Digital Foundry's Best Game Graphics of 2021 – PC, Xbox, PlayStation – Another Amazing Year!
Digital Foundry's Best Game Graphics of 2021 – PC, Xbox, PlayStation – Another Amazing Year!
Join Alex Battaglia and John Linneman for an extended discussion on the best game graphics of 2021. There’ve been some amazing visuals this year – remarkable achievements from the first year of the ‘next-gen’ consoles, and all delivered in the Covid era, no less. Please note: Flight Simulator would definitely have made the list, but remember that it was first released in 2020 – and we talked about it in depth in the Best Game Graphics of 2020!
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Well deserved. R&C is the best looking game ever made IMO. Imagine if they had the power of PC to play with. It would be indistinguishable from a pre rendered Pixar film.
Dread looks nice, but the framedrops throughout the entirety of the game were upsetting. I mean, it is frequent and noticeable. The whole screen looks like it is buckling under the weight of its pixels.
Lots of fun in this video, going through Ratchet and Clank today and I was wowed.
52:05 the reflections in the eyes are crazy.
Wow, your Top-3 is OH SO surprising when considering who makes up the high percentage of your paying watchers.
2023 is gonna be something when it comes to graphism.
Metro Exodus I could never finish before the Enhanced Edition released. My game would always hard crash at the crane in the Caspian sea after you get past the sniper. Even on different computers, new games and between different versions (GOG and Steam), that same spot, always. Finally after all these years since launch I was able to finish the game.
Ac valhalal looks great for open world game.
Is Lego builders Journey on Unity? I mean I checked but it’s hard to believe. Is it some custom Version they made?
I have to share a funny joke with you all at Digital Foundry, as I was laughing for days after hearing it, How do you make someone hate your game and have nothing to do with your franchise ever again? Stick NFT’s and MTX in it. I thought this was awesomely hilarious 😅
Love your work guys! The only problem is that it makes me want to upgrade from my GTX 1080, but I feel like at this point, I might as well wait for the 4000 series.
Ratchet and Clank has great graphics in a good TV with decent HDR the game looks stunning
The Ascent’s clutter system reminds me of Witcher 2’s rockwork. The density and geometry is ahead of it’s time in my opinion. And Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition runs so damn well. I get like 90 fps at 1440p at Ultra with DLSS and Ultra ray tracing. Used to get like 50-60 fps on old version. In the DLC’s I get like 120 fps. It’s dope. I only have a 2070 Super too. 38:57 And yeah, I miss Phys-X and it’s real-time particles and smoke systems. Like in Batman games and Mafia 2’s destruction with bullets hitting surfaces.
It’s a shame the Ascent is isometric because it had great environments but since 3D I can’t go back to the isometric veiw point
Surprised to know there’s a top 3. What a list gentlemen!
Yeah both ratchet and clank and returnal would be terrible on pc. Sorry but directstorage is not up to par with sony’s custom solutions.
Look at ffviir intergrade. A port from ps5. It has terrible issues with asset load in, loading screens are back, it’s just not that great. And you are expecting games that require much less time (around or under 2 secs) to be fully enjoyable on pc?
Then we have the dualsense. These games will feel flat or would need to be changed entirely to work with the Xbox controller. Yeah sure some of the button presses stuff could be further remapped for kb/m to get them to work but again the experience would be night and day different.
I hate playing a game without the dualsense support after experiencing it. Playing a game like ghost of tsushima DC with dualsense and then either going back to play the ps4 version or remote playing it, it just feels flat.
I have never been a fan of rumble until the dualsense. It makes such good use of its haptics and then combining that with the adaptive triggers. It gets insane.
The ps5 is an experience in both visuals, and immersion (still hate this word). It’s hard to go from feeling it to not. You don’t want to play the game without it after experiencing it.
So yeah… while pc can give that higher fps, you are sacrificing a lot of other things.
And honestly I felt no need to touch performance or performance RT with R&C due to how much of a joy 120hz 40fps is. Literally couldn’t care less about it.
i hope a lot more other games implement a 120hz 40fps setting. Cause if they do so rhat would be my default way of playing.
Aye! I’ve been really happy with Deathloop, Guardians, and Ratchet in 2021 🙂 PS5 was well worth it! Happy New Year!
For me far cry 2021 is the best
I had never seen Lego Builder’s Journey before, and thought this was only on pc or something- but surprised to see it on console. A beautiful game for $20 that’s supposedly pretty good? I wouldn’t have found it without this video.
Oh man, now that I k is the Guardians engine is the same as Deus Ex, they need to remaster both games and re-release them. I loved those games.
I’ve played most of these games, and Far Cry 6 and House of Ashes are way better looking than almost all of them. I guess I always take performance into account, though. A ‘graphically impressive’ game at sub 60 still looks like dog shit to me, unless I just want to enter photo mode then lay the controller down and stare at a frozen image — which I don’t.
@DF: I feel there’s waaay too much filtering going on for the frame-rate graph – evident around 20:15. I always felt it was a bit off in other videos but I never determined root cause until now…
Great video, thanx.
Saludos.
I’ve played nearly every game on this list in 4k hdr1000. Metro Exodus enhanced edition is hands down the most insane graphics I’ve ever seen. It’s just incredible. But I would give the runner up to the ascent. No other game on this list is particularly close imo
Is anything in 30fps really next gen? Maybe technically… But is it really?
Forza Horizon 5 throws me off because it seems like the vehicles are floating. It makes it look even more floaty when the back tires do not rip up the ground like it should and how unrealistic the vehicles do not get dirty. There is no way those cars would still be that clean ripping through a jungle.
I am at the point of waiting for specific games to update to the current gen consoles. I am waiting for Cyberpunk 2077 at the moment, but I waited to play Metro Exodus and several other games on the new consoles too. I am hoping Guardians will do a 60 FPS patch at 1440 for Series X. So for me, not only do I look forward to new games, but I really look forward to the patches and updates they do for these games in the future.
Great list guys. Seeing Ratchet as no 1 it did bring home to me that unfortunately with all the pixar level amazing visuals insomniac didn’t really innovate anything gameplaywise but thats a different list entirely I think.
Again No PC Games in top Grafics. Man i really think PC is Dead. GPU Price is crazy, loading times are a joke. Performance from Nextgen to PC Gaming is terrible, or simalr or a little bit better. All not acceptable for a PC Gamer!
35:48 You have just committed treason.
Nah, even people from the UK such as myself would say it’s quite a boring looking place if we’re talking variety. North wales and Scotland are nice but the rest of our country is basically rolling green hills and then depression and heroine needles as you approach Manchester.
For me forza is the best. The detail is photo realistic
The amount of pop in in Forza games has always been and still is very noticeable and rarely lets off. Forza 5 still looks good and is technically impressive in its own right but the pop in is just a constant annoyance. Just look at that tree at 34:35
I’m surprised The Suicide of Rachel Foster isn’t in the list 😏😏😏 I’m biased…
The Ascent is mind blowing. Visually, it IS how Cyberpunk should have felt.
It also reminds me a lot of the original art style in FF7 – this worn down semi-industrial cyberpunk aesthetic.
The game is great, tons of content, tons of flair and tons of awesomeness.
Lego Builder’s Journey originally came out in 2019…
no the astheic for metorid is not a handled feel of a 4.1 gb game that is super super short at a full 60 dollars with no real story textures or well look at metoids line sof diolage vs bd3 with like 46k thousand lines the harddrive space in text alone is well well over 10x metroids and when the game is actuly done might be 15x ish… i so so sorry a tiny team for what would be a handheld game is being compaired to years longer and game s like bg3 that are in beta 150 gbs vs 4.1….and bg3 is so much better looking nintendo probaly paid to say why low low poly low framses and low resoultion in a 10 hour 60 dollar singleplayer only game isnt getting a f for a score…
would like to play some of these games, but i don’t have a console.
One question comes to my mind. Why the hell did you put so much trash onto FFVIIR release about its launch stutter problems (which btw. could have easily be removed by mods 3 days after the release) whereas 2 of the so called "visually stunning titles" you present here have the same stutter issues? On Metro I’ve spent like a whole day trying to get HDR working and completely failed which is the most idiotic thing I’ve encountered in years.
RE Village? Is this a joke?
Ratchet for me. But metro has it’s moments. Plus the skybox in that game is stunning.
If you are playing a game at 60 fps and the Xbox Series X is set at 120 are there any negative effects on the game?
The ultra high quality on new consoles sure is impressive, but we still gotta give credit to how beautiful these games look on 8 year old hardware, now that’s a feat.
The rocket railroad demo was insane!
A small team , making a game based on Lego…..
Lets hope that "small" team at least got a good pay check from Lego….. Its not like Lego can’t afford an indie…….lol
It’s sad that people hate 30FPS now
Why do we blame the failings and hold ups over the last couple of years on a mild disease that didn’t really do all that damage? Why aren’t we holding the governments and corporations responsible for fucking our shit up?
very nice video, I feel hitman 3 had a spot on there with how incredible ssr, performance and res was across the board. especially with games like death loop on there but awesome video, cant wait for more content!!
Forza should be one
Watching this in 2022…. While taking de decision to take out my NES and move on from there… Maybe I’ll have a PS5 in 2028 xD
i feel like psychonauts 2 got done dirty here