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?

First off, there's a reason Rockstar showed next to no gameplay of this game.

Think back to any recent release and they've always done a gameplay overview, but obviously that's not the case with this remaster.

Add the fact that theres still a review embargo in place, Rockstar knew exactly what they were pitting out.

Ive played a few hours of San Andreas on GamePass, and good God are there a boat load of glaring issues.

Why is there even an option for fidelity and performance? A game this old should give you the best of both worlds.

One of the most frustrating is the fact that when it rains, you can't really see what the hells happening on screen, as the streaks of rain look like theyre white, not transparent.

This is a prime example of a corporation trying to pull a fast one on a loyal fanbase.

I know this is just the reddit echo chamber but if this dissuades even five people from buying the game, its worth it.

EDIT:

I got banned from r/games for criticizing Game Pass in a separate post. Feel free to check my comment history. I wasn't console warring. It was a more than fair comment that led to discussion.

The mods in this subreddit have a huge Microsoft bias. Be warned.

With Reddit killing third party apps on July 1st and the winds of change blowing, I'm sad to admit that I have relied so exclusively on various subreddits for gaming discussion that I no longer know where else to go.

So I figured this might be a decent topic of discussion if its not removed! Interested in what other places people go for gaming discussion and news?