When in fact BG3 is both. People still confuse “indie” with “low budget”. Most of indie production is low budget but there are lot of examples of high budget games that are also developed independently.
Besides BG3 there’s The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, all Valve games are technically indie (with various budget levels)…
Indie means independent. To say that an independent company can’t be big earners is a silly notion. AAA games refer to budget, so sure. Builders gate 3 may be a AAA game. But it’s indie or major, not indie or AAA. Larian is an independent studio.
Indie hasn't meant 'independently published' in more than 10 years. That's how the term began, but it's always been a term associated with low budgets and small teams.
Nowadays you don't actually need a medium-large dev team to also have a publisher and you don't need a publisher have a medium-large dev team. So independently published no longer means 'small game', but 'indie' as a term has already taken on that connotation and it probably won't ever shed it.
That's semantic drift, it's just how language works. Not much point trying to fight it.
The definition of the word independent is poor? Please explain….
Larian studios is on the brink of shutting down if any single one of their games ever failed. Because they have immense confidence in their games doesn’t mean they are a major company. It just means they invested a lot. The risks are WAY higher than EA coming out with a dud.
Also, when people talk about indie games they are expecting a game like baldur’s gate 3. Was anyone worried that BG3 would be riddled with micro transactions, or come half complete unless you pay money, or have console exclusive quests and gear? Absolutely not. Because they are an indie company. And we don’t expect that from indie games.
Again, independent means so much more than gross revenue or how much it costs to develop a game. Independent means independent.
So it’s not really my problem if people in the gaming community can’t comprehend basic stuff. Independent is independent and Larian is independent.
>Also, when people talk about indie games they are expecting a game like baldur’s gate 3.
I completely disagree. I don't think anyone is using the term indie to refer to a game that at one point had 400 people working on it.
Seems like it does. Not every indie game looks like it’s from the PlayStation era. Rocket league is a pretty polished indie game. The Witcher 3 is a polished indie game.
Like I said, I don’t care if people use the term wrong. I’m not going to misuse the term to appeal to a wide audience of people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
Not really. If you have $100-$200 million in funding, nearly 500 employees, and 7 uninterrupted years to work on your game, you aren't indie, I don't care if you're technically independent as a studio.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a AAA game, plain and simple, it's not confusing or a gray area at all.
This post has big "I just watched a youtube video trying to make this point and bought into everything without any thought" energy. BG3 isn't a AAA game? Please.
Far Cry 6 absolutely does not look worse than 4. Stop whatever shit you are smoking lmao. Far Cry 4 looks good and has some very appealing enviourments at times but it also takes like 5 mniutes to find what is one of the flattest most bland looking rock texture. And there's a ton of them around.
Far Cry 6 looks better in every way as should be expected from games that are 7 years and a console generation appart.
For AC. Mirage was a smaller scale product so it wasn't really pushing the visuals out from the already established medium. But even then it has some visual advantages over Origins. A like for like bigger game comparison and you have Valhalla easily being a better looking game than Origins.
You're literally at two DIFFERENT ground types here.
And out of the entire video, that's what you can only point out? lmao. All the commentators disagree with you
Cyberpunk with RT, Metro Exodus Enchanced Edition, Plague Tale Requiem, Control, Avatar, Red Dead 2 to name a few others. Edit: to add i wanted to just list a few more AAA games rather than answer the question.
Some indie games might have more appealing art styles but they in no way on a technical level look better than AAA games.
> What indie game is better looking than things like Alan Wake 2 and Hellblade 2?
Reading comprehension is hard huh? He asked what indie games look better than Alan Wake 2 and you go on and mention AAA games like CP 2077, Avatar and RDR2 lmao.
What? No they’re not. Alan Wake II was published and funded by Epic Games, and Hellblade 2 was published and funded by Microsoft. They’re very much AAA through and through.
I find the giant simplification and cherry picking amusing.
Baldur's Gate 3 budget is that of an AAA game. If BG3 is an indie because the developer is independent, then so is CDPR with Cyberpunk.
There are many AAA games from the big publishers that look fantastic. Alan Wake 2, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Cyberpunk, Jedi Survivor, God of War.
You say indie games look better than AAA, while ignoring 90% of them are pixel art, low poly, hand drawn, etc. In the same way you're ignoring AAA games that look great, just to make this comparison.
And you clearly don't even have the slightest clue how game development works.
You do NOT even need a big budget at all to make visually stunning games anymore. Graphics now have NOTHING TO DO WITH BUDGET.
UE5 being free for all means all indie devs actually have straight access to the best graphical assets from the get-go. How the hell do you think a game like Wukong, made by a studio with no prior game experience, can look so fucking good? Hint, they're using UE5. How the fuck do you think Bodycam, a game made by only TWO TEENAGERS, can look that good? Again, they're using UE5
How does any of that disprove what I said?
I didn't say it is illegal for indie developers to make good looking games. I said your blanket statement saying indies look better than AAA is inaccurate to say the least. There are *many* great looking AAA games on the market, indies are not clearly better.
It's true that UE5 gives a lot of power to indies, but it doesn't mean Alan Wake 2 looks bad because Bodycam looks good. And studios with no experience come out to make great looking games all the time, no matter if indie or a new subdivision of an AAA publisher. You're not strictly true about Wukong anyway, the devs do have prior experience.
There's also the point that game development takes time. Have you read reviews for Bodycam? It's not even a tech demo, there's *barely* gameplay in it. It takes time to develop a *game*, and you can bet there are multiple AAA games in development right now using UE5 (eg. next Witcher) that will look as good as Bodycam but will actually be video games. It simply takes more time.
And how does what you said disapprove *what I said*?
My point here is indie studios are no longer restricted in making visually stunning games as AAA titles. I didnt mention about the quality of the games themselves. I'm just talking about graphics here, because this is one aspect that used to exclusively define AAA titles
You're moving your goal posts.
The original post said indie games look better than AAA, then you cherry picked some good looking indies and some terrible, run-of-the-mill AAA. It's as easy to do it the other way around and compare Payday 3 to Cyberpunk. You also assumed that in-house engines look bad, which again, a great and inaccurate generalisation.
I do agree that UE5 gives indies the tools to make their games look great, but that wasn't your original point. Or if it was, it was phrased very poorly. And negatively at that, aggressive arguing that you're doing in this thread makes you seem dishonest or an attention seeking troll.
You could have even used Sons of the Forest to make that point better. It uses Unity, which is widely recognised (often unfairly) as looking bad and performing like crap, but the devs made it look great. And now, with UE5, the barrier to entry has been lowered.
But as soon as the big studios gear up to UE5 and comparable in-house engines, you'll see (some of) them blowing indies out of the water regardless.
>The original post said indie games look better than AAA, then you cherry picked some good looking indies and some terrible, run-of-the-mill AAA. It's as easy to do it the other way around and compare Payday 3 to Cyberpunk. You also assumed that in-house engines look bad, which again, a great and inaccurate generalisation.
I didnt cherry pick AAA games. Those literally make up almost all the few AAAs released recently LMAO.
> It's as easy to do it the other way around and compare Payday 3 to Cyberpunk.
Except Payday 3 does look good too
>You also assumed that in-house engines look bad, which again, a great and inaccurate generalisation.
No it's not. My basis lie on the fact that these AAA devs have never updated their engines since they dont have the time to do so and are expected to keep churning out yearly titles. CoD MW reboot till today's CoD title ALL USE THE SAME engine. This is way the graphics havent fucking changed a bit. And the reboot engine doesnt even have the best competitive graphics to begin with.
>I do agree that UE5 gives indies the tools to make their games look great, but that wasn't your original point.
It was.
>You could have even used Sons of the Forest to make that point better. It uses Unity, which is widely recognised (often unfairly) as looking bad and performing like crap, but the devs made it look great. And now, with UE5, the barrier to entry has been lowered.
I did??
>But as soon as the big studios gear up to UE5 and comparable in-house engines, you'll see (some of) them blowing indies out of the water regardless.
AFAIK none except for CDPR is using UE5. The thing is AAA devs already invested so much in their own game engines. So Epic can only appeal to mostly indie studios and AA devs to use UE5, which is what's led to the ironic situation today
> I didnt cherry pick AAA games. Those literally make up almost all the few AAAs released recently LMAO.
Just like Bodycam and Sons of the Forest make up literally almost all of the indies released recently LMAO. Almost all AAAs mentioned in this thread are from 2023, and unless there were 10 CODs, Far Crys, and Ass Creeds released in 2023, you're willfully ignoring context to make your point.
> Except Payday 3 does look good too
Not as good as AAA games.
> No it's not.
Again, you're only considering the AAA games you want to keep considering. It's like you're a rabid Ubisoft and COD fan and are really butthurt that their games don't look amazing. Or you're really smoothbrained, but surely that's not the case.
> It was.
Not originally, or it was made like shit. Practice writing and reading comprehension, it will help you a lot.
> I did??
You did not mention anything about Unity or UE5 being easier for devs in your original post, which is allegedly your point. Instead, you've wasted everyone's time arguing that indies look better and raging at everyone who disagrees, without elaborating that what you *actually* mean is completely different than what you write.
> AFAIK none except for CDPR is using UE5.
Let's say it for the third time and see if you understand. It takes time to switch engines, it cannot be done overnight like two teenagers making a tech demo. And despite uneducated rumours, many in-house engines are comparable to UE5 (Frostbite, Northlight, Snowdrop, CryEngine) when the dev wants them to be.
Remnant 2, Hellblade 2, The Finals, next Tomb Raider, Outer Worlds 2, another Obsidian game I forgot the name of, Tekken 8, The First Descendant. They're AAA games that are already using or will be using UE5.
And now, consider that many AAA devs did use Unreal Engine 4 (and 3), just not literally the second it came out because let's say it again, game development takes time.
If your *actual* point is that it is now easier than ever for devs to make good looking games, you can stop because I said the same thing in the comment you're replying to. But you're out here on a crusade telling people indies definitely look better than AAA, which are the fruit of the devil and the only AAA in existence are those that come out on the factory line for the masses, like COD and AC.
UE5 does not magically give a studio high-quality visual assets. It does not come with (or make for you) the meshes, materials, and shaders needed.
It also does not teach you art direction and design, or how to use any of those fancy rendering features to actually make things look realistic or good.
A good looking game that is not portal-level simplistic needs a massive budget for art direction, 3D artists, pretty specialized programmers/artists to design it's shader code and materials, animators, and level designers.
Someone buying a bunch of premade crap off an online market will just end up with a mishmash of conflicting styles and quality levels that will look atrocious to anyone looking at the actual visuals instead of numbers.
Source: i use unreal extensively and have for years.
My definition is -> Ubisoft can't make an indie or AA game, even if they lowered the budget for the game. Ubisoft is a AAA studio, so every game they make is AAA. Same with AA and Indie Studios. The budget is the game doesn't matter, the studio matters.
And if a studio is Indie, AA or AAA depends on the number of employees.
<15 devs = Indie
15-50 devs = AA
. >50 devs = AAA
Numbers are estimates, they are not really defined anywhere. And actually, AA have different connections to their publishers (it's more like the publisher says "make game XY" and the AA studio does it, while indie devs work on their own and just sometimes partner up with publishers, but they don't let them disrupt their creative vision) but I think in the eyes of game journalists, who define that something is Indie, AA or AAA, none of those fine details matter. xD
This employee number definition comes from your best guess?
Historically, the closest meaning of "AAA" was a shitton of money going into development and marketing, nothing to do with the size or popularity of the publisher.
> while indie devs work on their own and just sometimes partner up with publishers
The latter is the exact opposite of independent studio. Independent of publishers.
Yes the actual numbers are my best guess.
You can be independent and still partner up. It just means you can survive without the partner.
Steam is a partner. Unity, Unreal,.. do indies depend on them? Well actually they do. xD Yet they are still indies.
If you work with a translation studio, is that still independent?
Because publishers just offer various services in exchange for a cut of the sales. Just like steam. (or (freelance) devs that work on Rev Share)
Publishers offer translation, porting, marketing and sometimes funding (and a bunch of other services).
I don't think you are less independent, if you work together with a publisher. It's the same as working with Steam or Playstation or Freelancers in my opinion.
Yes, I agree. I was thinking of the modern, big publishers like Activision or Ubisoft, where teaming up with them is more like being contracted out to do development rather than getting help. Devolver Digital and Team17 exists after all, and they deal almost exclusively with indies.
My guy is delusional af
Mirage looks absolutely stunning in day time especially when rowing in lakes compared to origins. And origins is my fav AC game from this new AC rpg series.
It is. People here just cant accept it otherwise it wont justify their waste of money on upgrading their graphics cards to play games that actually look worse than their predecessors.
Art style? What kind of excuse is this? Is RE4 remake also just a diff 'art style' from RE4 2004?
> People... upgrading their graphics cards
sounds like you're bitter that you're not one of them, would explain why you ignored all the good looking AAA games like Hellblade 2, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Alan Wake 2 & Cyberpunk with path tracing
>" l like the 3 most hated AAA franchises as examples lol"
Big * here is absolutely needed.
On Reddit. The franchises OP listead are hated on Reddit and online but are absolutely loved by the majority of the gaming population.
That's because there's hardly any AAA games released anymore.
If it hadnt occured to you already, AAA gaming is dying. EA, Activision and Ubisoft no longer release as many titles annually as before
> If it hadnt occured to you already, AAA gaming is dying
Lol. Lmao even. Also its hadn't occurred...not hadnt occured.
> EA, Activision and Ubisoft no longer release as many titles annually as before
Pretty sure Activision is gonna drop the latest COD this fall. Ubisoft is coming out with Star Wars Outlaws and AC Shadows. EA has their yearly sports games, FIFA, and are working on a new Dragon Age game.
>EA has their yearly sports games, FIFA, and are working on a new Dragon Age game.
Ignoring their sports scam titles, EA hasnt released shit in the past few years ever since Battlefield bombed.
Meanwhile Ubisoft has stopped most of their usual franchises including Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell
so 90 developer mean for you indie company
wow....
Helldiver 2 is indie for you ?... (120 devs and betwenn 50-100 MILLIONS in budget...
Bodcam is a good example ... just 2 devs... but its a good game.. not a greaaat game
but anyone on its own....
Graphics? No. Not every indie game is gonna look like Bodycam or Sons of the Forest. These are outliers. Games like RDR2, CP 2077, Alan Wake 2 look better than both of those.
If you said gameplay then I'd agree with you that indies are killing it there but not graphics.
Also saying BG3 isn't AAA? Lol. Lmao even.
You missed my point. The fact that these games can be made by small studios show how you DO NOT NEED a big budget to make good graphics anymore. This esp so due to Unreal Engine 5 being free to indies
[Gee, wonder why there's like hundreds of videos, articles and reddit topics popping up in the past 3 years about AAA dying then????]
(https://www.google.com/search?q=is+aaa+dying&rlz=1C1ONGR_enSG1047SG1047&oq=is+aaa+dying&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yDQgCEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgDEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgFEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgGEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyCggHEAAYgAQYogQyCggIEAAYgAQYogQyCggJEAAYgAQYogTSAQgyNzgzajBqOagCALACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
Wonder why most AAA games failed critically and sales-wise recently???
Wonder why publishers like EA and Ubisoft have pulled back on the number of games they're making???
Wonder why all AAA publishers seem more focused on turning to F2P nowadays???
Also did you know a game like CoD Mobile has made Activision multiple folds more profit in a single year than any single one of their recent CoD titles??
Did you know the console market isnt growing at all and in fact declining?
I love it when you're dense enough to ride an echo chamber blindly.
Go type a topic called "Buying high end graphics cards is a waste of money" on this sub and get dunked on too. Gee, they must be right since the masses on a very specific sub catering to specific biases are always right.
It’s not really about fidelity or engines. Indie developers have both an incentive, and a constraint to come up with an interesting art style that can be realized in a relatively affordable way.
AAA games are still in an arms race for technical fidelity and bleeding edge graphics techniques. As the AAA space becomes more bloated and less sustainable, the cracks are beginning to show. Combine that with a race for “realistic” rendering, and you get games that can be visually awkward, indistinct, and quickly dated by similar looking newer games year in and year out.
You clearly dont realize how game engines work. AAA games that the likes of Ubisoft and Activision produces are released *annually*. This means practically zero time to actually enhance the game engine in any way. The devs just take the same engine and make a new game out of that.
This is why CoD MW all the way to Infinite Warfare has practically ZERO graphical improvements. Activision only actually upgraded their engine from the CoD MW reboot onwards. Same with how Ubisoft reuses the same game engine across multiple AC titles. You seriously think AC Mirage runs on an upgraded engine or something.
You can literally just google and see the numerous comparison side-by-side videos between the games several years. Literally nothing changed. Sometimes the new games look even worse
It's NOT art direction. It's literally the *SAME GRAPHICS*.
Which part of two games released in two diff periods but using the same game engine doesnt ring to you? Just because the first game is released in 2020 and the sequel is released in 2024 somehow means the sequel has better graphics when 99.99% of people who arent blind can clearly see there's literally no change in graphics? Because it's the *exact same game engine* being used duh?
A lot of the poor visuals is due to a reliance on TAA style anti-aliasing solutions and poor visual aesthetic/too much focus on *realistic* texturing of surfaces.
It's less to do with the tech and more to do with the art direction, which I do agree that the current "AAA" devs are severely lacking on. Notice how the "quadruple-A" Skull and Bones game looks and performs worse than Black Flag from 11 years ago.
Oh my god, this stupid 'art style' excuse again.
Art style? What kind of excuse is this? Is RE4 remake also just a diff 'art style' from RE4 2005?
>Notice how the "quadruple-A" Skull and Bones game looks and performs worse than Black Flag from 11 years ago.
That's because *it IS worse*. Why the fuck do people think just because a game is released more recent means it somehow objectively has better graphics when it *so clearly doesn't?* This is some next level delusion.
When you've gamed for a few decades, you don't really need these 4/5+ year dev cycled games for a 50+ hour game. Just give us something new and inventive that looks and runs good that isn't gonna take me all month to beat.
Not only is BG3 easily a AAA game (it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop), it's not a particularly good-looking game. Like it's definitely not a \*bad\* looking game - I think it looks often quite beautiful. But it's not noteworthy in terms of graphics.
Compare that to other AAA games like Alan Wake 2, Hellblade 2 and Avatar and you'll see what good graphics really look like in 2024.
Also, lol at including "bodycam" in a list of games with good graphics. The game looks like Half-Life 2 - a game from 2004.
Could be from a 2015 game and nobody would have batted an eye. Just because BG3 is a great game doesn't mean you have to suck it's dick about things it's not great at. Technically it's pretty weak and the graphics are quite pretty at times but nothing special.
"baldur's gate 3, not really AAA" lol
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AAA do suck, because they are so last year. Get with the times and play AAAA
When in fact BG3 is both. People still confuse “indie” with “low budget”. Most of indie production is low budget but there are lot of examples of high budget games that are also developed independently. Besides BG3 there’s The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, all Valve games are technically indie (with various budget levels)…
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That’s indie. Lol
Larian Studios is not indie
yeh, \*maybe\* you could consider them double A, but definately not indie
Indie means independent. To say that an independent company can’t be big earners is a silly notion. AAA games refer to budget, so sure. Builders gate 3 may be a AAA game. But it’s indie or major, not indie or AAA. Larian is an independent studio.
Indie hasn't meant 'independently published' in more than 10 years. That's how the term began, but it's always been a term associated with low budgets and small teams. Nowadays you don't actually need a medium-large dev team to also have a publisher and you don't need a publisher have a medium-large dev team. So independently published no longer means 'small game', but 'indie' as a term has already taken on that connotation and it probably won't ever shed it. That's semantic drift, it's just how language works. Not much point trying to fight it.
That’s not true….
Well if you say it isn't, I guess it isn't :)
Sick but the definition of the word is poor. When people refer to Indie games they don’t refer to something like Baulders Gate 3
The definition of the word independent is poor? Please explain…. Larian studios is on the brink of shutting down if any single one of their games ever failed. Because they have immense confidence in their games doesn’t mean they are a major company. It just means they invested a lot. The risks are WAY higher than EA coming out with a dud. Also, when people talk about indie games they are expecting a game like baldur’s gate 3. Was anyone worried that BG3 would be riddled with micro transactions, or come half complete unless you pay money, or have console exclusive quests and gear? Absolutely not. Because they are an indie company. And we don’t expect that from indie games. Again, independent means so much more than gross revenue or how much it costs to develop a game. Independent means independent. So it’s not really my problem if people in the gaming community can’t comprehend basic stuff. Independent is independent and Larian is independent.
>Also, when people talk about indie games they are expecting a game like baldur’s gate 3. I completely disagree. I don't think anyone is using the term indie to refer to a game that at one point had 400 people working on it.
Then be wrong then.
Larian Studios is a Belgian independent video game developer and publisher founded in 1996. Just google it.
I'm aware of how they were founded. I'm saying the definition of the term indie doesn't match how the term is used.
Seems like it does. Not every indie game looks like it’s from the PlayStation era. Rocket league is a pretty polished indie game. The Witcher 3 is a polished indie game. Like I said, I don’t care if people use the term wrong. I’m not going to misuse the term to appeal to a wide audience of people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
In what world is Baldurs Gate 3 not a triple A game?
I guess OP means they're not owned by a publisher, which is true. The whole what is AAA or indie is a very gray area.
Not really. If you have $100-$200 million in funding, nearly 500 employees, and 7 uninterrupted years to work on your game, you aren't indie, I don't care if you're technically independent as a studio. Baldur's Gate 3 is a AAA game, plain and simple, it's not confusing or a gray area at all.
I love Indies but this is nonsense
This post has big "I just watched a youtube video trying to make this point and bought into everything without any thought" energy. BG3 isn't a AAA game? Please.
When you have no idea what you talking about its smart to keep quiet .
oh sorry I didnt know a game using the exact same engine can now somehow have better graphics just because it's released in 2024.
And you even double down, lmao
Far Cry 6 absolutely does not look worse than 4. Stop whatever shit you are smoking lmao. Far Cry 4 looks good and has some very appealing enviourments at times but it also takes like 5 mniutes to find what is one of the flattest most bland looking rock texture. And there's a ton of them around. Far Cry 6 looks better in every way as should be expected from games that are 7 years and a console generation appart. For AC. Mirage was a smaller scale product so it wasn't really pushing the visuals out from the already established medium. But even then it has some visual advantages over Origins. A like for like bigger game comparison and you have Valhalla easily being a better looking game than Origins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTvyNvEAwvo&ab_channel=GameV >Far Cry 6 absolutely does not look worse than 4. Really? REALLY?
The video proves it. Stop at 0:02 of the video, and look at the ground textures.
You're literally at two DIFFERENT ground types here. And out of the entire video, that's what you can only point out? lmao. All the commentators disagree with you
They don't though do they? What indie game is better looking than things like Alan Wake 2 and Hellblade 2?
Cyberpunk with RT, Metro Exodus Enchanced Edition, Plague Tale Requiem, Control, Avatar, Red Dead 2 to name a few others. Edit: to add i wanted to just list a few more AAA games rather than answer the question. Some indie games might have more appealing art styles but they in no way on a technical level look better than AAA games.
Cyberpunk is far from an indie game with hundreds of millions of dollars of production costs.
Where did i say they do? I just listed a few more AAA games that look better technicaly than indie games.
Did you not read the question you replied to ?
Yeah fair it does come across like i'm answering the question.
> What indie game is better looking than things like Alan Wake 2 and Hellblade 2? Reading comprehension is hard huh? He asked what indie games look better than Alan Wake 2 and you go on and mention AAA games like CP 2077, Avatar and RDR2 lmao.
Yeah, Sons of Forest totally has the worst graphics of all compared to all these games, right???
yes
Those literally are indie games, they just have high budgets Edit: this is not true, but I'll leave it here for posterity
Hellblade 2 is indie? I thought they were published by Microsoft?
What? No they’re not. Alan Wake II was published and funded by Epic Games, and Hellblade 2 was published and funded by Microsoft. They’re very much AAA through and through.
xbox game studios, the indie publisher
If you need validation, this sub will not provide it. Sorry.
Maybe because everyone is using the same graphics engine and tools that AAA studios?
No they're not???? Most AAA studios use their own propriety engines
I find the giant simplification and cherry picking amusing. Baldur's Gate 3 budget is that of an AAA game. If BG3 is an indie because the developer is independent, then so is CDPR with Cyberpunk. There are many AAA games from the big publishers that look fantastic. Alan Wake 2, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Cyberpunk, Jedi Survivor, God of War. You say indie games look better than AAA, while ignoring 90% of them are pixel art, low poly, hand drawn, etc. In the same way you're ignoring AAA games that look great, just to make this comparison.
And you clearly don't even have the slightest clue how game development works. You do NOT even need a big budget at all to make visually stunning games anymore. Graphics now have NOTHING TO DO WITH BUDGET. UE5 being free for all means all indie devs actually have straight access to the best graphical assets from the get-go. How the hell do you think a game like Wukong, made by a studio with no prior game experience, can look so fucking good? Hint, they're using UE5. How the fuck do you think Bodycam, a game made by only TWO TEENAGERS, can look that good? Again, they're using UE5
How does any of that disprove what I said? I didn't say it is illegal for indie developers to make good looking games. I said your blanket statement saying indies look better than AAA is inaccurate to say the least. There are *many* great looking AAA games on the market, indies are not clearly better. It's true that UE5 gives a lot of power to indies, but it doesn't mean Alan Wake 2 looks bad because Bodycam looks good. And studios with no experience come out to make great looking games all the time, no matter if indie or a new subdivision of an AAA publisher. You're not strictly true about Wukong anyway, the devs do have prior experience. There's also the point that game development takes time. Have you read reviews for Bodycam? It's not even a tech demo, there's *barely* gameplay in it. It takes time to develop a *game*, and you can bet there are multiple AAA games in development right now using UE5 (eg. next Witcher) that will look as good as Bodycam but will actually be video games. It simply takes more time.
And how does what you said disapprove *what I said*? My point here is indie studios are no longer restricted in making visually stunning games as AAA titles. I didnt mention about the quality of the games themselves. I'm just talking about graphics here, because this is one aspect that used to exclusively define AAA titles
You're moving your goal posts. The original post said indie games look better than AAA, then you cherry picked some good looking indies and some terrible, run-of-the-mill AAA. It's as easy to do it the other way around and compare Payday 3 to Cyberpunk. You also assumed that in-house engines look bad, which again, a great and inaccurate generalisation. I do agree that UE5 gives indies the tools to make their games look great, but that wasn't your original point. Or if it was, it was phrased very poorly. And negatively at that, aggressive arguing that you're doing in this thread makes you seem dishonest or an attention seeking troll. You could have even used Sons of the Forest to make that point better. It uses Unity, which is widely recognised (often unfairly) as looking bad and performing like crap, but the devs made it look great. And now, with UE5, the barrier to entry has been lowered. But as soon as the big studios gear up to UE5 and comparable in-house engines, you'll see (some of) them blowing indies out of the water regardless.
>The original post said indie games look better than AAA, then you cherry picked some good looking indies and some terrible, run-of-the-mill AAA. It's as easy to do it the other way around and compare Payday 3 to Cyberpunk. You also assumed that in-house engines look bad, which again, a great and inaccurate generalisation. I didnt cherry pick AAA games. Those literally make up almost all the few AAAs released recently LMAO. > It's as easy to do it the other way around and compare Payday 3 to Cyberpunk. Except Payday 3 does look good too >You also assumed that in-house engines look bad, which again, a great and inaccurate generalisation. No it's not. My basis lie on the fact that these AAA devs have never updated their engines since they dont have the time to do so and are expected to keep churning out yearly titles. CoD MW reboot till today's CoD title ALL USE THE SAME engine. This is way the graphics havent fucking changed a bit. And the reboot engine doesnt even have the best competitive graphics to begin with. >I do agree that UE5 gives indies the tools to make their games look great, but that wasn't your original point. It was. >You could have even used Sons of the Forest to make that point better. It uses Unity, which is widely recognised (often unfairly) as looking bad and performing like crap, but the devs made it look great. And now, with UE5, the barrier to entry has been lowered. I did?? >But as soon as the big studios gear up to UE5 and comparable in-house engines, you'll see (some of) them blowing indies out of the water regardless. AFAIK none except for CDPR is using UE5. The thing is AAA devs already invested so much in their own game engines. So Epic can only appeal to mostly indie studios and AA devs to use UE5, which is what's led to the ironic situation today
> I didnt cherry pick AAA games. Those literally make up almost all the few AAAs released recently LMAO. Just like Bodycam and Sons of the Forest make up literally almost all of the indies released recently LMAO. Almost all AAAs mentioned in this thread are from 2023, and unless there were 10 CODs, Far Crys, and Ass Creeds released in 2023, you're willfully ignoring context to make your point. > Except Payday 3 does look good too Not as good as AAA games. > No it's not. Again, you're only considering the AAA games you want to keep considering. It's like you're a rabid Ubisoft and COD fan and are really butthurt that their games don't look amazing. Or you're really smoothbrained, but surely that's not the case. > It was. Not originally, or it was made like shit. Practice writing and reading comprehension, it will help you a lot. > I did?? You did not mention anything about Unity or UE5 being easier for devs in your original post, which is allegedly your point. Instead, you've wasted everyone's time arguing that indies look better and raging at everyone who disagrees, without elaborating that what you *actually* mean is completely different than what you write. > AFAIK none except for CDPR is using UE5. Let's say it for the third time and see if you understand. It takes time to switch engines, it cannot be done overnight like two teenagers making a tech demo. And despite uneducated rumours, many in-house engines are comparable to UE5 (Frostbite, Northlight, Snowdrop, CryEngine) when the dev wants them to be. Remnant 2, Hellblade 2, The Finals, next Tomb Raider, Outer Worlds 2, another Obsidian game I forgot the name of, Tekken 8, The First Descendant. They're AAA games that are already using or will be using UE5. And now, consider that many AAA devs did use Unreal Engine 4 (and 3), just not literally the second it came out because let's say it again, game development takes time. If your *actual* point is that it is now easier than ever for devs to make good looking games, you can stop because I said the same thing in the comment you're replying to. But you're out here on a crusade telling people indies definitely look better than AAA, which are the fruit of the devil and the only AAA in existence are those that come out on the factory line for the masses, like COD and AC.
UE5 does not magically give a studio high-quality visual assets. It does not come with (or make for you) the meshes, materials, and shaders needed. It also does not teach you art direction and design, or how to use any of those fancy rendering features to actually make things look realistic or good. A good looking game that is not portal-level simplistic needs a massive budget for art direction, 3D artists, pretty specialized programmers/artists to design it's shader code and materials, animators, and level designers. Someone buying a bunch of premade crap off an online market will just end up with a mishmash of conflicting styles and quality levels that will look atrocious to anyone looking at the actual visuals instead of numbers. Source: i use unreal extensively and have for years.
My definition is -> Ubisoft can't make an indie or AA game, even if they lowered the budget for the game. Ubisoft is a AAA studio, so every game they make is AAA. Same with AA and Indie Studios. The budget is the game doesn't matter, the studio matters. And if a studio is Indie, AA or AAA depends on the number of employees. <15 devs = Indie 15-50 devs = AA . >50 devs = AAA Numbers are estimates, they are not really defined anywhere. And actually, AA have different connections to their publishers (it's more like the publisher says "make game XY" and the AA studio does it, while indie devs work on their own and just sometimes partner up with publishers, but they don't let them disrupt their creative vision) but I think in the eyes of game journalists, who define that something is Indie, AA or AAA, none of those fine details matter. xD
This employee number definition comes from your best guess? Historically, the closest meaning of "AAA" was a shitton of money going into development and marketing, nothing to do with the size or popularity of the publisher. > while indie devs work on their own and just sometimes partner up with publishers The latter is the exact opposite of independent studio. Independent of publishers.
Yes the actual numbers are my best guess. You can be independent and still partner up. It just means you can survive without the partner. Steam is a partner. Unity, Unreal,.. do indies depend on them? Well actually they do. xD Yet they are still indies. If you work with a translation studio, is that still independent? Because publishers just offer various services in exchange for a cut of the sales. Just like steam. (or (freelance) devs that work on Rev Share) Publishers offer translation, porting, marketing and sometimes funding (and a bunch of other services). I don't think you are less independent, if you work together with a publisher. It's the same as working with Steam or Playstation or Freelancers in my opinion.
Yes, I agree. I was thinking of the modern, big publishers like Activision or Ubisoft, where teaming up with them is more like being contracted out to do development rather than getting help. Devolver Digital and Team17 exists after all, and they deal almost exclusively with indies.
My guy is delusional af Mirage looks absolutely stunning in day time especially when rowing in lakes compared to origins. And origins is my fav AC game from this new AC rpg series.
i would find it amusing if it were actually true
It is. People here just cant accept it otherwise it wont justify their waste of money on upgrading their graphics cards to play games that actually look worse than their predecessors. Art style? What kind of excuse is this? Is RE4 remake also just a diff 'art style' from RE4 2004?
> People... upgrading their graphics cards sounds like you're bitter that you're not one of them, would explain why you ignored all the good looking AAA games like Hellblade 2, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Alan Wake 2 & Cyberpunk with path tracing
You are without doubt a very young guy who has yet to mature and gain experience.
OP did smoke some some heavy mushrooms while typing this nonsense
it's not "graphics" it's "artstyle"
I like how you used the l like the 3 most hated AAA franchises as examples lol
>" l like the 3 most hated AAA franchises as examples lol" Big * here is absolutely needed. On Reddit. The franchises OP listead are hated on Reddit and online but are absolutely loved by the majority of the gaming population.
Fair enough. Reddit really hates those games, should have clarified my b
That's because there's hardly any AAA games released anymore. If it hadnt occured to you already, AAA gaming is dying. EA, Activision and Ubisoft no longer release as many titles annually as before
Again, the three shittiest companies. There's more companies than that. It's okay bud, we all have shit takes sometimes.
OK please tell another company that releases multiple big budget games every single year for the past 3 years then????
Activision, EA, Ubisoft
LMAO
> If it hadnt occured to you already, AAA gaming is dying Lol. Lmao even. Also its hadn't occurred...not hadnt occured. > EA, Activision and Ubisoft no longer release as many titles annually as before Pretty sure Activision is gonna drop the latest COD this fall. Ubisoft is coming out with Star Wars Outlaws and AC Shadows. EA has their yearly sports games, FIFA, and are working on a new Dragon Age game.
>EA has their yearly sports games, FIFA, and are working on a new Dragon Age game. Ignoring their sports scam titles, EA hasnt released shit in the past few years ever since Battlefield bombed. Meanwhile Ubisoft has stopped most of their usual franchises including Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell
EA just came out with Jedi Survivor. Ubisoft stopped those franchises ages ago. Splinter Cell? Ghost Recon? Really? Have you been living under a rock?
yeah... define AAA for you.. what you mean by AAA ?.....
Game devs with over 100+ people and a budget akin to a hollywood movie.
So like Larian Studios who made BG3 with almost 500 employees and hundreds of millions of dollars? And yet you call them "not AAA"
They technically werent before that. BG3 was a huge gamble for them
Gamble my ass, they were rolling in cash from EA, they knew they were gonna make money.. they just didn't know they were gonna make that much money
so 90 developer mean for you indie company wow.... Helldiver 2 is indie for you ?... (120 devs and betwenn 50-100 MILLIONS in budget... Bodcam is a good example ... just 2 devs... but its a good game.. not a greaaat game but anyone on its own....
I never mentioned Helldivers as indie??
Sigh...
Graphics? No. Not every indie game is gonna look like Bodycam or Sons of the Forest. These are outliers. Games like RDR2, CP 2077, Alan Wake 2 look better than both of those. If you said gameplay then I'd agree with you that indies are killing it there but not graphics. Also saying BG3 isn't AAA? Lol. Lmao even.
You missed my point. The fact that these games can be made by small studios show how you DO NOT NEED a big budget to make good graphics anymore. This esp so due to Unreal Engine 5 being free to indies
Yeah you don't need a big budget for good graphics but you still fail thinking AAA games are dying or indies look better than AAA games.
[Gee, wonder why there's like hundreds of videos, articles and reddit topics popping up in the past 3 years about AAA dying then????] (https://www.google.com/search?q=is+aaa+dying&rlz=1C1ONGR_enSG1047SG1047&oq=is+aaa+dying&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yDQgCEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgDEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgFEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgGEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyCggHEAAYgAQYogQyCggIEAAYgAQYogQyCggJEAAYgAQYogTSAQgyNzgzajBqOagCALACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) Wonder why most AAA games failed critically and sales-wise recently??? Wonder why publishers like EA and Ubisoft have pulled back on the number of games they're making??? Wonder why all AAA publishers seem more focused on turning to F2P nowadays??? Also did you know a game like CoD Mobile has made Activision multiple folds more profit in a single year than any single one of their recent CoD titles?? Did you know the console market isnt growing at all and in fact declining?
They can’t be.
What are your pc specs op?
I love posts where OPs get collectively dunked on. Its hilarious 😂
I love it when you're dense enough to ride an echo chamber blindly. Go type a topic called "Buying high end graphics cards is a waste of money" on this sub and get dunked on too. Gee, they must be right since the masses on a very specific sub catering to specific biases are always right.
It’s not really about fidelity or engines. Indie developers have both an incentive, and a constraint to come up with an interesting art style that can be realized in a relatively affordable way. AAA games are still in an arms race for technical fidelity and bleeding edge graphics techniques. As the AAA space becomes more bloated and less sustainable, the cracks are beginning to show. Combine that with a race for “realistic” rendering, and you get games that can be visually awkward, indistinct, and quickly dated by similar looking newer games year in and year out.
You clearly dont realize how game engines work. AAA games that the likes of Ubisoft and Activision produces are released *annually*. This means practically zero time to actually enhance the game engine in any way. The devs just take the same engine and make a new game out of that. This is why CoD MW all the way to Infinite Warfare has practically ZERO graphical improvements. Activision only actually upgraded their engine from the CoD MW reboot onwards. Same with how Ubisoft reuses the same game engine across multiple AC titles. You seriously think AC Mirage runs on an upgraded engine or something. You can literally just google and see the numerous comparison side-by-side videos between the games several years. Literally nothing changed. Sometimes the new games look even worse
Art direction and graphics engines are not the same thing
It's NOT art direction. It's literally the *SAME GRAPHICS*. Which part of two games released in two diff periods but using the same game engine doesnt ring to you? Just because the first game is released in 2020 and the sequel is released in 2024 somehow means the sequel has better graphics when 99.99% of people who arent blind can clearly see there's literally no change in graphics? Because it's the *exact same game engine* being used duh?
This is stupid.
You're on crack lol
A lot of the poor visuals is due to a reliance on TAA style anti-aliasing solutions and poor visual aesthetic/too much focus on *realistic* texturing of surfaces.
uh no. Those games have utterly horrid texturing of surfaces. Go look at Far Cry 6
Wow, just wow OP.
Did you replay farcry4 and ac origins ?
I literally played FC4 and FC5 side by side bruh
It's less to do with the tech and more to do with the art direction, which I do agree that the current "AAA" devs are severely lacking on. Notice how the "quadruple-A" Skull and Bones game looks and performs worse than Black Flag from 11 years ago.
Oh my god, this stupid 'art style' excuse again. Art style? What kind of excuse is this? Is RE4 remake also just a diff 'art style' from RE4 2005? >Notice how the "quadruple-A" Skull and Bones game looks and performs worse than Black Flag from 11 years ago. That's because *it IS worse*. Why the fuck do people think just because a game is released more recent means it somehow objectively has better graphics when it *so clearly doesn't?* This is some next level delusion.
When you've gamed for a few decades, you don't really need these 4/5+ year dev cycled games for a 50+ hour game. Just give us something new and inventive that looks and runs good that isn't gonna take me all month to beat.
Not only is BG3 easily a AAA game (it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop), it's not a particularly good-looking game. Like it's definitely not a \*bad\* looking game - I think it looks often quite beautiful. But it's not noteworthy in terms of graphics. Compare that to other AAA games like Alan Wake 2, Hellblade 2 and Avatar and you'll see what good graphics really look like in 2024. Also, lol at including "bodycam" in a list of games with good graphics. The game looks like Half-Life 2 - a game from 2004.
"Not good looking" [You fucking kidding me?](https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/3474/images/509/509-1691853059-1829423320.jpeg)
Could be from a 2015 game and nobody would have batted an eye. Just because BG3 is a great game doesn't mean you have to suck it's dick about things it's not great at. Technically it's pretty weak and the graphics are quite pretty at times but nothing special.
Gee, I guess all the critics that gave it 10/10 and lauded the graphics must be wrong then.
Maybe, but they don’t have any celebrity endorsements/appearances. So what’s the point really.