck that has little to do with the RT itself.

Gotham Nights doesn't even look as good as Arkham Knight. Shame of a game.

Gotham knights looks worse than the Arkham series

I'm happy they acknowledged that elden ring wasn't launched in a playable state. Game of the year for PC players

Good art direction is everything.

You also gotta see Demons souls remake. ImO thats the only game that looks better

@@HugoStiglitz88 no not even close

​@@HugoStiglitz88 not even close to hfw

@@HugoStiglitz88 Good looking game also but not close to HFW !

@@HugoStiglitz88 not even close!

Ya i was a bit disappointed they didnt push god of war further on the ps5. Definitely felt more held back by the ps4 than horizon

@@Melodicspade3 Just wait until both developers ditch those cross gen shackles. We will be in for a visual treat.

God of war was a better game overall. So it was a good balance

I totally agree best looking game for me this year is Horizon forbidden west, graphics are unreal

Who asked you?

Yeah influence developers to obssess over graphics instead of focusing on fresh game play ideas and innovation. Great idea.

@@ajsingh4545 Why not both? It doesn't have to be just graphics or just gameplay improvements.

@@ShamirQushairi Dude probably salty he can't play games with great graphics AND great gameplay.

@@gamingjay141 Or maybe just couldn't walk & chew gum at the same time

@@gamingjay141 I knew I was going to attract dumb comments like this. Keep em coming

Yup, if it wasn't the UI and compass you can legitimately get lost in its biomes.

@@RicochetForce You can turn it off.

DS2 is UE5

@@mrbobo86 Death Stranding's sequel is using the Decima Engine. I imagine your confusion comes from them crediting Metahuman at the end. Metahuman was an independant company specialized in character rendering before Epic bought it and created their "Metahuman" creator. The engine the game is using is the Decima Engine from Guerrilla

@@dav2-094 wait... When did they stop using the Fox Engine ?

@@gerboog When he left Konami in 2015. Konami owns the Fox Engine

@@dav2-094 boy been living under a rock has he

It's my favorite game of this year period, I just wish it was also released on PC, I could crank up the graphics and FPS to the moon.

It's highly impressive of course, especially the animations and the extreme geometric detail. But judging from the footage, sometimes the lighting seemed exaggerated. As in 50:26 for example, but also other things in John's review. A lot of things getting a massive red glow from the sun. Also the shadow color and brightness looks slightly off at times. If you look at e.g. at RDR2, the lighting looks more muted and less glowy, and overall much more realistic. RDR2 also did things like the distant air haze and blurriness more realistically. The Horizon FW characters and clothes also often look strangely clean and overly brightly lit (particularly visible in dialogues) as if they were actors dressed up for a stage play in their brand new costumes. Several other games succeed in making their characters look more gritty and overall more grounded. Due to the lighting, HZ:FW looks "hyperrealistic" at times, while other games on the list manage to look simply realistic. (The new Fortnite, despite very different engine technology, also seems to suffer from exaggerated lighting, although it is not much of an issue given its cartoonish art style.)

@@shingod700 Matter of time.

@Trurl It's an intentional effect called Hero Lighting. Along is always surrounded by a literal halo of light, and that has the unfortunate side effect you noted.

@@mappybc6097 Yeah I thought this is might be one issue. I'm not a fan of hero lighting in single player games which aren't even very dark. And the overly clean/kempt looking characters/costumes could be an artistic modelling rather than technical (lighting) issue. But as I said, the general lighting of the environment also often looks off.

Ray Tracing is mostly overrated af. For example in the Witcher 3 current gen version it doesn't look any better with ray tracing enabled. Subtle differences, sure, but better, no.

The cauldrons were my highlights. There's an early one that is just mind-boggling, an incredible collision of blue toned light, blinding white and deep blacks, all burnishing the most stunningly detailed sci-fi machinery I've ever seen in _anything;_ game, film, whatever. Like 'the real' in the Matrix, only playable and much more impressive. Those sections melted my face.

Exactly. Same could be said about GOWR. The game looks absolutely insane but runs like butter on PS5

@TheOriginalF The gameplay wasnt meh. It literally has more viable playstyles than elden ring. Yeah the hardest mode isnt that hard when you know how to play and youre properly geared. Just like every other game out there.

It's my goty by a mile too

Same here

@@VishisTV it definitely does not have more play styles than Elden Ring, or any Souls game for that matter. No idea why you'd make that claim.

@TheOriginalF Difficulty is easy on ultra hard? It definitely is not. I finished the game on ultra hard on my first pt and it was extremely hard,especially at the beginning

Even less attractive women and less masculine men?

@@stanislavkimov2779 huh?

@@arturius9715 expect his comment to be upvoted. Gamers are the lowest class of art consumers.

@@arturius9715 because some gamers play game using the part below the belly, not the brain

@@alucardme87 ah I see 😄

Ace Combat is like the perfect intersection between realistic graphics and stylised graphics.

@@captainthunderbolt7541 pretty sure he gave it an award for his best/most enjoyable game and not for graphics. The airplane models in that game look very last gen

No game has more detailed characters than TLOU part 1

good thing that came about this was the pc port

It looked like part 2 though. Not that it's a bad thing. Part 2 Santa Barbara is still fresh in my memory that area was beautiful.

@@XenogearsPS If you look at in game character models tlou part 1 looks miles better. Nevertheless, I hope they make a free ps5 upgrade for tlou2.

@@XenogearsPS I just recently finished TLOU Part 2 - it was really awesome. I don't understand why it got so much hate, other than for the way the story went

@@wizzenberry Yeah, Sony has some unbelievably talented studios. Squeezing every drop out of the hardware

@NPC hahaha you're awesome man. So many pc gamers with amazing pcs like you have would never admit something like that because they somehow feel insecure about it LMFAO Thanks for being a giga Chad PC gamer, its different developers and conditions so it's not like your pc doesn't destroy ps5, but atm horizon is the best looking game until pc gets something with that kind of talent behind it

No way that Horizon FW has better graphics than The Last of Us Part 1 Remake. Objects are much more detailed and better crafted than in an open world game. Open world is much copy paste stuff and open world games doesn't have the attention to detail and individual unique crafted locations like some high quality more linear games and some things are almost cheap in direct comparison. Part 1 Remake looks maybe too normal for people and Horizon has the landscapes and is so colorful like if you are on holiday. Ratchet and Clank RA from 2021 also has better graphics than Horizon FW. There are areas where God of War Ragnarok also has better graphics than Horizon FW. I don't want to say Horizon has bad graphics and it looks absolutely crazy for open world and the image quality is pretty sick with crispness but if a game is more crisp than another doesn't mean it has better graphics.

I agree with everything you said until "so much more fun than zero dawn". But I guess you are still in the initial hours. Story wise is the area the game fails in. But yes visually forbidden west was the best looking game this year.

@@kronosleblu888 What do you mean? If you think the 1st one was fun than this is more fun, it improved in every aspect! Way better side missions, more diverse robots. Flying, underwater swiminging gliding you name it this game has it. The story is subjective tho. Personally i liked the 1st one better but that tends to happen with sequels and it's not like the 2nd had a garbage story. The 1st was mindblowing because of the twists and mistery finding out what Zero dawn actually was! And the 2nd was just a very good sci-fi story.

Currently in the midst as well. Absolutely phenomenal game! It’s so hard to stick to any questing cause exploring is so dang enjoyable.

@@s3rv3r3rror8 their battles are tiresome, the battle speed is way too fast with way too complicated button presses for attacks. And they still kept that terrible L3 button for run as default. My fingers got tire in just half an hour of game play. There's a reason why everyone uses the spike thrower instead of bow as their primary weapons. Their side quest are way too many and repetitive. It's a good game if you're only running around checking out the views but It's not fun as a game

@@fireice2585 I had zero issues with the "complex" button presses. So that's subjective. And what you said about the side mission being repetetive is false, the side mission where always unique and felt more like mini stories on their own. So i don't know what you mean by repetetive🤷🏽‍♂️

There’s going to be ps5 only dlc?

@@TheBean87 yep. They dropped ps4 for the dlc. Only ps5 👍

Well I guess that won’t anger many people…

@@TheBean87 thats just how it is. They need to drop old gen

@@Amhoj1I agree, but for dlc… kinda sketchy since the game was made for ps4.

Its boring tho zzzzzz

@@broskiwhyyy6373 a lot of people would disagree, besides this is “best graphics”, go write up a 0/10 on metacritic if its so boring.

@Brit Blue it got fixed months ago. On release I had shimmering only in performance mode. But now performance mode looks incredible nearly as good as resolution mode.

@@MsUltraBob agree. The updates made performance mode extraordinarily beautiful.

@@broskiwhyyy6373 No one cares we’re talking about graphics here

Yeah I think this gorgeus game is very underated.

Love this vid but i’m waiting for their favorite games of the year list!

Thats exactly it!!

Loved Forbidden West. Cannot wait for the expansion in a few months.

The textures on that game are 🔥

i mean its a PS4 game at 60fps, disappointed it didnt have many visual upgrades over PS4

1070 would destroy your ps5, source: Gn and Ltt

@@Drip7914 That is so not true lmao

I have a 3090 and no lol PS5 is 2070 easily

Same, horizon looks better but callisto looks shockingly good

I'd say Callisto looks better but Horizon runs better and looks great so it wins.

Same here, just stunning and so underrated

I hope its not filled with radio towers to climb lmao.

@@JudeTheKZfaqPoopersubscribe that’s one thing I’m worried about Ubisoft has a habit of it.

@@padmakarkottuvada3612 yeah you always have to unfog the map as you play which is just annoying and pointless.

I love the radio tower thing. Climbing is fun

@@HugoStiglitz88 I agree but it's too repetitive.

Didn't make the list? Did you not watch the video?

@@yomamasohot6411 Read their second sentence. I also was waiting for Horizon to be named on the list and when they got to number 2 I wasn't sure they would mention it. I didn't expect it to get the number 1 spot either. I remember how crazy good the teaser video for the game was in summer 2021. It looked amazing.

The music is the worst aspect of the game. They really need to find a better composer.

Wish it launched on PC too ! Only then I can play it.

@@defiscanner1927 lmao what a clown take

@@Darth-Shadow The music doesn't fit the tone at all. The are some areas in the game were it matches the atmosphere of the place but the main theme is terrible.

@@defiscanner1927 that's not true at all. The music is just like HZD, but more grander. If you don't like it, then the series isn't for you. The music composition is objectively great otherwise. Clown

I love to see HFW getting some well deserved respect and love. People were panning it when it released, but it's one hell of a great game imo (besides flaws). Merry Christmas!

it's one of the best games ever, PERIOD

I'm honestly just LOOKING FORWARD to when games later in this generation start to match or exceed that level of quality. We're FINALLY at a period where we can really mimic the *density* of real world nature.

@@HugoStiglitz88 no.

No, The Callisto Protocol

No, it's more eye catching than most of the lidt. No other game does better lighting or hdr and nothing is more important than lighting when it comes to graphics. Also gt7 has the best shaders too Horizon looks better overall but there are times where gt7 is unbeatable even by horizon. Thats truly eye popping

I’ve worked in racing for 20 years and GT7 doesn’t capture what real tracks and real race cars looks like. Way too clean! Real tracks have significantly more wear and tear and cars almost always have some damage, tire marks and windshield pitting etc. A realism layer would transform the experience.

@@ricepony33 i do agree, they're too clean. I'm still not sure whether it is intentional from PD part (most race cars irl have wear and tear too, but they're practically spotless in the game. i wonder if they're approaching tracks in the same way) or there's just more work to be done in that area. hence i said "in their best conditions." which is fine for most tracks, but tracks like willow springs just looks weird without all the debris and sand on the asphalt. their motion blur solution doesn't help either. most tracks do have some wear and tear if you look at them closely with the photo mode, but all those details are lost thanks to the motion blur, it is realistic, but you get the idea. compared to other big budget, non hardcore sims offerings though, GT7 tracks are still up there.

@@HugoStiglitz88 as much as i love GT7 visuals, i don't think it's as "visually impressive" or eye catching as most games in this list. which is the point, because that's not what polyphony is aiming for with the game's visuals. it's like comparing a really detailed fantasy artwork to a hyper realistic painting of an apple. horizon always looks movie-like to me, certain elements like the weather effects and the lighting is more exaggerated to make sure that they never look dull. it's a visually impressive game, but i don't think it's as realistic looking as GT7, especially considering their lackluster car models and materials. they're still recycling models from Forza Motorsport 2, and from the FM8 trailer, it seems like they still haven't figured out how to make decent looking materials. the shot where they bragged that the game has RT reflections with the GTR is funny to me, because that's not how reflections on cars should look at all. yet they're bragging about it.

@@ricepony33 obviously they don't want to implement shit looking stuff in the game to scare off even more players.

GoW Ragnarök was snubbed!

Also sound design which should have been Horizon as well (or Plague Tale.)

Art Direction is not graphics. Graphics is a totally different thing. Thats why it didnt won that. Elden Ring and Scorn when it comes to art far surpasses Horizon.

@@CrystronHalq I said graphic AND art direction. In art direction, I think just witcher can beat this game, but Its a tough fight.

@@LionNirvana there is no prize for graphics AND art direction. Its either visuals or art.

@@CrystronHalq You still don't understand, I'm talking about these two elements separately, that this is the best produced game in these terms regardless of the TGA awards. Now, about the TGA, I found it SUPER unfair that he didn't win any awards, especially art direction. Get it?

Horizon's time in the spotlight here, photobombed by goat simulator

Lol saw that too 😅

Any excuse to replay that game is worth it

Yeah the remake immersion/graphics is really phenomenal. Naughty dogs first true ps5 game with an updated engine will blow ppl away

@Dan yeah man it's a beautiful game and story. LOU2 is the best game ever made though. I think Naughty Dog are the Jewel in the crown for Sony

@B Bland I agree brother. And tbh I don't think they utilised the tech as much as they could of as it essentially is a PS3 game. Imagine LOU3 😳

@R love both but yeah, nothing really comes close to part 2. Just a masterpiece of storytelling, it exceeded what i thought video games were capable of

If you didn't play better games

@@Chopper153 there weren’t any better games that year. That’s what that means.

It was before the patch, you just had to be smart enough to use the fidelity mode

@@HugoStiglitz88 No way I was going to 30 fps.

Exactly Callisto has great graphics I’m loving that game on my ps5

GoW got snubbed here.

@@kraenk12 Yeah, it definitely belongs.

*Uhh, yes please =)* What a hellish idea. I bet there are a lot of players who want to be reminded what true sadism feels like in terms of game / level design >)

Yes plz.

@@xpgx1 The main game wasn't like that but the resurrection of evil expansion? oof man

I'd love it but wouldn't love it on my SX or PS5... can you imagine the impact that RT will have on console? RT has ruined a lot of games to be fair! Only W with RT will be on a PC. I don't want 30FPS in any scenario and anyone who wants 30 certainly ain't had 60/120FPS. I would prefer 720p at 120 over 4K30 with RT.

And Half-Life 1&2 even cooler ;D

Imagine if the PC versions gets RT in a few years :o

What? Say Merry Christmas....

(Rich is the mastermind of course)

It was more magical, phenomenal and beautiful on my Micro LED TV than on your OLED.

DF is about technical stuff. They don't rate games as of gameplay.

Well... Horizon is the best looking game from a technical perspective, leagues ahead of Elden Ring. I would say Elden Ring looks better from an artistic perspective tho, as some of the locations just look like paintings come to life - and being able to see the giant tree from basically anywhere is a powerful visual motif.

@@captainthunderbolt7541 agree

@@captainthunderbolt7541 u hit the nail in the head with those statements, so true

No way that Horizon FW has better graphics than The Last of Us Part 1 Remake. Objects are much more detailed and carefully crafted than in an open world game. It looks maybe too normal for people and Horizon has the landscapes and is so colorful. Ratchet and Clank RA from 2021 also has better graphics than Horizon FW.

Agreed. The dwarven kingdom is one of my highlights of the year. But it's a little inconsistent. There are levels, like the elven kingdom where the dark and light elves are still at war, which just don't look pleasing to the eye, and have garish elements that clash a little. Also, I think DF is more focused on whether a game pushes at technical boundaries, whether it does new things with new graphical techniques. And GOW probably doesn't do a lot of that, even though it frequently looks amazing. Personally I'd have put Sifu in, particularly for the art gallery level, but again DF don't seem interested in the artistic aspects of a game's appearance - they're more interested in its technical achievements. So something like(to use a really old example) Limbo might not get mentioned in a list like this even though it's gorgeous and artistically striking, simply because it's not doing anything technically demanding. Which to me is a shame.

No way that Horizon FW has better graphics than The Last of Us Part 1 Remake. Objects are much more detailed and better crafted than in an open world game. Open world is much copy paste stuff and open world games doesn't have the attention to detail and individual unique crafted locations like some high quality more linear games and some things are almost cheap in direct comparison. It looks maybe too normal for people and Horizon has the landscapes and is so colorful. Ratchet and Clank RA from 2021 also has better graphics than Horizon FW. There are many areas where God of War Ragnarok also has better graphics than Horizon FW.

@@flockelocke2297 Nah. Horizon is vastly more consistent visually than GOW Ragnarok. And Ratchet And Clank? LOL, I'm not going to bother addressing that. It's doing some interesting things behind the scenes with the SSD but I question your criteria for good graphics if you think Ratched And Clank looks better than the snowy mountains or the early cauldrons in FW. The cauldrons alone in FW are better looking than any of the best moments in the games you mentioned. And of course open world games have to use procedural stuff and reused assets in order to fill out the landscapes(so does TLOU btw, all games 'copypaste' assets.). The fact that FW is so much more enormous than TLOU's remake makes its jaw dropping visuals even more impressive, not less. You can afford to tailor and polish levels in a linear game much more than in an open world game. This stuff is all subjective of course, but no, not in a million years is the TLOU remake better looking than FW.

@@thesprawl2361 you have no clue what you write about. Let's take for example a workbench in Horizon compared to a workbench in Part 1 Remake or Part 2 even without interacting with it or just some little objects (Desks, tables etc.). Open world games doesn't have this level of detail and graphics. I give you that Horizon has crazy foliage and beautiful landscapes and dude the cauldrons all are looking the same like the caves they are all copy paste stuff. I have and played these games on a 4k 144 hz monitor and I have the platinum trophy in both Horizon games. Horizon is for sure pretty impressive and there is probably no open world games out there with better graphics.

You failed to state which game you're talking about in your comment...

@@MegaLPlover really? 🙄

@@MegaLPlover Horizon is the only one on the list made by GG.

@@MegaLPlover You failed at reading.

Horizon is hands down the goty and best open world game ever IMO