Session 4- Verisimilitude vs Stylised Aesthetics

Games today are achieving more stunning aesthetics than ever before. The diversity of visual designs they embrace is extremely vast throughout the scale of verisimilitue to stylised.

Yet the closer games approach the realm of this photorealism, the stranger this desire seems to be.

While realistic aesthetics can enhance and make the experience a game provides what it is, if a player wants photorealism, they only have to look to reality.

In regards to the Legend of Zelda for the Wii U, G. Christopher Williams from Popmatters.com said 'Like photorealistic games, I marvel at how the wind moves blades of grass...but not because the game generally resembles a real world. Rather, it’s because the details resemble and construct a fantastic world that isn’t possible without...rendering characters, places, and animations in a video game.'

The purpose of games is to be immersed in a different world, one where curious and otherwise impossible things occur can around places and characters that do not exist.

The realism currently displayed in games by the aesthetics and graphics is amazing but do we really need to take this further? The point of games is to entertain the player, not replace reality. Video games should look and feel like video games with enough ties to the real world that players can make sense of it.

Video games are at a great place in their manipulation of aesthetics into many intriguing art styles and still to be discovered are the many ways creators will depict their worlds next.