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[Africa's Toto]

tl;dr at the end

If you, today, tried to play through the cutting edge games of 30 or 40 years ago, there'd probably be several barriers in the way of immersing yourself in the intended experience.
Unless you were a fan of that franchise, you'd have to really suspend your disbelief (in the presentation) to endure a full playthrough. I mainly mean the visual presentation, but the whole experience as well **

Final Fantasy 1 (1987)

Ultima 6 (1990)

Doom (1993)

Polemon Red/Green/Blue (1996)

Fallout 1 (1997)

Final Fantasy 7 (1997)

Things like art style, lighting, shading techniques, texture quality, geometry complexity, bit depth, and so on.

For example: a lot of these games had to rely on text and basic chip tunes because audio cards were either too limited technically, or too costly in terms of computing resources (I think).
Another example would be the use of sprites and 2d art.

These games did what they could with the tech they had then, and many of them used clever tricks and hacks to bypass limitations.
These days, these older games are called 'retro' and are appreciated as the style of an era, and modern legacy games take inspiration from them. Legacy games use the retro presentation as a stylistic choice, and try to blend modern visual design touches in to make them more visually appealing or "playable".


Contemporary games have almost reached the uncanny valley in terms of in-game photorealism (not many, but the rest aren't too far behind in a squint-and-they-could-pass way).
Turn off the hud in modern games and they really make you feel the way that Ign guy felt that one time.

The Witcher 3 (2015)

Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

The Last of Us 2 (2020)

Baldur's Gate 3 (2021?)

Spoiler: Note

There are much better examples out there, these will probably be dated in a year or two.

In the future, things like animation and lighting improvements will inevitably push us even closer to photorealism, making contemporary games seem stiff and dull (I honestly don't see how, but in hindsight these things can always be improved remarkably)



The question is:
When compared to the 2d/early 3d games, will contemporary games be "playable" for longer since they're already close enough representations of people and objects?*
(In the Witcher 3, you aren't controlling basic polygons textured to look like a fantasy character, you're basically controlling highly detailed concept art given depth and brought to life. Will that be the case if you squint and play through it 30 years from now?)


**Also, as odd as it may seem, try to ignore the gameplay part of playing retro games.



tl;dr:

Spoiler: tl;dr

Will you be able to play current good-looking games like Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Last of Us 2 in 30 or 40 years without thinking "that's obviously not what a person looks like" or "how could this have passed for an explosion back then" or "damn, the environment looks way too artificial"?

Note:

Spoiler: *

This is all considering playing on a similar device with a similar control scheme as originally intended; the inevitable VR ports/remakes don't count.
Flat screen, flat input, same code, same assests, 30 years from now.

Some similar threads, sort of:

Evolution of Graphics Technology

All: There's a repeated discussion about potential gains during this gen of consoles. Maybe it needs it's own OT because that's actually an interesting discussion. I started this thread because there is a lot of misunderstanding and arguing over what we will actually see with the evolution...

www.neogaf.com

Do you play more games from previous generations than current.

Let's face it some of us like to keep it oldschool when it comes to gaming and don't care for the pretty and shiny graphics. How many of you do more gaming on previous gen consoles vs current.

www.neogaf.com

 

[baphomet]

As always, stylized games will age fine but anything going for a realistic look will be extremely dated in 10 years.

 

[existensmaximum]

My opinion:

- Pretty much all 2D games up until the 16-bit generation have aged like fine wine graphics-wise, and many of them also gameplay-wise.
- Not one single 32-bit polygon game looked acceptable even back when they were new, and look like utter trash today
- Many 2D 32-bit games looked OK/good/incredible and still do today
- Everything after the 32-bit generation will have aged very poorly, unless the graphics were stylized in some nice, artistic way (which of course.. like everything else here is a matter of opinions)

It's comparable to movies. Old movies say, before the 80's, that didn't rely on visual effects have aged beautifully and are as great as ever. Many movies from the 80's still look great with "analog" VFX.

CG heavy movies from the 90's though... not so much. Most of them (not all) have aged very poorly, and I think modern action movies which are 90% greenscreen and CG will look like shit in 10 years (I can't even watch them now to be honest).

But anyway, when it comes to games - a great story and fun gameplay will always age well I think, even if it's simple. Or maybe because it is simple? Convoluted stuff often seem to age worse.

 

[IFireflyl]

The problem is that most new/modern games are lacking in one of the most important parts of video games: the story. Some games will stand the test of time, but a lot of them will be forgotten because graphics are worthless when the actual content of the game is garbage. That's why older Final Fantasy games are still talked about. The content of the games were great, and people can overlook graphics for amazing content.

 

[Phase]

 

[Torrent of Pork]

I voted no, we're deep into the uncanny valley now which we'll likely be climbing out of for years. We're never going from OoT to Skyrim in less than 15 years again.

 

[polybius80]

that is a FF1 remake

the one in NES looks like this

 

[StreetsofBeige]

My opinion:

- Pretty much all 2D games up until the 16-bit generation have aged like fine wine graphics-wise, and many of them also gameplay-wise.
- Not one single 32-bit polygon game looked acceptable even back when they were new, and look like utter trash today
- Many 2D 32-bit games looked OK/good/incredible and still do today
- Everything after the 32-bit generation will have aged very poorly, unless the graphics were stylized in some nice, artistic way (which of course.. like everything else here is a matter of opinions)

It's comparable to movies. Old movies say, before the 80's, that didn't rely on visual effects have aged beautifully and are as great as ever. Many movies from the 80's still look great with "analog" VFX.

CG heavy movies from the 90's though... not so much. Most of them (not all) have aged very poorly, and I think modern action movies which are 90% greenscreen and CG will look like shit in 10 years (I can't even watch them now to be honest).

But anyway, when it comes to games - a great story and fun gameplay will always age well I think, even if it's simple. Or maybe because it is simple? Convoluted stuff often seem to age worse.

I agree with everything in this post except the movie part.

Assuming all movies have quality tidied up (ie. no unfair comparisons like a rotting staticky VHS video vs. a BR disc), I'd say just about every movie from the 1970s and before are awful to watch. The combination of low budget production values, boring camera angles, terrible graphics if they tried to add some effects or splashy title screens, cheesy costumes, and unrelated to visuals - bad acting. Back then (and the further you go back) it's like acting were students doing drama class. Was really bad when it was black & white. At least modern day movies people act more like normal people when it comes to grounded genres like dramas. There's no way the average person acted like high brow Clark Gable in every day life like b&w movies in the 50s.

 

[ZehDon]

Every time we repeat this conversation, this image becomes more relevant:

We always think the games of the current day are going to age better. They never do.

 

[_Ex_]

I've been playing video games since 1982. I've experienced everything from Atari 2600 to PS5. All that graphical evolution and yet to this day, I still only care about one thing. The gameplay. Graphics always age, some like cheese, some like wine, but they always become obsolete from a technical perspective. Good game design never ages a day.

 

[existensmaximum]

I agree with everything in this post except the movie part.

Assuming all movies have quality tidied up (ie. no unfair comparisons like a rotting staticky VHS video vs. a BR disc), I'd say just about every movie from the 1970s and before are awful to watch. The combination of low budget production values, boring camera angles, terrible graphics if they tried to add some effects or splashy title screens, cheesy costumes, and unrelated to visuals - bad acting. Back then (and the further you go back) it's like acting were students doing drama class. Was really bad when it was black & white. At least modern day movies people act more like normal people when it comes to grounded genres like dramas. There's no way the average person acted like high brow Clark Gable in every day life like b&w movies in the 50s.

Sure, I get what you're saying even if I don't agree. I love old movies and a lot of the classics, and I think they have a real charm. But I understand what you mean, and I'm sure plenty of people think that 32-bit polygon games have charm as well even if I don't agree with that either. But if I was to guess, I think there are more movie nerds and cinephiles that love old movies and think they have aged great than there are ummmm gamephiles (?) that praise the early polygon games. But I could be wrong

 

[sunnysideup]

The games will look old. But Good art prevails. If the game has a good art direction today it will tomorrow.

 

[DelireMan7]

I can play without any problem any game from the 4th gen (SNES, Sega megadrive...) and onward. The general visual style of the previous gen don't really appeal me. But I could probably appreciate it if I "force" myself to boot on of these games.

So I would say modern games like old games will stand the test of time. As long as games are good, it will work for me, no matter the time elapsed since their release.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sure, I get what you're saying even if I don't agree. I love old movies and a lot of the classics, and I think they have a real charm. But I understand what you mean, and I'm sure plenty of people think that 32-bit polygon games have charm as well even if I don't agree with that either. But if I was to guess, I think there are more movie nerds and cinephiles that love old movies and think they have aged great than there are ummmm gamephiles (?) that praise the early polygon games. But I could be wrong

I totally agree with you and anyone else that the 32-bit era of 3D would never hold up well. Who knows, maybe there's a couple games here and there, but definitely not a lot.

The entire early days of gaming: Pong/Atari/Coleco etc.... are bad too. Probably none of those hold up no matter how much charm they have.

Something like this will age nicely forever. I'm still amazed how they pulled off such awesome smooth visuals. I'm sure gamers in the year 2100 going over archives will see this game and say it still looks great.

 

[mxbison]

On screenshots maybe, in motion probably not.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Every time we repeat this conversation, this image becomes more relevant:

We always think the games of the current day are going to age better. They never do.

I can't believe they put M2 in the top header thinking it was established enough to be there.

Forget about the cover art, I'm more interested if Marines were trained on Doom! lol

 

[RedVIper]

I actually find really old games aged a lot better than semi old games, when the tech started to get better games went all in on the "realism" stuff and it aged like garbage.

Its a lot easier for me to immerse myself in a pixel art game from 2000 than a realistic game from 2000.

Today's games will not age as fast, *when standing still*, there's only so much prettier games can get. It's everything else that pull you out of the experience that will make them outdated in a few years, shitty animation, especially faces, retarded AI, empty worlds, bad physics, etc.

 

[Bakkus]

- Pretty much all 2D games up until the 16-bit generation have aged like fine wine graphics-wise, and many of them also gameplay-wise

Are you sure you don't mean 'from' instead of 'up until'? Because your post as it stands indicates that you think 2D games after the 16-bit generation hasn't aged well, but the ones before that have.

 

[Belmonte]

Perhaps it is because I'm an enthusiast but I find many early 3D games very charming. Virtua Fighter and FFVII for example.

Now to the OP question: In the future even the most advanced game will feel like Toy Story 1. The flaws will be visible, and it won't be regarded as realistic anymore. But it will be acceptable, even beautiful in the future. Like 16 bits is to 2D art.

IMO RDR2 will never be garbage, even for non enthusiasts. It passed the point where you can suspend your disbelief.

Obviously beautiful 2D games will never age. Cuphead will be as beautiful in the future as it is now.

 

[NahaNago]

Just thinking about how good games will look in 40 years... Games will probably be 32k resolution. AAA games will probably look like Avatar. I doubt they will stand the test of time graphically. Folks in gaming forums of course will be okay and look back with nostalgia to those old games but everyone else will be like , nope.

 

[ZywyPL]

It all depends, as always - 2D games age like a fine wine, they always do, because their only limitation is the resolution (and the creator's imagination), and now with 4K they'll look better than ever for a very looong time. On the other hand, advanced 3D graphics, especially the ones chasing realism, get old like 2-3 years after the game's launch already, because there's always better lightning, better shading, better animations etc. just around the corner. Simple 3D graphics that rely on the art design rather than advanced tech/features also age fine tho, like Minecraft for example, or better yet - all the Wii/PS Move/Kinect games from 10-15 years ago, they all look great even today.

 

[Soodanim]

IMO RDR2 will never be garbage, even for non enthusiasts. It passed the point where you can suspend your disbelief.

Obviously beautiful 2D games will never age. Cuphead will be as beautiful in the future as it is now.

I think RDR2 and its ilk will be top of the list for games that age, because it’s the games that look the most realistic that age when realism advances. Even if there isn’t as far to go as there used to be, unless it’s the most realistic game ever made it will age because it’s trying to be realistic.

Mario 64 will never age. It will forever be exactly what it set out to be: bright, colourful, simple. It can’t be surpassed in tree detail because it’s not trying to give trees any detail. Mario 64 will always look good, because it’s timeless.

 

[Gp1]

Ultima 7, please.

 

[SpiceRacz]

Some modern games moreso than others, but I'm not sure it matters if the games in question play like shit. Some older games are timeless and transcend generations.

 

[existensmaximum]

Are you sure you don't mean 'from' instead of 'up until'? Because your post as it stands indicates that you think 2D games after the 16-bit generation hasn't aged well, but the ones before that have.

No, I meant up until. I just wasn't very precise obviously. Some 2D games mixed sprites with polygons after the 16-bit generation, and some of them had pre-rendered backgrounds and what not. Which I think has aged very poorly, but there are lots of exceptions to this as well.

 

[supernova8]

Every time we repeat this conversation, this image becomes more relevant:

We always think the games of the current day are going to age better. They never do.

Well OP's questions whether games today will stand the test of time better than past generations graphically.
In that context the answer has to be yes in cases where the games were going for realism. It doesn't mean that they won't look shit compared to whatever comes out in 5 years time, but they definitely wouldn't look worse than past stuff.

I'd say that as time goes by and the gap between photorealism and what we can achieve in real-time game graphics narrows (albeit slowly), there will be fewer differences between the generations. Partly because it becomes that much more difficult to build a cost-effective device that is also far more powerful, but also because it's like comparing three versions of the same jigsaw: one is 20% done, one is 80% done and one is 90% done. Anyone would agree that the latter two look far more "complete" than the first one, but you wouldn't necessarily say there's a huge difference between the 80% and 90% versions.

There are, of course, some games that sort of transcend space and time because of their unique/quirky art style. Generally for me games that don't even try to be realistic end up being the most bearable to play.

I would be happy to play Wind Waker in 5 years time but imagine playing Half Life 2 in 5 years time.. it just looks dated, as amazing as it was back when it came out.

edit: having re-read OP's question, it seems like the body text and the title don't really match up properly i.e. the question they are asking is a bit unclear. Nevertheless, I would stand by what I wrote above.

 

[Spaceman292]

Pokemon still pretty much looks exactly the same.

 

[Rickyiez]

It depends . I still dont mind playing FF8 or DMC1 remaster on this day (probably because it's stylized ?)

So I'm okay with playing DMC5 in the next 20 years too

For non stylized or realistic games however I'm not sure yet . I think some of they still hold up fine as long as the lighting is decent , character model has enough polygons and not blocky . Wouldn't mind playing these nowadays or many years ahead :

SC Chaos Theory (2005) ,

Far Cry 1 (2004) ,

Swat 4 (2005) ,

but if its further back before 2000 like Deus Ex , Half Life 1 , RTCW then maybe not

 

[Bo_Hazem]

In 30-40 years games should be identical to reality and we would've reached the near infinite pixel resolution 16K or even past that to 32-64K and looking at TV's might feel like looking through a window.

 

[turtlepowa]

In my opinion 3d games will never age well until we reach the point of 100% photorealism.

 

[Reality Czar]

Its all about art style and in many ways older games still have modern games beat.

 

[Sander Cohen]

I totally agree with you and anyone else that the 32-bit era of 3D would never hold up well. Who knows, maybe there's a couple games here and there, but definitely not a lot.

The entire early days of gaming: Pong/Atari/Coleco etc.... are bad too. Probably none of those hold up no matter how much charm they have.

Something like this will age nicely forever. I'm still amazed how they pulled off such awesome smooth visuals. I'm sure gamers in the year 2100 going over archives will see this game and say it still looks great.

I seriously need to buy this game finally. It’s just so beautiful

 

[Hunnybun]

Interesting thread.

I do think that last gen games a kind of threshold was crossed whereby for the first time games actually started to look like reasonably good approximations of reality. A lot of games were quite attractive in an absolute sense.

That was the first generation where I was still marvelling at the graphics at the end of the generation as much as I was at the beginning.

So it MIGHT be that in 20 years people will still see that generation as a kind of marker where games became acceptable looking. For 2d games I'd say that point was certainly reached with something like Rayman Origins back on the 360. I see it now and know such games could look better, but it's still a lovely game to look at. And diminishing returns will kick in at some point even for big 3d worlds.

If I had to bet, the biggest problem people will have with PS4 games when they look back is just how dead the worlds are. Almost no dynamic scenery, no crowds of people, no destruction, things like that. Environments and faces etc do already look fairly convincing, but not the actual sense of a lively world.

 

[Reality Czar]

The same people pixel and FPS counting now will not stop even in 30 years will “fully realistic graphics” they will still be able to pick our bad shading techniques or other glitches. They will also look at the games that came out only a year earlier and call them trash. That kind of one upsmanship is never going to stop. I don’t think we will ever get to a point where people stop complaining.

 

[Hunnybun]

I agree with everything in this post except the movie part.

Assuming all movies have quality tidied up (ie. no unfair comparisons like a rotting staticky VHS video vs. a BR disc), I'd say just about every movie from the 1970s and before are awful to watch. The combination of low budget production values, boring camera angles, terrible graphics if they tried to add some effects or splashy title screens, cheesy costumes, and unrelated to visuals - bad acting. Back then (and the further you go back) it's like acting were students doing drama class. Was really bad when it was black & white. At least modern day movies people act more like normal people when it comes to grounded genres like dramas. There's no way the average person acted like high brow Clark Gable in every day life like b&w movies in the 50s.

Wow. Maybe you could recommend me some of these great new movies?

I must have seen about 5 decent new films in the last 20 years! And about 500 shit ones.

 

[Three]

We got to a point where edge vertices were no longer glaringly apparent. Where textures were not pixilated, where aliasing was no longer very obvious. Looking back at this gen I think the things that would look dated are animations and lighting. Other than that the games of today especially those with good lighting and animations will hold up really well.

 

[Birdo]

Semi-realistic graphics never age well. Only stylised games do (Like pixel art or cell shaded).

 

[Bonfires Down]

Visuals aren’t much of a problem with older games imo.

Bad interfaces, bad controls and bullshit difficulty is.

 

[phil_t98]

We prob thought the same with the ps3 and 360 era. In 10-15 years time these games will prob look and run badly compared to what we have then

 

[Dusktildawn48]

If old games continue to get resolution bumps some games can. Halo CE for example, playing with the original graphics @ 4k the game looks pretty decent imo.

 

[Hunnybun]

We got to a point where edge vertices were no longer glaringly apparent. Where textures were not pixilated, where aliasing was no longer very obvious. Looking back at this gen I think the things that would look dated are animations and lighting. Other than that the games of today especially those with good lighting and animations will hold up really well.

I think that's another thing about attractive graphics that isn't really well understood. There are 2 almost separate dimensions they can be measured across: how beautiful they are, but also how ugly.

In some sense a game can look beautiful and ugly at the same time.

By beauty I mean just general fidelity to an abolsute standard e.g. real life or a Pixar film. By ugly I mean blemishes, imperfections. Shimmering, aliasing, pixellation, etc. Things which detract from what's otherwise on the screen.

Mario Odyssey is much more beautiful than Mario 64, but it's also uglier. The bad IQ is much more of a problem to me than the simple textures or blocky models are in Mario 64.

And by and large last gen was when a lot of games just stopped being ugly. Like you said, a lot of the glaring issues had been solved. I suppose the one remaining glaring ugliness was probably the frame rate.

 

[SirTerry-T]

I agree with everything in this post except the movie part.

Assuming all movies have quality tidied up (ie. no unfair comparisons like a rotting staticky VHS video vs. a BR disc), I'd say just about every movie from the 1970s and before are awful to watch. The combination of low budget production values, boring camera angles, terrible graphics if they tried to add some effects or splashy title screens, cheesy costumes, and unrelated to visuals - bad acting. Back then (and the further you go back) it's like acting were students doing drama class. Was really bad when it was black & white. At least modern day movies people act more like normal people when it comes to grounded genres like dramas. There's no way the average person acted like high brow Clark Gable in every day life like b&w movies in the 50s.

You need to watch more movies.

 

[Ten_Fold]

Realistic games will look dated over time. Games like BOTW will still look good.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

CG heavy movies from the 90's though... not so much. Most of them (not all) have aged very poorly, and I think modern action movies which are 90% greenscreen and CG will look like shit in 10 years (I can't even watch them now to be honest).

I fuly agree with you for movies SFX, CGI/green screens are unbearable in most cases, especially when they are used throughout a movie.

However, I don't agree with your realistic v.s. stylized take on modern games, titles like TLoU 2, Witcher III, Red Ded Redemption 2, etc. will look just as good as they do now in 10 years--looks impressive, but I find them underwhelming in some ways that I suspect technology will not fix. However I always preferred "realistic fantasy" like God of War 2018, and I still find God of War III looks better than most games today.

 

[Mozzarella]

Don't worry as soon as they start to age the developers will make sure to release a Remake and generate profit, i mean its a thing already right? every year we get more Remakes/Remasters than new games.

 

[Reality Czar]

We will be looking back on RDR2, TLOU2, etc. and saying "Why does this look so bad?"

 

[EverydayBeast]

We know every game can be remastered.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I seriously need to buy this game finally. It’s just so beautiful

Great game. Looks awesome. Hard as fuck!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Wow. Maybe you could recommend me some of these great new movies?

I must have seen about 5 decent new films in the last 20 years! And about 500 shit ones.

You need to watch more movies.

I'd put NARC (Jason Patric and Ray Liotta) up against any cop/thriller movie in any era. Good movie. Even Busta Rhymes was solid in it.

An awesome documentary is Dawn Wall about crazy guys climbing vertical cliffs.

Whether it's fiction or based off real life, you'd never get any movies way back like this.

 

[DaGwaphics]

I'd say the more something leans into realism the worse it will hold up, where more cartoonish things that are beautifully done can stand up a little better. We should be getting to a point where it is possible to match the fluidity of an old hand-drawn Disney film, that's the kind of thing that can stand up. Not that I don't love realism, it's just that that is always progressing and what looks hyper realistic today will probably be viewed as inferior down the road.