Okay, so somebody on Twitter went and dropped the allegation that game graphics might indeed have peaked in 2015. And honestly? The receipts kind of convince me. There is a modded version going around of *Star Wars Battlefront* that is so photorealistic that you could swear it was filmed in Hollywood! No ray tracing, no path tracing-just pure magic. Jackfrags’ share of the clip has caused a divide in the gaming circle, some saying modern tech is overrated, and others say that we are just getting started with it…
Now, let’s discuss the mod. This is not a standard rushed texture pack. Lighting, shadows as the light glints on stormtrooper armor-*chef’s kiss*. The wildest thing is that it runs almost on ten-year-old technology. No DLS, no frame generation, just baked lighting, but done well. Threat Interactive took it a bit further in response: “Way too many people will whine ‘baked lighting, of course it looks good!’ when it’s only 50% of the story.” Then, they specified that the lighting models, SSR, and crazy good SSAO can either make or break the visuals. It is not just about baked tricks but about how they are utilized.
Now for the opposite angle of the tale. Men like Kratos (yep, that’s the alias) say that this is “living in the past.” Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, and even GTA 6 are being thrown around as evidence that technology is still evolving. “The technology is there,” they say, “it’s just that developers aren’t letting games look great.” In a sense, they do have a point, for Horizon: Forbidden West and Death Stranding 2 don’t even concern themselves with ray tracing, and yet, are downright spectacular.
There are some more things to discuss regarding the ray tracing discussion. Oh, yeah! Common Man (Jc) couldn’t take anymore of it: “Raytracing is nothing but a gimmick to get users to buy more cards at stupid prices.” Well, I cannot argue against that since the performance hit is most damaging; of course, you’ll just have to watch your high-end rig become a slideshow the moment you exceed the RTX levels. Back and forth arguments exist, with LightHeaven stating that path tracing, being more or less an advanced form of ray tracing in itself, actually cures lots of headaches developers get through making lighting fully dynamic. So no need to maintain different light methods. In other words, do you want prettier visuals, or do you want to hear your GPU sounding like a jet engine?
Now, there is nostalgia to take into consideration. Lilke Tatum stated, “I remember playing the beta for this and thinking it was the best-looking game I had ever played.” Others were out there papercutting *Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst* (2016) and *Batman: Arkham Knight* as the acme of visual design. How many games from that era are still worth playing! Kamby was spot-on: “That’s when games started utilizing PBR [physically based rendering]. That’s why most 10-year-old games still hold up pretty well.”
So, did graphics really peak in 2015? Perhaps. Or maybe this is what is called diminishing returns-a stage wherewith each new leap in tech offers way smaller visual additions that demand way more horsepower. Easy. What we do know is that gamers value fun over chaos. In the words of Paul Snively, “*Dead Island 2* is an Unreal Engine 4 title with no ray tracing that looks spectacular… Make your game fun, and allocate your innovation budget with extreme care.”
At the end of the day, whether you’re Team Baked Lighting Forever or Bring on the Path Tracing, this *Battlefront* mod is a serious flex. And honestly? If games *can* look *this* good without frying your PC, maybe we don’t really need all the bells and whistles. Or maybe we do. Who knows. The debate will continue, but what we do know for sure is that 2015 was a *great* year for pixels.
