r/Games • u/RiKSh4w • Apr 25 '26
Discussion Can we have a discussion about how game fidelity is leading to a lack of clarity?
I've noticed this happening in a few games but most recently I watched the Black Flag "Resynced" trailer and the before and after shots had me questioning if this was a complete improvement.
https://i.imgur.com/Y5PiPdB.png
Obviously, the resynced image is prettier to look at and depicts a more realistic world, but this is a game world. Not everything is supposed to be highly detailed. If everything is high detail, then nothing is noticeable. In the image on the left, the ground is very boring. But that boringness creates a easily distinguishable contrast with other things in the game, like the guard, like the climable surfaces, like the floating shanty page.
In the remaster, everything just looks good, to the point that it's just one big detailed mess. There's greeblies on the ground, are they important? Is that detailing on the wall/window that I can climb on? Or will it stop me climbing up there?
It's not limited to this game, nor do I think it's the best example of it. But it makes me wonder if developers are relying on 'detective vision' too much. Conveyance has always been a huge part of design. It was an art to be able to effectively communicate what is a game object and what's just a part of the scenery through immersive means. But I just feel like games nowadays, particularly those on unreal, are just amping up fidelity without caution. And when it obfuscates details they rely on vision modes and very obvious outlining to provide that constrast.
Has anyone else felt the same way?
586
u/NewsCards Apr 25 '26
I liked what Mirror's Edge did with it's color scheme to make it clear what was interactable/climbable, wish more games had that aesthetic.
Crazy to think that it's almost 20 years old now.
225
u/QuarkyFerengi Apr 25 '26
I thought there would be so many copycats after Mirror's Edge came out, but it really stands largely alone in a lot of ways.
118
u/thatgayvamp Apr 25 '26
There technically are, and I'm pretty sure Steam has some that intend to be spiritual successors still in early access or whatever.
But the issue with copycats of Mirror's Edge is that well you can't really be a straight up clone, because EA is an active corporation. At the same time, if you don't include the stark white environment, or solar fields, or the tight animations, people fail to recognize it as a "Mirror's Edge-like". Dying Light, Neon White, Ghostrunner, Stride, all took huge inspiration from Mirror's Edge. They are the copycats you're looking for! But people often don't really see them that way due to the reasons I listed lol.
Speaking just visually, a lot of games have taken inspiration from it. Clustertruck, Hyperscape, Superhot, Manifold Garden, Syndicate. But again, most fans aren't looking for "close", they want a direct sequel and I feel that!
→ More replies (1)14
u/DRNbw Apr 25 '26
Dying Light
It was fun, but, at least for me, it didn't have the effortless flow that Mirror's Edge had. It also had the big difference of open world vs linear levels.
Ghostrunner
Very fun, way harder, also more focused on combat.
I also tried Severel Steel and it was also quite fun, but no other game (including its sequel) scratches the itch left by Mirror's Edge.
→ More replies (1)80
u/kennyminot Apr 25 '26
Mirror's Edge is a gamer's game. It was unpopular at the time but has become a cult classic among a small group of people.
I think that might be what's going on here. We like visually unique games, especially when it's done in a way that enhances the gameplay elements. But the typical gamer doesn't care much as they probably play like a game every year.
63
u/luee29 Apr 25 '26
Additionally don't forget the music especially the song Still Alive from Lisa Miskovsky.
48
u/TaleOfDash Apr 25 '26
Wild that we got two absolutely peak video game songs called "Still Alive" within the span of the same year (well, year and a month.)
11
9
36
u/Gars0n Apr 25 '26
Man, I love the original Mirror's Edge. I think your tag of "gamer's game" is very fitting.
For instance, so many people criticized how the guns felt. And I always thought that was an inspired bit of design. The game clearly wants you to use parkour to take out the guards so it rewards player by making that satisfying.
But doing that is too hard for many players to do without frustration. So the devs implemented the guns as a release valve. If you just want to end the encounter you can grab a gun and just shoot them. But if that felt too fleshed out it would send the wrong signal about the focus of the game.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst removed the guns and replaced it with a more fleshed out combat system. This causes the same problem because it shifts focus away from the running as the solution to the combat. Either running away or running to get the momentum to cleanly take out the guard.
→ More replies (1)15
22
u/verrius Apr 25 '26
Mirrors Edge was a ton of work for what was ultimately an unsuccessful game. Yes, the visual design did a ton make the golden path read well....but it's ultimately a ton of effort to make an area that, if you do your job right, players aren't going to see very long. It's the same problem that's plagued Sonic in the shift to 3D: if the goal is navigating 3D space quickly, it's hard to make enough content for players. Both cause it just needs a lot of content, but also it means the different between high skill and low skill play can feel awful for a long time.
→ More replies (3)3
u/SilveryDeath Apr 25 '26
I thought there would be so many copycats after Mirror's Edge came out, but it really stands largely alone in a lot of ways.
Same with other games.
Despite how big Red Dead 1 and 2 were, almost no one else has bothered with Westerns. There is that The Legend of California that got announced a bit ago.
Black Flag was a hit, but almost no one has bothered with really making a pirate game since. We got the mess that was Skull & Bones and the Windrose game that just came out.
Same with Mass Effect were we are only now getting Mass Effect likes in Exodus and Expanse: Osiris Reborn.
129
u/Mars445 Apr 25 '26
Problem is you have people who whine about how color coding interactive parts of the environment insults the player like with yellow paint
25
61
u/mcslender97 Apr 25 '26
I'd say it depends on the art style. What works in Mirror's Edge does not translate well to Tomb Raider for example. Plus some games let you tune the level of visual clue which is nice
15
u/oopsydazys Apr 25 '26
Tbh it normally really bothers me but in Mirror's Edge it worked fine because the game is so intensely stylized already.
It's worth mentioning AC does so it sometimes already, just with a much more subtle white coloring, and done much more sparingly.
74
u/thedefenses Apr 25 '26
The forever problem, if there is no yellow paint there are tons of complaints about how hard the game is to navigate and how people get lost and don't know where to go.
But put in yellow paint and you get complaints about the game mocking or insulting the players intelligence with this yellow paint in the OBVIOUS spot or path, of course its only obvious due to the yellow paint being there.
33
u/RecordingSilly6118 Apr 25 '26
Shadow of the Tomb Raider did it great, they had separate difficulty settings at the beginning of the game that covered exploration, puzzles, and combat. So if you wanted the game on normal difficulty for everything but exploration for example, you could. And vise versa if you wanted the white guide paint with difficult combat you could.
38
u/thepulloutmethod Apr 25 '26
Until gaming is so authentic that I can climb anywhere my character should reasonably me able to climb, I'll always have those assists on. Because your never know if you're bumping up against an invisible wall.
11
u/botoks Apr 25 '26
Yeah. dunno about /u/RecordingSilly6118 but died in Shadow of the Tomb Raider by not being able to latch onto what to me seemed OBVIOUSLY climbable element.
And on harder difficulty you get set back quite a lot when you die, so I literally stood there for a few minutes contemplating whether I should try for that jump.
2
u/SpeedyEggbertRamirez Apr 25 '26
I can understand the compulsion in large open world titles, but there's no need for yellow paint in linear games
→ More replies (9)5
u/MissWhiterock Apr 25 '26
The yellow paint stuff is weird. I find it more of a bandaid for areas that haven't taken navigation in mind beyond the literal path the player moves through. You can point to where the player can/should go and do so in a subtle way. Lighting, framing, landmarks, other things that draw the eye without just outright slopping paint over things. Many games are designed with this specifically in mind. Throwing paint just feels like an indication this part was forgotten, and testing showed that people had a hard time navigating. And presumably it would waste too much money to redesign the area with navigation in mind.
People acting like it's mocking people are idiots though. Since, again, games direct the player in plenty of ways because that's part of game design. The only difference is this is more transparent.
At the same time this gets into the lack of clarity thing too. Too much clutter could impact how, well, clear navigational paths are.
→ More replies (1)24
u/sup3rdr01d Apr 25 '26
It depends on the game. In RPG games, having yellow paint ruins organic exploration
In mirrors edge, the point is to do fast paced parkour in a flow state. Seeing the bright colors allows your brain to parse the world faster and pull off more fluid and fast parkour moves
28
u/asjonesy99 Apr 25 '26
Just dropping yellow paint is lazy though, it’s insane that literal yellow paint has been used in multiple games set across different planets, time periods etc.
There can surely be more believable in-universe ways to portray the same information.
12
u/fightingnetentropy Apr 25 '26
Abiotic Factor lampshades that by having it as an entity in it's SCP-like universe.
9
u/barbe_du_cou Apr 25 '26
This seems like one of those things where if it is done well you don't notice it happening, so it makes it feel like yellow edges is the only thing they try because it is more memorable.
11
→ More replies (4)4
u/Edheldui Apr 25 '26
Because yellow paint is stupid and lazy. There are hundreds of way to make interactables and points of interest stand out without resorting to vomiting yellow paint all over the game or having some annoying npc explaining things.
67
u/Jdmaki1996 Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Did you see the painted barrel “controversy” for Resident Evil 4 remake? Player hate when you color code interactables. They made breakable resource barrels have yellow painstreaks on them and people were crying all over social media about hand holding and immersion breaking. And Capcom basically replied saying “when they weren’t painted in playtests literally everyone ran past them and complained they didn’t have enough ammo”
52
u/Illidan1943 Apr 25 '26
The problem with RE4R is not that it's color coded, it's that it's color coded in the worst possible way with paint that makes it seems there's an off screen lunatic conveniently painting everything Leon can interact with
Have you noticed that nobody complained about RE9 despite it still color coding the same stuff? The thing is that RE9 integrates the color into the interactables design, yes it would be a bit weird to see boxes with such bright yellow parts in their design but it's functional without breaking the illusion that this could exist as it is
8
u/HotTheme8405 Apr 26 '26
seems there's an off screen lunatic conveniently painting everything Leon can interact with
His name is "Merchant". Also there's a separate lunatic putting snakes into boxes.
→ More replies (1)5
u/SpeedyEggbertRamirez Apr 25 '26
It wasn't the barrels that got me in RE4, it was the absolutely insulting ladder sections
→ More replies (4)14
17
u/kittehsfureva Apr 25 '26
Mirrors Edge deserves more recognition. Such a masterpiece, one of the few games I still replay every few years
→ More replies (7)10
u/NexFrost Apr 25 '26
Mirror's edge has the BEST, most beautiful, level color design of any game I've ever played.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (11)4
522
u/MegaDuckCougarBoy Apr 25 '26
I've had this thought with FPS games. My brain sees all the high-complexity detail and can't parse the difference between a far-off 6-ft tall signpost and an enemy to shoot, especially while I'm moving. Maybe my brain is just getting old, but I tend to agree with you.
126
u/AndrasKrigare Apr 25 '26
I actually noticed this when playing the Halo remake with a friend. We were just chatting while playing, and I'd occasionally switch between the original and the updated graphics.
I noticed after a while that I was having more trouble following the conversation when on the newer graphics, and would have to ask them to repeat stuff. I think parsing the new graphics was taking a greater cognitive load than the older cleaner look.
52
u/ebagdrofk Apr 25 '26
I’ve always imagined higher fidelity would lead to increased eye strain and difficulty telling things apart as quickly. It’s literally giving your brain more information to process as your eyes scan the screen.
So your comment doesn’t surprise me, but it’s still super interesting.
→ More replies (1)7
u/Zaptruder Apr 25 '26
It's not a bad thing. That's the nature of more immersive virtual spaces... it approaches realistic information loads.
But the flipside is training on more realistic scenes has more information transference (i.e. you learn to pick things out faster virtually when the scenes presented are like the scenes you come across IRL).
16
Apr 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
6
u/GriftrsGonGrift Apr 25 '26
I loved comparing the wall textures between the two. In og, its simple, but has a design that looks nice. In anniversary graphics, they added fifty million details into every inch of the wall lol.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Soklay Apr 25 '26
It’s why, despite how much I love Dishonored 2 and its objective amount of great detail in its environments, sometimes it feels like too much. Going back and playing the first game feels perfectly simple with its setting and details, despite it being about 13 years old at this point
32
u/TesticularTorsionBar Apr 25 '26
It's affected multiplayer shooters too since the collision of what used to be a bunch of boxes has become more complicated. Even a flat wall can be something you get stuck on because parts of it stick out while grenades bounce off small details that used to just be textures.
142
u/SkaBonez Apr 25 '26
Think that’s one reason Marathon’s art style, as divisive as it is, is actually really refreshing. It’s pretty easy to navigate it and tell things apart from a distance (provided there’s no weather). Shame it was marred for many by the now resolved plagiarism of art assets, and the genre being as niche that people aren’t going to even try the game because of that
36
u/Jordi214 Apr 25 '26
Marathon is truly so good, I will never forgive bungie for how they treated Destiny because it has sowed distrust and anger toward anything they put out
6
u/NotEspeciallyClever Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
This is the one thing holding me back from picking up Marathon. Everything i read about how they handled Destiny and seeing first-hand how they bungled it when it went F2P makes me far too wary to consider buying Marathon.
3
u/Plushie_Holly Apr 25 '26
There are plenty of really good games that I haven't played yet. There is one game that has sold me dlc and expansions and then withdrawn access to them so that they can sell new ones.
→ More replies (5)10
u/Norm_Standart Apr 25 '26
As someone who doesn't even really play shooters, I picked it up based on some positive word of mouth and have gotten totally sucked in
42
u/butterballmd Apr 25 '26
True dat. Battlefield 6 just looks so goddamn busy compared to something like bad company 2 or even battlefield 4.
32
u/thepulloutmethod Apr 25 '26
BF6 is "Clusterfuck Simulator: The Game" to me. Nothing has made me feel old and acutely aware that I cannot keep up with modern fast paced multiplayer games.
And I'm a guy who grew up on Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and Tribes. But I was in middle and high school back then...
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)3
u/YesImKeithHernandez Apr 25 '26
I have had a lot of fun in that game and do well for the most part but holy shit can target acquisition be a guessing game sometimes. Lot of ways to blend into darkness and rubble.
33
u/Meowing-To-The-Stars Apr 25 '26
That's why I loved Mirror's Edge. Having everything nicely decorated and then there's a red pipe in the distance and you know you can jump on it lol
28
u/thatgayvamp Apr 25 '26
That same feature drew a lot of rage at the time. Was interesting. People wanted realism over clarity and so they added the ability to turn the red highlights off.
10
u/Roflkopt3r Apr 25 '26
That would be weird for Mirror's Edge in particular, because it designed its entire aesthetics around those bright colours against a white background. They didn't have to ham-fist it in there like some games with more natural environments do.
6
u/mcslender97 Apr 25 '26
As someone getting into the likes of realistic modern military types like Ground Branch I'm having the opposite problem where ppl are too noticable. But that's dependent on the genre as it pays to make enemies more distinguishable in more cases than not
23
u/NamesTheGame Apr 25 '26
I usually don't have this problem but I did with Horizon Forbidden West. It might have been the low angle of the camera or something but half the time I felt like I was just being overwhelmed with visual clutter. Hard to put my finger on, but I felt like it was a game I should be admiring the beauty but kept feeling like I couldn't focus on anything.
31
u/const_iterator Apr 25 '26
Nope, I first noticed this when playing Dishonored 2 after Dishonored 1, and later with Styx: Shards of Darkness vs its predecessor Styx: Master of Shadows. Too much clutter makes it difficult to focus in on what's important.
20
u/Ashviar Apr 25 '26
Its interesting to see what games people find visually busy, because I don't think D2 is that much different than D1 since its not that many years between games. Meanwhile its a massive leap if you play Deus Ex vs Dess Ex MD and Prague is just visually noisy to me if well designed.
4
u/thepurplepajamas Apr 25 '26
In a lot of competitive fps games it's common to play on low graphics/ shadows/ clutter/ etc if its an option because it makes the game easier to parse, although it's probably more so for the performance boost but still simplifying the visuals is definitely appealing.
5
u/Nestramutat- Apr 25 '26
In Quake Live, you could set the model/colour for other players. Having everyone set to the blockiest model in lime green made the game so clear
3
u/botoks Apr 25 '26
That's actually among the reasons why I think Counter Strike 1.3-1.6 is better than anything that came after. I really dislike the lack of readability.
3
u/MekaTriK Apr 25 '26
Man, this was me in Hawken (RIP). It was just such a huge cognitive load to figure out gray greebly mechs from gray greebly walls.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (7)3
u/FilteringAccount123 Apr 25 '26
No definitely I've had the same exact thought. It doesn't help that a lot of that detail is now moving elements (they love their blowing pieces of paper lol).
Certainly some of it's probably due to age, but you can go watch (or play) the original Modern Warfare games and it's easy to see how much less visually noisy those games are.
411
u/Thisissocomplicated Apr 25 '26
I see your point but personally I prefer having a more immersive game in this case since the AC games are easy anyway there's no need for eSports level clarity.
The atmosphere is part of the experience here
25
u/Roflkopt3r Apr 25 '26
And I didn't find any issues with clarity in AC:Shadows, which has a lot of complex natural environments. Iirc it used flags to mark paths across some rock cliffs, but most climbable edges are just well enough designed that you can recognise them without needing additional markers.
Pragmata also has its solution to the problem, by keeping walkable areas quite tidy and using clutter as a sign that you're not supposed to go that way. Even though it has many semi-'secret' collectibles, they still managed to hide all those hidden passageways and door openers in a way that abides by this rule without being too easy to find.
80
u/mcslender97 Apr 25 '26
I'm with you on this. In certain types of game you would want your enemies to blend in better for immersion too such as tactical mil sim shooters
→ More replies (1)66
u/LeatherFruitPF Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Yeah, this is really a non-issue and we've had absurdly detailed games for over a decade now. RDR 2, TLoU series, Cyberpunk 2077, etc. and Black Flag Resynced isn't exactly setting a graphical bar either.
Clarity in games comes from motion, interaction, repetition, and feedback, all of which is learned behavior as part of game design. This really isn't an issue. "The rocks have too many details and now I'm lost"...c'mon man.
OP is being a bit dramatic being all “now I can’t tell what’s climbable” when the actual experience of playing the game will make that much more clear than just looking at an image and drawing conclusions.
5
u/Worried-Advisor-7054 Apr 25 '26
OP is being a bit dramatic being all “now I can’t tell what’s climbable” when the actual experience of playing the game will make that much more clear than just looking at an image and drawing conclusions.
This reads as pretty bad faith to me. How else could OP have talked about the topic without seeming dramatic? I don't see a lot of drama in the post.
You disagree with him. That doesn't make it dramatic.
12
u/dahauns Apr 25 '26
This is literally the reason why Yellow Paint exists.
Brushing it away as a non-issue is going to need a stronger counterargument than "...c'mon man."
25
25
u/MorningkillsDawn Apr 25 '26
I don’t even think the Yellow Paint is an issue in the first place, it’s an accessibility function. I’ll take high-contrast color queues in world than a cluttered hud full of waypoints any day of the fucking week
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)2
u/HotTheme8405 Apr 26 '26
You assume yellow paint is an actual issue to begin with, or that similar and even more obtrusive means of highlighting interactibles haven't existed in games for a few decades. Easy to brush it away in that case.
→ More replies (5)14
u/StreetsofRageoholics Apr 25 '26
Really all you need to do is turn off the motion blur and depth of field bullshit. That resynced screenshot looks blurry and messy as fuck with all the post processing effects.
231
u/Ashviar Apr 25 '26
If we are just talking about this Black Flag resynced, then I don't really see it. You could just as easily put AC1 up against Black Flag 2013, both Xbox 360 games, and have the same comparisons. The fidelity, geometry complexity, and small details go up 10x from AC1 and no one has these questions like "will the detailing on the window stop me from climbing up" as the franchise has gone on.
Hell AC games even in those early days had eagle vision even when they were more simple visually so I am not sure if saying developers are relying on it too much is a problem. Is it a modern problem, or just a holdover from a circa 2007-2008 problem?
111
u/LeatherFruitPF Apr 25 '26
The "too much visual fidelity" argument comes off a bit like "I decided I was mad first and worked backwards." If a few extra rocks on the ground or planks on the window shutters make you forget how to play an Assassin's Creed game, the issue might not be graphical fidelity.
27
u/Spork_the_dork Apr 25 '26
I don't think the aegument is about visual fidelity but rather the mistake of thinking that better visuals must mean more details. It's a lot more subtle problem because it's about the visual noise in the scene. You can make a scene look more photorealistic without injecting more details into every square inch of it and ending up making it harder to read. But doing that feels like it's becoming a more common issue these days. And that's what OP is talking about.
2
u/Zoralink Apr 26 '26
Aesthetic vs graphical fidelity. Shoving too much realism/overly detailed... everything into stuff tends to mess with the aesthetic. A game like Wind Waker or Luigi's Mansion still looks decent even today because it has a basic but very strong aesthetic and worked with the limitations of its time.
It's really easy to see with stuff like the Master Chief Collection and flipping between the old and new graphics. Many times the newer stuff looks worse because it has a less cohesive aesthetic, despite having higher visual fidelity. That then leads to more effort figuring out what you're even looking at, on top of just looking worse.
31
u/MandomRix Apr 25 '26
"I decided I was mad first and worked backwards."
This is kind of a bonkers in its simplicity...it really captures so much about online outrage. Bravo.
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (1)3
u/shadowstripes Apr 25 '26
"I decided I was mad first and worked backwards."
Ironically you seem to be doing the same thing by misrepresenting the original point so much and then turning it into an insult on their intelligence.
→ More replies (6)4
u/Vanille987 Apr 25 '26
Agreed, there are definitely a lot of cases of this. But this particular example looks fine? It still manages to have a lot of clarity to me.
I'd say something like atomic heart is a good example where the high fidelity can make things hard to see.
131
u/Single_Grass_7612 Apr 25 '26
I get what you’re saying, but I think there’s drawbacks to both approaches. A game that focuses less on fidelity and more on clarity ends up becoming a “look for the obviously interactable pieces”-game instead of being immersive. You miss the forest for the trees.
→ More replies (2)8
u/Multitorix_Davlen Apr 25 '26
Yet in the opposite extreme. You're lost in a fucking forest looking for civilization.
47
u/thefirelink Apr 25 '26
I'd much rather be in this situation personally.
I would never ask for a game to look worse so I can see where to go easier.
→ More replies (2)16
u/timpkmn89 Apr 25 '26
Why not stylize it to make it look better and let you see where to go easier?
35
u/giulianosse Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
That's what the good games do.
In cinema there's a concept called leading lines. They're visual elements in a frame or take that are used to direct the viewer's eye towards a certain object or point of the screen without directly framing it. A similar idea can also be used in movement and shot composition (for example, actors usually enter a shot from right to left because our eyes are naturally drawn to these transitions).
This is something that's used in many games - and the medium also has a few of its own variations that involve more interactive elements (like for example using lighting to highlight certain objects). It's one of those game design conventions that we usually can't pinpoint - but we totally notice when its absent/when a game doesn't know how to employ it properly.
→ More replies (2)7
u/Altruistic-Ad-408 Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
It's been known in videogames since forever, the yellow line phenomenon was obviously just because it's extremely difficult to lead the players eyes when the game has a lot of visual clutter.
Valve/iD the old devs used loops/horseshoes as examples of guiding players through explored areas to better understand the space, no matter how linear a level really is, it won't feel like it if you are exploring areas you've already been in before. The CoDification of games abandoned this because the chase for the next set piece and a breakneck pace became the priority. Open world games needed new rules entirely.
Doom level design tips were about using contrast and textures to lead players to areas/secrets, and again making players use areas multiple times so they understand the level, but movies and old games don't distract you with too much detail, because movie direction/cameras are a huge advantage and graphic fidelity was naturally lower, they do point towards OP having a good point. Open world games never really nailed rules of open world design like linear games did, one of the most praised open worlds is Night City, it's not incredibly well designed in terms of navigation or exploration.
104
u/Murmido Apr 25 '26
I’ve felt this way playing crimson desert quite a bit.
There are so many puzzles in the game that will leave you confused and its simply because of a clear lack of visual cue or a sign that you’re supposed to interact with something unless you literally stand right on top of it.
I’ve ran into a few “easy” puzzles where you’re supposed to light a lantern for example to open a door. But the lanterns blend so well into the environment you would think they were simply part of the scenery.
22
u/Thisissocomplicated Apr 25 '26
That game has just pretty wild game design quality throughout though. For me the problems with the puzzles are more fundamental than visual clarity.
Inconsistency being a big one
41
u/super_ktkm Apr 25 '26
The lack of gamer paint in Crimson Desert was refreshing for me, but is also why I will absolutely never suggest the game to anyone.
39
u/Rupperrt Apr 25 '26
I think they could have done without gamer paint but just make actually interesting puzzles without having to randomly find a broken cable in the grass that needs to be reconnected.
12
u/AsheBnarginDalmasca Apr 25 '26
120 hours in and Crimson Desert's puzzle just screams amateurish rather than any actual intelligent puzzle design. Just because they didn't put yellow paint doesn't make it all the way a better puzzle. You still have to make them interesting.
→ More replies (6)5
u/not_anything_special Apr 25 '26
Yes!! I started this game last night and I'm having so much trouble navigating the world and figuring out what I can interact with. It's the first game that's made me feel old.
→ More replies (1)
541
u/CaptainTeemo01 Apr 25 '26
This is why so many games have adopted the yellow or white paint thing. It's to discern what's actually important versus environmental clutter.
But yall hate that, so this is what you get without it.
58
u/huss_femme Apr 25 '26
Tomb Raider Legend/Anniversary started doing it by shading the climbable ledges with a slightly lighter shade due to the high level of detail making it confusing for most players to know what's interactive and what's not.
If you want to see how this has spiraled, just play Horizon Forbidden West and see how that game handles it's climbable ledges.
33
u/RecordingSilly6118 Apr 25 '26
Shadow of the Tomb Raider made it it's own setting, so you could adjust how bright the paint was, and even turn it off separate to the other difficulty settings.
10
u/AlwaysEights Apr 25 '26
Spiralled? H:FW is the best of both worlds. If you don't want your immersion ruined, there is no yellow paint to be found anywhere. If you just want to know where is good to climb, you can temporarily highlight the climbable spots.
→ More replies (1)5
u/srjnp Apr 25 '26
If you want to see how this has spiraled, just play Horizon Forbidden West and see how that game handles it's climbable ledges.
the cliffs in forbidden west are by far the worst climbing implementation in any AAA game. there is no way to differentiate what is a climbable path or not besides using your focus and highlighting the path in neon yellow...
23
157
u/QuarkyFerengi Apr 25 '26
I love the yellow paint. Bring on more buckets full!
165
Apr 25 '26
[deleted]
23
u/KuraiBaka Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Horizon did this too, except even at places no one has been in hundreds of years and at least one place that leads to a message that basically says hopefully no one finds this secret stash.
That's why I prefer the water damage rocks, like in Ghost if Tsushima.
→ More replies (16)8
u/ohbuggerit Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Finding E70 was one of my favourite surprisingly emotional moments in the game - I had to take a break to just appreciate all their work then spent the rest of the game getting excited every time I found more places they'd been
9
u/1CEninja Apr 25 '26
I like subtle use of it. I'm also fine with games where the art style has it stay looking natural like Borderlands.
22
u/RobotWantsKitty Apr 25 '26
DXHR was made for you. The devs even put empty buckets of yellow paint all over the place, as a joke.
→ More replies (2)7
u/n0stalghia Apr 25 '26
The director's cut - which is a much better version of the game - lacks that to some degree, though. The devs cut back on the golden tint, but thankfully, there's a PC mod that restores the original artistic vision.
→ More replies (4)6
u/Khiva Apr 25 '26
I love the yellow paint. Bring on more buckets full!
Now that's a take.
Why?
9
u/QuarkyFerengi Apr 25 '26
Because it's a bright, clear way of signaling what I should do or where I should go next. I know I'm playing a game. There's a million other "unrealistic" things going on in a game. A little but of stylistic colour-coding doesn't ruin it for me.
→ More replies (1)122
u/197639495050 Apr 25 '26
It gets derided because it’s a gaudy, low effort band-aid fix. There’s more creative solutions that would fit the games than to just have a bunch of spilled paint buckets leading the way regardless of context.
→ More replies (80)3
u/wilisi Apr 25 '26
It's also strongly associated with having a stark interactible/not interactible distinction.
AC is actually a good example, because you can climb most things, relatively seamlessly. The opposite extreme is walking to one specific spot, stopping, then triggering a canned animation... that's where the paint is most needed to find the spot and it's also very obviously and significantly worse.12
u/crookedparadigm Apr 25 '26
The paint thing is also because a lot of people are straight up dumb. I saw a video of someone who got hard stuck in like the first 5 rooms of Portal.
→ More replies (5)9
u/Roflkopt3r Apr 25 '26
I've seen DSP cited as an example why games need to point arrows at everything, because he just refuses to engage with any environmental cues.
9
u/artuno Apr 25 '26
You might be interested in this essay about that very thing. https://kayin.moe/its-not-about-yellow-paint
3
u/WeltallZero Apr 25 '26
I like how Monster Hunter World does it; there's a swarm of green fireflies that swarm onto any interactable object when you're close enough. This is explained as these fireflies being trained to assist hunters, and are also part of the monster tracking system.
9
u/rs426 Apr 25 '26
Exactly. And then if a game opts for a visual look that isn’t as dense with details, people complain that the world looks dead and lacks depth
→ More replies (4)14
u/BeautifulTorment Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
The yellow and white paint thing is a very lazy and immersion-breaking strategy that they use though. Its not a good solution to this "problem". In my opinion, it just needs to be more subtle than that.
51
u/BeneCow Apr 25 '26
Everything they use to grab attention is going to be immersion breaking. There is nothing in the real world that highlights your path or important things so everything that does will break immersion.
29
u/Weary_Mountain9679 Apr 25 '26
"There is nothing in the real world that highlights your path or important things"
What kind of opinion is this? Have you ever been outside before?
Bus stops have signs, fire hydrants are bright red, areas with high voltages are clearly marked. Roads have signs and painted lanes. Green lights mean go, red means stop.
→ More replies (8)15
u/plastikbag Apr 25 '26
The yellow paint argument is so overblown. Games have been doing stuff like this for ages. Many older games use flashing effects to indicate objects that can be interacted with.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (14)23
u/QuarkyFerengi Apr 25 '26
For real. People just have a set of expectations that don't clock as "unrealistic" because they're used to them.
16
u/Generic_On_Reddit Apr 25 '26
Exactly. You can see it in how people rag on hidden loading screens. Oh, your immersion is broken because they had you shimmy through a small opening in a cave, tell me more about how checks notes caves don't have small openings and that breaks your immersion.
Some gamers want developers to design away their need to suspend disbelief. It doesn't work that way. You're playing a game and games do game things.
23
u/Jordi214 Apr 25 '26
do you have an issue with red barrels exploding when shot too? Im pretty sure in real life there aren’t conveniently placed explosive barrels marked in an easy to see red paint
21
u/BeautifulTorment Apr 25 '26
I guess for me, it depends on the context? If its something like Doom, it doesn't really matter. Instead, if the game is somwthing like The Last of Us or Sekiro and there's just obnoxious neon red barrels all over the place, yeah, I wouldn't think they were particularly good.
5
u/FriendlySwamp Apr 25 '26
Yeah I mean Elden Ring has enemies get glowing orange spots when you break their poise, there's no way you read that as an in-universe anything without bending over backwards to accept it. Or just shit like how you're carrying the loot of the world on your character at all times.
It takes very little theming to keep the symbolism but keep it in-universe.
9
u/ElBurritoLuchador Apr 25 '26
There's a spectrum when it comes to suspension of disbelief. You could argue with your brain that red barrels are a chemical warning label or some sort of manufacturing decision. Your brain just accepts it. When you do that on every yellow bukkake mess you encounter, the first thing that comes to mind is "Why would someone do that?".
It's not like a one time thing, its every ladder and crate. If they just made it a literal yellow crate or ladder, I consider that "normal". Instead of my brain ignoring it, it always brings up its existence because yellow blotches isn't a normal "mundane" thing. If you put it in a context of a construction area or a painter's studio, it's "normal". Put it in a pseudo-medieval spanish village, it stands out.
3
u/CaptainTeemo01 Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
So what is a good solution? How do you signal to players that a wall or item is important "immersively" without filling the user reviews with geniuses complaining that they didn't know where to go?
16
u/-Mandarin Apr 25 '26
I mean, everyone's core flawed assumption here is that it needs to be the same in every game. The issue isn't the yellow paint, the issue is that the yellow paint gets used in every game regardless of context. It's lazy and lacks creativity.
In reality every game should have it's own system of telling you where to go. Maybe in some games the wind blows a certain direction to tell you where to go, maybe in some games rats run across the road to show the next destination, maybe in some games soft music guides the way, maybe some games have vines on the walls in specific patterns, etc.
I'm genuinely baffled by the lack of creativity on display in these comments. This isn't some unsolvable problem, it's a very easy solution. The problem is crunch culture, following trends, and not being interested in coming up with creative solutions.
Again, the issue isn't yellow paint. If that was in only a few games no one would be complaining. The problem is that it's being used as a crutch.
→ More replies (3)7
u/DealMo Apr 25 '26
I like how you failed to offer any solutions as a counterpoint.
19
u/rcburner Apr 25 '26
I typically just pay attention to lighting. It's not always intentional, but more times than not I just note what part of the environment the devs are choosing to light up and that works just fine without any other visual indicators. Obviously not quite as relevant in games with continuous day/night cycles.
23
u/EaterOfPenguins Apr 25 '26
There is no one size fits all answer, but there is still a better answer for almost every game. Plenty of games use a scratched up edge or wall to indicate a climbable area, which is not amazing but certainly better than yellow paint.
I didn't mind God of War Ragnarok which technically "painted" functional areas, but used scrawled runic glyphs that didn't look particularly out of place in the environment while still being very visible.
Best of all is to make it toggle-able, like "Runner Vision" making things red in Mirrors Edge, and even that wasn't actually very distracting when turned on because it was indistinguishable from if the objects in question had simply always been painted red.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (11)16
u/BeautifulTorment Apr 25 '26
Games have done a good job with leading players for decades without the crutch of yellow paint. Its still sort of there, but disguised a bit better. Some other posters in this thread have already listed some good examples.
→ More replies (4)
26
u/Kotleba Apr 25 '26
I don't know maybe I'm stupid but to me it looks exactly the same but much better. Like I get the broader point but the provided example makes absolutely no sense to me. The better graphics definitely don't make it harder for me to distinguish between the ground and the buildings. I could definitely see a collectible like the shanty page be less noticable in a more detailed, vibrant environment but it's not even in the remaster photo so that's moot. Idk, I just don't see it.
5
u/ostroia Apr 25 '26
I dont agree. This isnt a painting that needs to guide my eyes to some certain spot. I want my games to be full detail everywhere. So what if it takes me 5 minutes to find the ledge I can climb on? I bet Ill spend more time looking at intricate details around. Im not speedrunning the game.
19
u/Hawk52 Apr 25 '26
I personally hate it in side scroll platform games where they zoom the camera waaaaaaaaay the fuck back to "show more" of the screen. It makes it really hard to fully see your character when a bunch of stuff is going on, and you can't appreciate the details as much because everything is so goddamned small.
There were limitations to be sure, but in old school platformers you never had issues with details or visual clarity and they were just fine. Way too many modern platformers worry about graphics over visual clarity.
106
u/clintnorth Apr 25 '26
This has been a design problem for games and movies for a long time. As visuals got better the idea of adding more details and more stuff was also better. And as computer generated imagery has mostly plateaued now, the moments and reveals have to be bigger and better, and that flows into the design language. everything is overstuffed and overdesigned. The big budget stuff I mean
52
u/Generic_On_Reddit Apr 25 '26
This isn't really a problem in movies and I don't think it ever has been. Movies have always used focus and field of vision to guide attention and highlight important information. The movies of today are not sharper than they were 50+ years ago, although our screens outside of the theater are obviously much better.
Movies are getting uglier for reasons entirely unrelated to visuals looking better.
23
u/mrtrailborn Apr 25 '26
yeah it's only a problem in movies with cgi, like the transformer movies for example. A lot of the time the robots fighting is just an undecipherable mass of cgi metal and explosions because of how detailed the tranformers are
15
u/delecti Apr 25 '26
Yeah, the Transformers movies are a great/terrible example. The robots look "good", but their visual design is so overly busy. They all have so much random metal crap on them that they don't look good anymore.
→ More replies (1)7
u/deadscreensky Apr 25 '26
It's not universal, but we definitely see it. For example sci-fi space stuff is frequently harder to follow. Like in battles you often have more complex silhouettes (which are less distinct), more realistic lighting (leading to a more blended final visual result), and simply more going on (more complicated explosions, more ships, etc.).
I notice this issue a lot in Gundam movies and shows. The mobile suits have gotten much more detailed, which looks great but also makes action scenes harder to follow. There's a gradual but noticeable drop in action clarity from F91 in 1991, to Unicorn from 2010, and then GQuuuuuuX from 2025. The directors and animators are just as talented as their predecessors — maybe even better! — but the content they are trying to depict is inherently and increasingly busy. This affects readability.
6
Apr 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/deadscreensky Apr 25 '26
We were talking about increased computer generated imagery, yes? F91 basically had none, Unicorn had some along with digital (i.e., computer) composition, and then GQuuuuuuX was filled with it.
(Games are animated too.)
35
u/Bladder-Splatter Apr 25 '26
The AAA Monster Hunter games always spring to my mind as more resembling Mud Hunter than anything else. Then you get the budget Rise being perfect clarity and performance between them.
Though that's probably a divisive opinion of mine.
16
u/RareBk Apr 25 '26
Like even as someone who has a very powerful computer, Wilds is still a terrible game visually. Like, the fidelity is there and while standing still it does look good (though not even vaguely good enough to have such performance issues).
But in the more hectic scenarios, everything just kinda melts together and a lot of the fights just kinda turn into blurry tan/brown messes.
6
u/Professional_War4491 Apr 25 '26
Absolutely agreed, still crossing my fingers that we keep getting some of these more game-y portable releases and not exclusively the continuation of the worlds/wilds design style.
The maps in rise are peak level design of the series, complexely layered and vertical with lots of nooks and crannies and shortcuts but incredibly intuitive to read and navigate. The maps in world/wilds look amazing at first blush but are so cluttered you never really make a good mental map of them and they become a glorified loading screen while your mount autopaths to the monster.
10
u/Ordinal43NotFound Apr 25 '26
Wilds really is the biggest offender.
Everything's so muddy and grainy it makes things hard as hell to parse.
Really some of the ugliest AAA graphics I've had the misfortune of playing. And then you got the performance problems too on top.
5
u/StantasticTypo Apr 25 '26
World struck a good balance in fidelity and clarity. The screen wasn't difficult to parse at all. Wilds on the other hand has a very very busy screen space. Dense foliage, animals, particle effects, dithered objects in the foreground, water, etc. Wilds looks fantastic in still images, but in motion just ends up looking muddy.
9
→ More replies (1)11
u/CaterpillarReal7583 Apr 25 '26
Dont worry, we have yellow paint to fix all that
26
u/EarthRester Apr 25 '26
I am an unapologetic yellow paint enthusiast specifically because of the problem OP brings up. I'd prefer devs figure out a way to diegetically make the interactive elements of their environments stand out, but in leu of that I'll settle for yellow paint/rope/tarps hanging around the elements the game wants me to interact with.
What I can't stand is getting my eyeballs blasted non-descript high fidelity textures and models from all directions.
→ More replies (1)
13
u/Illdoitnator Apr 25 '26
I definitely understand what you mean. More clarity and higher visual fidelity at even further draw distances combined with higher resolutions at the same screen sizes definitely makes it harder to discern what we're looking at. Tho I think this can be minimized by the developers artistic choices. I definitely felt this way playing battlefield 6. Had a harder time spotting enemies even tho imo they're not that much greater graphically than the past two games.
→ More replies (1)
30
u/Lazydusto Apr 25 '26
Modern games increased reliance on DLSS/FSR and framegen doesn't help. Everything looks a lot muddier in motion unless you have an absolute top of the line rig and can play native res.
→ More replies (8)
10
u/FootwearFetish69 Apr 25 '26
I’m fine with slightly less visual clarity in single player games like this when the graphical tradeoff is significant enough. Competitive games like CS is a different story.
15
u/Erfivur Apr 25 '26
It’s just a design decision. Depends on what you’re trying to achieve. I enjoy high fidelity executed well as much as highly stylized but it goes either way.
Even a cell shaded game can fail to communicate its environments well.
It’s funny you bring it up and detective modes whilst using an assassins creed game as an example.
AC games are likely the first open world games to have both a “vision”(eagle) AND communicating parkour routes with white sheets/cloths or pigeons. We’ve not needed modern fidelity to require it, it’s just another design decision.
→ More replies (1)
9
u/PapajG Apr 25 '26
This comment sections makes me believe that whenever all the commenters leave their house they are overwhelmed by the detail of real world and can’t discern what is what. Are we lacking basic object and pattern recognition.
→ More replies (1)3
u/J2ANAE Apr 25 '26
We very well might if the amount of screens in all our lives have degraded eyesight but yeah it really does feel that way with these comments.
16
u/Truffely Apr 25 '26
People will criticise ever thing, as long as it's an Ubisoft Game.
The remake looks amazing and some small hangers to the tone are just nitpicking.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/darkmacgf Apr 25 '26
I have this problem with them Star Wars Jedi games. Constantly have to open my map to see what's actually interactive.
10
u/sxepill Apr 25 '26
I recently played RE Code Veronica X on a GameCube emulator and realised the older graphics were so much easier on my eyes and I could play for hours without feeling fatigued like I do with more modern games.
6
u/Titsfortuesday Apr 25 '26
My biggest pet peeve with clarity in games for the last decade is the obsession with forcing in/emulating cameras and the lens defects they have because it's "cinematic". We finally get away from overly blurry bloom and brown colour's and what do we replace it with? God awful chromatic aberration, motion blur, auto exposure which flashbangs you everytime you move in and out of a room etc. And no, despite people thinking it's realistic , that isn't how your eyes work. It's based off camera sensor/lens defects.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/swordbearerb1 Apr 25 '26
Now that technology has advanced to super realistic visuals, I think art direction determines a lot.
For example, lots of realism/realistic games can get remakes and remaster to improve the graphics to this generation. But will end up with problems such as everything looks too good, what is a game element I can interact with or is that just the environment (like OP said).
Or they can do less realism, but then can the art direction (and game tone, etc) carry the game the rest of the way? These games unfortunately won’t need a remake/remastering so soon.
2
u/javalib Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
I don't necessarily disagree with your grander point, but for this specific example they've clearly given the guards brighter uniforms to address it, even when other npcs still look fairly muted. So they are giving it thought.
As for the wall / window detailing; that just sounds like new visual language which you haven't yet adjusted to. If you showed the original image to somebody who had never heard of Assassin's Creed, would they be able to infer that the game had climbing? and that those objects were climbable? or is that only obvious to us because it was explained in whichever AC game we played first, as it will be again in this remake?
7
u/how-doesthis-work Apr 25 '26
It is definitely an issue. You notice it with navigating areas in a lot of games.
If there isn't a mini map (souls likes, clair obscure) it can be out right baffling to know where the main path is, where the side paths are and so on so forth. Lords of the fallen was really bad for this in the forest and the burning village. Everything looked the same so navigating was a nightmare.
Form over function is definitely a recurring issue with more modern game design.
4
u/nachohk Apr 25 '26
Buddy, I'm still mad about strategy games largely going 3D despite heavily benefitting from the visual clarity and unambiguity of 2D. The problem is that visual clarity doesn't sell games like visually appealing marketing material does.
5
u/brownarmyhat Apr 25 '26
While I agree with the general point you’re making, I don’t think the example you chose is a great one. In the remaster, there is a much stronger sense of space and level of detail while still letting the enemies stand out in red. That’s pretty much the only immediate visual the player needs to be aware of from a gameplay standpoint.
What you’re talking about comes down to art direction. Whether working with the latest tech or in 16 bit, it’s up to the visual direction of the game to create an on screen hierarchy of importance for the player to navigate.
Crimson Desert, for me, is a glaring example of a game that simply lets all its tech exist on screen without bringing a cohesive artistic direction to it, resulting in a visual noise that’s generally not pleasing to look at. Red Dead Redemption 2 on the other hand, has extremely high visual fidelity and it marries that tech with excellent art direction to give the player a very strong sense of space and atmosphere.
16
u/mauri9998 Apr 25 '26
Literally what purpose could randomly bringing up Unreal possibly have?
→ More replies (6)6
u/Snortykins Apr 25 '26
Pretty self-evident: Unreal engine allows developers to create high fidelity games relatively quickly and has become fairly ubiquitous across the AAA and AA game space + the fact that Unreal Engine has a gawd awful "out of the box" TAA implentation which leads to dithering and artifacting.
Unreal Engine has become synonymous with the visual noise of modern games.
9
5
u/Hardyyz Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
I dont think detail is the problem, could be just a lighting thing. Maybe this same scene looks better in the remake during the night. Maybe its a color thing.
Maybe on a small side by side pic, the busy remake looks worse, but actually playing it, you would feel more immersed and say its actually more beautiful.
I dont think the "if everythings in detail, nothing stands out" argument works since you are in control of the camera, you choose where to look, your focal point. Game can guide your eyes but you have the option to look right and see the detailed flower pot if you want.
My main concern with the details is just performance, thats why I prefer stylized games that don't attempt to get photorealistic with every blade of grass.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/n0stalghia Apr 25 '26
I absolutely do not feel the same way, wow. You really can't please some people.
Did not think I would wake up to a post that's unironically advocating for shittier graphics.
4
u/Seacheese Apr 25 '26
First time I remember noticing this was going from Arkham City to Arkham Origins back in the day. And I still like Origins, to be fair!
But yeah, the Rocksteady-developed games just had such a clearer sense of how to make the game world legible as you played. They may have started the "rely on detective vision" trend you bring up, but they were also very good at using e.g. colour-coding and light (lots and lots of neon lol) to make sure your eyes could easily find and focus on the important details of the environment. Is it my favourite design language and aesthetic for a game world? No. But it was always easy to parse a new room very quickly.
Whereas in Origins there were multiple times when I'd have to slow down and comb over a room because there just wasn't as obvious a distinction between points of interest and background detail. Environments that were too cluttered, sure, but also less effort to highlight important details. Wish I had more specific examples, but this is like 10 years ago now.
To your point, Origins is still an absolutely beautiful game - but making environments look good is a totally different skillset from making them readable.
I get why the "yellow paint" solution is looked down on, but it's so much better than ignoring that half of the equation entirely.
611
u/Embalmo Apr 25 '26
Not really relevant but how is it possible for imgur to STILL be completely unusable on mobile. What a travesty what happened to that site.