here’s a good article about video game aesthetics specifically, but i feel like the same idea can apply to, like
literally every other visual storytelling medium
Because, ultimately, video game realism doesn’t even look like the real world. In reality, sometimes the light is too bright. Sometimes, the clouds diffuse light and you can’t ever figure out where it’s coming from. Sometimes overgrowth twists into bizarre patterns or dies too early. Sometimes reality is magical; often, it’s surreal. The evolving aesthetic of video game realism, instead of looking like reality, just ends up looking like other video games. And after decades of gameplay, that is unbearably boring.




