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[udivision]

Target your art style towards your audience, and sometimes even the genre of the game.

A lot of triple A games are aimed at a certain audience (and these games are advertised a lot) so it seems lie a certain style dominates.

It's kind of the same reason that people say they are getting tired of "16-bit" art style indie games, they seem to be everywhere.

 

[Jotamide]

Who are you to judge other people's taste?
Are you saying your taste is not shit?
What makes it not shit?

Call me hipster or whatever, but what appeals to the biggest demographic tends to align with generic or boring trends in design, music, etc.

 

[The Real Abed]

I miss the hand drawn water colors

See I love this art style. I've never played the game, but I love how it's hand drawn. I'd actually enjoy Final Fantasy VII if it looked like this instead of the terribly dated late '90s CGI pre-rendered backgrounds it used.

 

[udivision]

Call me hipster or whatever, but what appeals to the biggest demographic tends to align with generic or boring trends in design, music, etc.

In a way, yes, what appeals to the largest demographic has already been adopted and potential discarded by the core or trendier demos.

 

[faridmon]

Call me hipster or whatever, but what appeals to the biggest demographic tends to align with generic or boring trends in design, music, etc.

Not really.

See Borderlands, Royal Blood, Portishead, Haruki Murakami's books, Legend of Zelda, Chaos Walking trilogy, etc....

All of them different, lauded in their respective medium by artists and sold loads of copies.

Even if those generic titles sell alot, doesn't mean they have shit taste, it just mean that they like different things than you do.

Y

 

[Fitts]

Devs loved cel shading during the PS2/GC/Xbox generation. So much so that they ran it into the ground. I too find it attractive, but it was most definitely a case of too much of a good thing and I'm glad it's used more sparingly now.

 

[MUnited83]

Because people didn't buy next-gen consoles to play games that look like PSX games.

...

yeah


PSX game


totally

 

[Nanashrew]

Because it would get boring real quick

I really don't see how though. There are many varied styles and techniques out there that I struggle to think of how it could get boring. If there is anything boring these days it is the lack of varied styles and techniques from many large publishers focusing on realism and little else.

Wind Waker's art style has been very sparsely used and it originated from a 1963 Toei Animation film which inspired the likes of many. Samurai Jack is directly inspired by that film but doesn't use the exact same style like Wind Waker does. You can take and learn new techniques that which inspired you without being too similar to one another in art.

Not everything has to be cel-shaded or anime either.

 

[Stratostar]

edit: never mind

 

[Grief.exe]

I live this art style as it is almost timeless. It scales well with technology as it will always look better at higher resolution, while games targeting a realistic art style will start to degrade over time.

Ashen (PC/Xbox)

Necropolis (PC)

Little Devil Inside (PC)

Fortnite (PC)

https://www.fortnite.com

Shelter (PC)

Because people didn't buy next-gen consoles to play games that look like PSX games.

Fuck off though.

 

[Nanashrew]

I live this art style as it is almost timeless. It scales well with technology as it will always look better at higher resolution, while games targeting a realistic art style will start to degrade over time.

Shelter

Shelter looks amazing!

 

[Wozman23]

The better question is why do so many games favor realism in an industry that focuses on escaping from reality?

Consumers are definitely to blame for their narrow-mindedness. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say Sly and Ratchet are kids' games. Or that they didn't play Borderlands because it's "too cartoony." Why would a developer, or more likely a publisher, be willing to throw a bunch of money into something that's already being dismissed by a large, albeit ignorant, portion of the gaming community?

They're not solely responsible though. Technology is partially to blame too. With previous generations, developers were far more limited with how photo-realistic they could make things look. Lara Croft in the original Tomb Raider barely looks human. Now she's near flawless.

A lot of developers found creative ways to work these around restrictions, many times by rooting games in unrealistic settings. With the dissipation of those restrictions, coming up with creative solutions is no longer as important as it once was. It's relatively easy to make a game look realistic now.

Still, I think there are plenty of studios who still prioritize art style, especially in the indie community. The Flame in the Flood and Vane look insane.

 

[DedValve]

Shelter has a really great artstyle. That game was fun.

 

[Dio Brando]

I live this art style as it is almost timeless. It scales well with technology as it will always look better at higher resolution, while games targeting a realistic art style will start to degrade over time.

Ashen

Necropolis

http://38.media.tumblr.com/86485a35503f5fb3b75b787ea45a0bc8/tumblr_inline_nliulcDEbb1t2nv1v.gif

Little Devil Inside

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/718663513644821044/CEEF733CD014656222FDBEADCADC463F7DB24433/

Fortnite

https://www.fortnite.com

Shelter

http://mightanddelight.com/img/newsImages/newsletter/201407/Shelter2_Deer.png

http://i.minus.com/ibaQWunmnuEq8.gif

Fuck off though.

Totally agree. Ashen Specially looks amazing <3

 

[Hoje0308]

A parade of beautiful gifs.

You're killing me. We're close enough to E3 that I'm getting excited to see more, but not so close that the feeling isn't fleeting and immediately followed by a little bit of sad face.

 

[koutoru]

I live this art style as it is almost timeless. It scales well with technology as it will always look better at higher resolution, while games targeting a realistic art style will start to degrade over time.

Yup. Wind Waker's cel shading style still looks amazing in 2015.
Also, in my opinion, cel shading in the Naruto fighting games has gotten to the point where it looks even better than the anime.

 

[Comfort Jones]

Yup. Wind Waker's cel shading style still looks amazing in 2015.
Also, in my opinion, cel shading in the Naruto fighting games has gotten to the point where it looks even better than the anime.

Looking better than the anime isn't exactly difficult.

 

[JordanN]

Games should only use artstyles that are appropriate for it.

I wouldn't want to force Call of Duty to look like a cartoon when it's clearly meant to be realistic.

The thread title should be phrased "why not make NEW games with this artstyle?".

 

[PositiveYorae]

Well one of the most beautiful rpg last gen used cell shading. Meaning Ni no kuni. I guess level 5 has made cell shading a signature of theirs. Look at ni no kuni if you see anything bland or boring about it. And then look at valkyria chronicles. Look at it. Then imagine an rpg using that engine.....

 

[Portugeezer]

Well one of the most beautiful rpg last gen used cell shading. Meaning Ni no kuni. I guess level 5 has made cell shading a signature of theirs. Look at ni no kuni if you see anything bland or boring about it. And then look at valkyria chronicles. Look at it. Then imagine an rpg using that engine.....

Love the hand drawn style for 3d. Did the rumours of ni no kuni 2 have any weight to them? Man, something like that on new consoles would look amazing.

 

[PositiveYorae]

Love the hand drawn style for 3d. Did the rumours of ni no kuni 2 have any weight to them? Man, something like that on new consoles would look amazing.

Let's just hope that anything Level 5 is cooking for the current gen will be good.

 

[Aces&Eights]

Too cartoony for me. I like games like Trine. Right in the middle of realistic and color drawn.

 

[Lelcar]

I agree, OP. It's a mighty fine style and it would be cool to see more takes on it.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Sounds like you'll want to check out Tree of Savior when that comes out.

For me? I miss pre-rendered backgrounds from the JRPG's I grew up with in general. I also like the cell shading from certain games (couldn't get into it with Windwaker) but I miss a lot of different styles... =(

I personally wish that aesthetically, more games used the same art style as Xenoblade Chronicles X. Imagine what a .Hack would look like if they managed to use the same engine. It'd be amazing!

I agree with you. They've lost a lot of what made .Hack so great and Xenoblade Chronicles has tried to save the world at least. I would be geared more towards JRPGs that aren't made by specific companies if they would. Mistwalker does a great job in that department. Thanks for the heads up. I'm a little worried since 90% of Korean MMOs look good during their initial reveal.

 

[Mango The Magician]

Cell shading isn't perfect for all games, and in a lot of cases could actually make the overall look of the game too messy. Realistic, semi-realistic, and even just realistically proportioned anime characters, have hard time meshing well with a style that purposefully masks and hides all the details on them. Rime gets away with it however, by designing their character around it, as opposed to other games where the character isn't designed around it.

 

[hatchx]

Probably because it can't easily be made with middleware like so many westernized games rely on.


and god Rime looks amazing. Can't come soon enough.


EDIT - also, Batman Vengeance?

 

[DragonGirl]

This is a major pet peeve of mine. I'm an artist and I really dislike photorealism. Here we have this amazing artistic tool that allows us to realize any visual style so what's done with it? We ape the crap we can see out the window. A dirty window at that. Visual "styles" that try to look like real life have always been a major turn off to me. There are so many visual styles that could be explored. It's depressing to live in a culture with such stale tastes.

 

[rpmurphy]

It would not be as unique if many more games used that sort of style.

Still, I agree that it is a nice balance between style and realism.

Yeah, experimentation with different styles is a nice thing. Conforming to one thing just gets old.

 

[Klossen]

Because stylized design requires a semblance of talent and artistic vision. Easier to just strive for realism and fail at that rather than going through the effort of telling all your concept artists, modellers and level designers your specific stylistic vision.

The better question is why do so many games favor realism in an industry that focuses on escaping from reality?

It's a case of devs being too bloated and crippled for it like in AAA games. Good luck selling a specific stylized look to a team of 200 people and have them all comply to it. Far easier to just tell your crew "make it realistic" as everyone can relate to that.

It's also because the dudebro audience that buy CoD and AC annually are simply too ashamed and biased to ever play a cel-shaded game. To them, it's stuff for kids, while they enjoy their failed attempts at realism and brag about how good it looks.

It really is tragic how an industry so bound by technical limits, we still pretend those limits don't exist and create games that are far outside the reach of modern tech. Not to mention how stylized almost always ages much better than hyper-realism. Crysis might've been a technical masterpiece, but to me Prince of Persia released a year after was far, far more visually stunning.

 

[John Rabbit]

https://youtu.be/dJJmajUHmQA

https://youtu.be/1tSaUafdmKk

https://youtu.be/IkVt1s_ZFbw

I love this art style and I'm sure many do too. How come there are not many games that use this art style? Too kiddish for people, not realistic enough?

I don't get it it's such a beautiful style for games, it should be used much more.

except for Rime and a few other games seen in this thread that practice a more spartan approach with the environment and world design, i feel like i'm constantly seeing this art style regurgitated every time someone tries their hand at a MOBA/f2p/multiplayer/mobile title. it's just "that look" that games try to emulate because it resembles other far more popular titles like WoW, TF2, and DOTA2.

could be me though.

 

[Sami+]

Who are you to judge other people's taste?
Are you saying your taste is not shit?
What makes it not shit?

High school mentality tbh.

 

[Springfoot]

I live this art style as it is almost timeless. It scales well with technology as it will always look better at higher resolution, while games targeting a realistic art style will start to degrade over time.

Ashen (PC/Xbox)

Necropolis (PC)

Little Devil Inside[/url] (PC)

Fortnite (PC)

Shelter (PC)

Fuck off though.

Ashen looks terrific. One thing I'm particularly impressed with (and doesn't seem to get enough love) is the effects work in both Gigantic and Ashen.

The effects work in Gigantic looks like classic, hand-animated Disney effects animation (like when they'd hand animate fire, smoke, water splashes, etc. - think Fantasia) while Ashen's is more clearly 3D but very stylized.

Out of this list, Shelter is the only one I don't dig mainly because it's too consistently noisy. Looking at the shots of the others, there's a pleasing balance between small, tight details that add visual complexity and noise balanced by broad, sweeping gradients that allow the eye to rest and dance between the two. Shelter appears to be all noise, all the time.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

...

yeah


PSX game


totally

Rime looks so beautiful; I really can't wait to play it. I love Blue Sky in games, and it always makes me feel a bit more optimistic and upbeat. Some of the scenery in Shovel Knight is gorgeous, both with the blue skies and lovely horizons like the tower in the background.

 

[SprachBrooks]

Because the core audience thinks these types of games are too cartooney and thus don't but them.

See Okami.

Lol I think there are other reasons why people didn't buy Okami than just its art style.

Isn't this art style used because it's cheaper as well? Probably the majority making games have different art styles in their game concepts in mind that better fit it.