Do You Ever Feel "Exhausted" by Modern Graphics?

So I've been thinking about something a lot lately and wanted to ask the giant bomb community at large...

Do you ever feel "visually exhausted" by modern games? Ever since the ps3/360 era I sometimes feel that there is too much information to parse on screen. For example Uncharted 4 is a drop dead gorgeous game but at times (especially regarding the jungle sequences) I have a super hard time focusing on where I should be going or even what the actual environment around me is. There is just so much high rez foliage, geometry etc.. that I simply don't know what to focus on and the scene starts kinda "washing over me" instead of me being able to "take it in" and analyze it.
Now I've played my fair share of fast paced games and don' t mind when things get chaotic, but what I'm talking about is more related to constant density of visual information.

Then again, maybe it's just me!

... No. I don't feel that way at all.

It's when a game demands I pay attention to subtle changes around me (enemies popping into view from a distance or barely peeking around a corner) while showcasing so much animation and texture detail that I start to get eye strain.

So many games boil down to "react to something appearing by clicking on it 'til it goes away". There's a reason camo is more effective near brush and wilderness than it is in buildings and office spaces.

I'm not sure about exhausting but better graphics have made gameplay harder sometimes sure. For example in the new Battlefront the Endor forests look great but it also means the Rebels who wear green camo actually blend in to a realistic degree. I think developers just need to be aware of making important things visible unless you want that to be part of the challenge (ie. Rising Storm has hiding in the jungle very much central to the Japanese teams gameplay).

Only in the sense that I've been learning 3d modelling for just over a year, and thinking about how much work goes into games with that perspective can make me feel tired.

That's kind of why I never played more than an hour of The Witcher 3. It was just too much visual information. It almost stressed me out to a certain extent.

Nope. I want the most graphics in my games

I have had this happen to me occasionally, though it usually means I've been playing games too long or it's too late at night or I should probably be wearing my glasses.

What happens more often is a bit of confusion on where to go. Everything looks so lush and gorgeous and detailed that the one thing that's supposed to stand out doesn't really stand out.

The first time I became aware of feeling this way was with Bloodborne. In Souls games, I had become used to very carefully scanning environments for all sorts of details (traps, secrets, items, enemies, story, etc.). So Bloodborne's huge increase in environmental clutter was enough to make me feel exhausted from continuously parsing it. I think it was one of the reasons I found it hard to play Bloodborne for more than an hour or two at a time when I had often played previous Souls games for many hours on end.

It's certainly easier to spot enemies if things are less detailed. I never really had a problem adapting, but I know what you mean.

I just went back to my copy of Burnout 3 on PS2 and I felt that the shitty graphics actually made the game more difficult to play. An essential part of the game is the fact that there is traffic on the road and upcomming traffic looks like a half-dozen pixels until its too late to react. Afterwards I loaded up a copy of Forza Horizon 3 and you can not only more accurately tell when a car is approaching, but you can actually tell what kind of vehicle it is as well. It might seem like a small improvement but for actual playability better graphics have made that genre easier to play.

Are you limited to console games? Because personally low framerates with high visual density can give me headaches at times, Bloodborne in particular. I've never experienced it from any game that performs ~60fps even if they're as visually dense as Bloodborne is. High visual density alone doesn't bother me though.

I noticed this in Battlefield 3 at first. There is no depth information on a screen, so everything just becomes much less readable than it did in the olden days. It's much easier to parse in VR due to seeing all the stuff on "different planes" or whatnot. On a screen, everything just being totally flat, it all just smudges together and becomes too busy.

I'm red/green colourblind, so that doesn't really do me any favors. For me, lush forests are neon hellscapes. Foliage almost gets a halo-like blur to it..

Playing on a 110" projector helps a lot, but I feel like graphics of today should be played on at least 4K screens. A tree 300 meters away is just a blob of pixels in 1080p, you can't really tell if there's a person in there unless the person moves.

I have become more fond of cel shading and flat shaded polys as time has passed.

To be specific, clutter is what messes me up. de_dust in CS 1.6 is so basic you spot people instantly. BF3 has enough clutter that people can hide in a bush in your line of sight and you still don't see them.

That isn't to say that I don't like clutter and cover and hiding spots, I just get really tired from constantly trying to look for pixels in shrubs that are out of place. Looking across the map in CS you don't need to care about clutter and you see instantly if there are people there. Not the case for PUBG or ArmA for example. And those games WEAR ME OUT!

@mostlysquares:Yeah I mainly play on ps4 and switch, my macbook is mainly delegated to uni work and some occasional dota/hots.

The 60 fps thing is interesting, haven't thought of it before. Thinking back I didn't have any issues with Halo on xbone, Overwatch or the last Doom actually so maybe there is something to the 60fps argument? I would also say that the colour palette matters, an issue I've had with games like Bloodborne and Battlefield is that everything is different shades of black/beige/brown so the environment becomes increasingly tough to make out.

@ivdamke: What you're saying about Battlefield 3 reads very true to me, had to same problems playing the Battlefield 1 and Ghost Recon Wildlands beta as well. I have never played a game in 4k so can't really comment to it's effects but it sure does sound promising!

The cs thing, very much yes. Playing stuff like zelda and mario kart on my switch, even though they're not super detailed, I just find it so much easier to make out what is going on and focus on whatever my main objective is. Out of curiosity have you played Overwatch and if so, how did you find it?

@hayt: yeah maybe exhausting is the wrong word but couldn't think of a better one!

It's mostly fine for me, but I do get a little bit of visual stimulus overload in some games. Horizon is goddamn beautiful, but it could be a bit straining on the eyes over extended periods. It's not so bad though, Bloodborne has a similar issue but I played that game in long marathon sessions over weeks.

For the most part no, but I understand what your saying because it's happened to me a few times. Where everything blends together and there is no clear path. That's more of bad game design but is more of problem with games that have dense environments because there's so much going on you can't tell which way to go.

Only time I have a problem is when the game has too much 'blur,' especially when its the kind that only happens when I move quickly.

I turn that graphical setting off immediately if the game lets me.

Not really. I may get exasperated by poor HUD/UI design from time to time - like all of Horizon - but that's about it.

I have literally never felt this way, but I also have never felt a HUD or UI was ever 'busy' either; I can play something like Trackmania or EVE without any issue at all, and I've seen quite a few people complain about Persona 5's UI having readability issues when I, at no point, had any issue immediately parsing the information I was looking for.

Sometimes I can get a little overwhelmed depending on how stuff goes, motion blur being a good factor on it, but it's pretty sparse so overall nah, not really.

Give me all the graphics!

Yep, I know what you mean OP.

I know what you mean when it comes to multiplayer games. It makes me go cross eyed sometimes when there is so much detail. That's kind of why I appreciate global offensive's more minimalist approach to environments.

I don't like it when a game has too many blurry effects going on, or too many post processes which obscure the environment, i want to be able to see all the models and textures clearly and the less visual trickery in the way the better, especially when it has a negative effect on performance, if you've found a great way to render ambient occlusion but it's the difference between 30 and 60 fps or affects input response, don't put it in your game.
At this point i'd like to praise the Call of Duty series for focusing on performance across the board and for always having a nice clean presentation, also of note are Capcom games, specifically games on the MT Framework engine, i don't know how much of the presentation is down to the engine but everything they made on that engine to me looks gorgeous.

Usually the case where I feel like the screen is too busy in modern games is in driving games that have you going at some serious speed. When there are a huge number of objects on screen and you're meant to make split-second calls on where to turn, it can become unfair, and it's no fun getting set back in a game because of that. I get what you mean though and I think jungle environments can be especially bad for this. There are cases where having a lot on screen at one time can be a good thing, however, I'd point out ABZU as a great example of this, but it has some sense of spreading out its objects across its environments. Really, this whole thing might be part of the larger problem that a lot of modern games place too much faith in realism as an art style.

For people talking about logistics, like ability to see enemies, I think the topic at hand is more mental than practical. I think I know exactly what you're talking about! MGS5 and Horizon are the games I immediately think of when I have this problem. I want to like the game but at a point I just don't know what I'm looking at. This generation has been really bad for me with that. I think some of it has to do with how UI has gone. Everything is pushed to the edges so you have a ton of graphical crap in the middle of the screen and a bunch of information crap on the outside and it doesn't really inform each other in a quick and helpful way. And then you open a menu and it's NOTHING but information that isn't parsed out to be quickly digestible. But that's just a theory. When it happens to me it really does feel more psychological than anything.

Exhausted isn't the word; more like numb. I've begun to hit a plateau with modern visuals where I kinda just glaze over and forget about it. I don't know, I still appreciate a good looking game when I see one, I just don't value it as much as I used to.

I can get some what @themanwithnoplan is getting at with his post. I still like certain games but rarely is a game ever blowing me away like in the past. GTA V and Witcher 3 are recent stand outs because they do a lot of different things, from detail level to design, very well.

For the OP, sounds like maybe you don't love 3D games that are dense visually. It's not a way I feel but I get it. The cool thing about games now I would say is that there is good variety out there at least. I think in the last few years 3D games have felt more comfortable with choosing less detail for practical and/or stylistic reasons.

I had this problem with Arkham Knight. There's just way, way too much unnecessary visual information: neon signs, weather effects and whatnot. Very few buildings are easily identifiable on a quick glance. My sense of direction is nearly perfect, both in games and in real life, but I still got lost several times trying to navigate Gotham. The amount of auditory information the game throws at you doesn't make it better. Sometimes it felt like the developers were testing whether my eyes or my ears would get exhausted first.

There are times in Outlast 2 where I was applauding UE4 for looking as good as the Fox Engine when it comes to sweet corridor tech. HUD overload is definitely a problem, for sure.

I definitely find Horizon beautiful to the point of being hard to play quite frequently.

The last time I can remember feeling anything close to exhaustion due to visuals was Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.

Too much happening on screen in too small a place.

Playing Nier: Automata right now. The environment is gorgeous, though the style is a bit strangely minimalistic in some parts. I can't help but feel part of it's intentional to give the game the surreal feeling it's giving me. The way the game handles UI is innovative and inspirational. You have to equip parts of the HUD to see them. It's a great approach that needs to be in more games. My only issue with the graphics is that often the amount of particle effects happening in combat make it hard to see when I need to dodge or press the attack.

For me, it's more that I get bored by it. Like watching a video of Final Fantasy XV and so much of the environment and characters are super hi-res and detailed, but it has no real style to it. It's just sharp because they can and none of it matters, so I start glazing over it.

I think Arkham Knight is one of the most visually impressive games I've had the pleasure of playing, but I agree with your criticism regarding the architecture. Aside from being vaguely aware of which section of Gotham I was in, getting around just by sight was hopeless. Within each of the thirds of the map, there's just so little variance to work from, and you don't spend enough time looking at the buildings from any one angle to get a good grasp of where you are or where you should be going.

Not really, but I've trained to take in information in an environment like that. I can certainly understand that though. I remember learning to take in the view from a hide and it can be pretty overwhelming due to the scale of what is before you compared to the scale of what you're looking for.

I certainly think there is also a place for more focused visuals, just depends on what you're looking at.

At this point I think it's more exhausting when there is LESS noise because I'm scanning for things to see and I'm having to work harder to get reference points and all that.

I do get frustrated with UI overload but again I think that comes from having my own way of doing the same thing that an enemy marker does, so it just distracts me from working the way I work best. Games like MGS5 and Wildlands I turn that shit off, so I can focus on my senses rather than what the game wants to scream at me about and distract me from other things.

Came here to say pretty much exactly this, right down to using BB as an example.

OP, I think what you're experiencing has a lot to do with 30fps

Depends on the game really. I do wish more games varied their art styles. With so many games aping one another it would be nice to see one attempt to stand out.

Oh yeah, it's certainly impressive. Rocksteady could easily have scaled back some of the effects and architectural detail, and still ended up with a gorgeous game. Arkham City had a bunch of samey-looking locations too, but that world was also much smaller and had better landmarks.

I'm not bothered by the density of modern graphics per se, but I do think that the lack of processing power in the past forced designers and artists to execute more striking visual designs and level layouts. Comparing Halo:CE and Halo 5 for example, the first game was sparse and simplistic by modern standards but had a definite look. Take a screenshot from a level in Halo:CE and it can't be mistaken for any other game. Do the same with Halo 5, and you could easily mistake what you're seeing for Mass Effect or one of the more futuristic Call of Duty games.

I guess that there is only one standard for realism, and as developers begin nearing it more and more all games kind of start melding together visually.

Oh, and I do hate the "Michael Bayification" of modern action games like CoD, Titanfall, Uncharted etc. where the assumption seems to be that more things happening on screen at once is always better. Helicopters crashing, mountains crumbling and huge armies flurrying all around me has stopped being impressive or interesting. Give me suspense and smartly designed encounters instead of a 12-gauge shot full of yelling, flashes and explosions to the face.

I agree - the intensity just gets absurd and blends together into a boring mess. Like many have also said, framerate plays an important part in the conversation. I can deal with the visual complexity if everything's at 1080p/60. That's mainly why I've been PC-only since the PS3/360 era.

@frostyryan, @ivdamke:I've always kinda dismissed "the 60 or bust" argument as a bit elitist but there might actually be truth in it! And thinking back on the "AAA" games I've really enjoyed playing on my ps4 (Doom, Paragon, Overwatch, Advanced Warfare) they've all been at 60fps.

So maybe it is visual density + dodgy framerate that bothers me. Since recently getting the Switch I haven't had any issues (by which I mean to say I haven't been bothered by the visuals) with Breath of the Wild or Mario Kart. But then again, Mario Kart is what I would call a graphically busy game, but it does also run at 60 and Breath of the Wild has a very clean and "simplistic" visual design.

A lot of food for thought!

I tried Horizon Zero Dawn for the first time today and I certainly had some issues in that regard. I figured it was just what 100 hours of nice, simple and stylized Persona 5 graphics did to me, maybe the contrast was frankly too big. Horizon is absolutely stunning, but there's a lot of stuff to parse in that game that makes it harder to follow for me. I don't think framerate is that much of an issue in my specific case. I've had few issues with this in Bloodborne, for instance. It's more the intense amount of realistic, busy natural environments with vibrant colors and shading that does it. I wonder if it's just a matter of getting old and soft.

I've always been more of a fan of stylized games over super realistic looking ones. Not sure why...just kinda how my brain works I guess?

No. But I'm getting really tired of pixel art in games.. It seems like every UPF since about two months ago there's a new game like that and I've begun to hate it.

I had this thought just yesterday but from a programming perspective browsing through the Unreal Engine 4 source code. It would be fun to get into engine development, but there's just _so much to learn_.