I remember when I first encountered BioShock. At the time, gaming was wrapped up in a push towards ever-greater realism, with ‘gritty’ military-shooter franchises taking the fore. Despite being an old game even when I first ran into it, BioShock was a colourful iceberg in a sea of sepia.
Set in a gorgeous, art-deco dystopia, it told a story that seriously engaged with class, power and Objectivism. It did so in a thoroughly engaging way, too – this was one of the first times I had been asked to make decisions that affected the outcome of the game (although, it wasn’t the first to include this mechanic).
There are games that have aged better than BioShock. But it was, and remains, one of my favourite first-person shooters – it’s a game that I, almost 14 years following its initial release, still draw comparisons to on a regular basis. That being said, my most enduring memory of it is not the story, nor the gunplay. And it isn’t, exactly, the uncanny world you are thrust into and expected to navigate. It is the way you are acquainted with Rapture – the game’s shipwrecked ‘paradise’. More specifically, it is your initial descent.
After piling into the bathysphere (to the tune of ‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’), you are plunged beneath the wreckage of your recently-crashed plane, and taken on a slow glide through Rapture’s skyline (sea-line?). Deep-sea wildlife surrounds your vessel, as Andrew Ryan discusses the ideals upon which he founded the city. It is a striking sequence – the way the player character is thrown into a world quite unlike his own. The way the neon lights of shops and bars, long since abandoned, flicker feebly through the Atlantic. The way deep-sea plants brush up against public walkways, maintained many years after the city’s demise by strange-looking almost-human contraptions. Never had I before seen a dead civilisation bursting with so much life.
For this reason, BioShock’s graphics, while dated, maintain a certain charm to this day. The stark contrast between the beauty and the horror of Rapture shaped my view of graphics in video games. Certainly, I have never been a member of the ‘graphics-don’t-matter’ club.
This could form a perfect basis for an argument in favour of photorealism in video games. After all, surely, with improving graphical fidelity, developers and artists would have more freedom to tell the stories they want to tell, and create worlds even more spellbinding than Rapture.
There’s something in this idea. However, it is important to remember that video games are no reality at all. They are enjoyable for this reason – they provide escapism, and allow the player to directly experience impossible things. Retrospectively, this is what enthralled me about BioShock. I never really cared if Rapture looked texturally comparable to reality. I cared that it was the perfect combination of stylish and decrepit. I cared that its neon silhouette flickered and hissed in a way gorgeous enough to fill me with both hope and fear.
To me, graphics are only as good as their ability to provoke emotion – be they the solemn, lonely landscapes of Red Dead Redemption 2, or the Kirby franchise’s trademark cutesy, comforting colour palette. While photorealism can play a role in attaining this goal, what is of paramount importance is a game’s willingness to take as many creative liberties as needed to tell the story that needs to be told. Outside of survival games (for which a dose of realism is a necessary component), overzealousness in seeking photorealism can come to the detriment of the game in question, as its emotional impact is sacrificed to the monotony of everyday life.
In May of this year, Jacob Ridley of PC Gamer reported that researchers from the Intel Intelligent Systems Lab had built an AI named the “Enhancing Photorealism Enhancement“, which uses images of cities from the Cityscapes Dataset to “alter a frame and make it look more true to life”. To demonstrate this AI, they applied it to a series of frames from Grand Theft Auto V, with the effect of achieving something very close to ‘true’ photorealism.
Of course, this is an outstanding research achievement. Moreover, it is, graphics-wise, an exciting prospect. GTA V was, like BioShock, one of those games that had truly impressed me with its graphical fidelity. You would think that, with such a complete graphical overhaul, the potential for more engaging world-creation would be limitless. However, despite the impressive technical feat, I was surprised by just how dreary GTA V looked in its new, photorealistic form.
It’s easy to forget the necessary stylisation that goes into even the most ‘photorealistic’ modern titles, despite this stylisation being what makes them so memorable. Nowhere can this be better seen than in Red Dead Redemption 2. Despite having graphics widely held as near-photorealistic, each of the game’s fictional midwestern states appear painstakingly crafted to invoke specific feelings in the player. From the hazy swamps of the Bayou Nwa, the smog-filled streets of Saint Denis, to the tense, unwelcoming forests along Roanoke Ridge.
While photorealistic textures, lighting and animation play a role in creating these environments, they are not necessarily the most important parts of RDR2’s world. Most important is the way photorealism is managed, handled, and directed to produce something truly engaging. The importance is in the way photorealism is limited to create something that does not perfectly replicate reality, but is instead something entirely its own;a world where the light always shines perfectly through the trees, and the snow forms a clean, even blanket across the mountains.
The way creative license is used to build words that inspire emotion, and tell a story, is a necessary limit on the extent to which photorealism can exist in games. However, when the equation is reversed, and creative freedom is limited by the pursuit of ‘true’ photorealism, the world of GTA V becomes far too mundane. Jon Fingas of Engadget notes that GTA V’s characteristic “hyper-vivid” look has been toned down. For lack of a better phrase, it just looks a bit too much like reality.
‘True’ photorealism, as demonstrated here, is something that gamers have thought they wanted for decades, for the purpose of greater immersion. Indeed, the technology being developed has incredible potential. But it is a technology we should be cautious with. I can’t help but feel that if the games we played immaculately mirrored reality, there’s a good chance we would get bored of them fairly quickly.
What I’ve presented here isn’t strictly an argument for or against photorealism in video games. Photorealistic graphics can be used to achieve some incredible outcomes, as illustrated by RDR2. Likewise, a photorealistic Kirby game would be a truly disturbing experience.
What I am encouraging is exercising caution. The march towards ‘true’ photorealism is a tempting one, but one that shouldn’t come at the expense of creative freedom. We are creating alternative worlds – not, necessarily, what Zara Lane of The Bubble calls “extensions of reality”. Developers should feel free to create the worlds they envision.
Images: 2K Games, Bioshock; YouTube, Intel ISL; Rockstar Games, Red Dead Redemption 2; YouTube, CryZENx