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Comment by wly_cdgr | Hacker News Reader

There is something really weird and psychotic about, here's this technology that lets you render anything you can imagine in any way you can imagine, and what we keep trying to do is copy the way we already perceive the world as closely as possible. I wonder if this urge to copy reality is borne out of our biological urge to reproduce. Otherwise why would we find something as boring and unimaginative as photorealism so pleasing?

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It's about pushing boundaries. Creative people see a boundary - they want to push it. Up until very recently it was about "how much polygons and textures you can put on screen". Now it's about "how real can you make it". Once we routinely get to the other side of uncannny valley and everything is real enough, we will see another boundary and creative people will push that instead.

even more psychotic: the real world but you get to kill anyone you want, and violence and death is basically the main focus of everything that happens in the world.

I totally agree. Any recommendations of games with great visuals that don’t focus on killing? I’d love to experience amazing virtual worlds without gameplay involving weapons.

All I can think of are sports games like FIFA, or side quests in Red Dead Redemption. Any other suggestions?

The Forgotten City, My Summer Car, Quantic Dream's games, Supermassive's games, Cloudpunks, Mind Scanners, Sable, Obduction, Superliminal, Eastward, Beautiful Desolation, Dropsy, If On A Winter's Night Four Travelers, Desert Child, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Legend of Hand, Draugen, Felix The Reaper, Firewatch, The Talos Principle, The Witness

I am interepreting great visuals broadly to include great art direction, but there are some very nice looking realistic 3D games in that list

Some other ones that I don't particularly care for but that many people love: Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn

There are also many great games that feature combat as a core mechanic but are no more "about it" than The Odyssey or The Seven Samurai are. For example: Yakuza 0, Kenshi, INSOMNIA: The Ark, Vampyr, Valakas Story, Pathologic 2, Ghost of a Tale, A Plague Tale

*Cloudpunk

Forza Horizon 5, open world driving simulation. The map is 107km².

...'The Matrix' is based off a real-life movie.

If they are trying to make a game based off that universe, with the same actors/actresses, why would they not aim for the most realistic possible portrayal possible?

Your statement also ignores phenomenal games like Flower, Journey, NiGHTS Into Dreams - your statement even excludes the Mario series. Even 'Halo' has imaginative worlds that can benefit from photorealism.

Photorealism does not remove creativity. It's also a standard, a boundary to which digital artists have aspired to since the beginning of the medium.

You might as well ask why realist painting is a thing?

I guess that's because we're just using the benchmark we have. If it looks like what we see in the real world and it fools us, then it's good!

We don't - Fortnite and Minecraft are good examples of hit games that don't look photo real deliberately.

The Matrix demo is set in a city because (a) that's where the Matrix is set, and (b) it's relatively "easy" to do photo-realism in a city because you can use actual photos, and because other than the people the objects are reflective shiny boxes or surfaces.

Because it's familiar and uses references, contexts and symbols we understand.

I also wonder if it's cheaper.

Indeed, that is the answer. People need something that they can relate to, otherwise they will just shrug and move on. This is why in all sci-fi movies about the far future, that future in many ways always looks suspiciously like today; it is not for the lack of imagination on the part of the author, the goal here is precisely to leave some points of reference and prevent the audience from losing interest. (Hidden advertisement and product placement plays not a small role here as well.)

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