Elden Ring and God of War were the big winners at the Game Awards 2022, but the event’s awards were largely tied to specific genres. When it comes to graphics, the software and hardware experts at the “Digital Foundry” believe that an exclusive PlayStation game is right at the front.
Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök were the big winners of the Game Awards 2022, held on the night of December 8th.
Elden Ring was named best game and also received awards for its art design and game direction. God of War entered the competition with 10 nominations and won six, including Best Story and Best Soundtrack awards.
If the experts at the “Digital Foundry” have their way, then one title from 2022 is completely missing from the list, but it is way ahead of the game award hits in terms of graphics: the action RPG Horizon: Forbidden West.
On MeinMMO we show you which games the experts see in the top 3 in terms of graphics.
These are the 5 MMO highlights of the Game Awards 2022 and their trailers
Top graphics 2022 – Victory goes to a PS Exclusive
What is the Digital Foundry? It is an association of gaming experts who specialize in the technical aspects of games.
The think tank evaluates software apart from the gameplay mechanics and pays more attention to things like graphics or performance. But hardware is also part of the program.
For example, Digital Foundry recently published a video analysis of CoD: Warzone 2. The video was about whether a player with a normal PS4 would have disadvantages compared to a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X.
Game Awards 2022: All trailers, announcements and winners at a glance
Which games had the top graphics of 2022? In a video, Digital Foundry presented their graphic hits of 2022 and none of the games even won a Game Awards:
What speaks for the games? In the analysis, the experts also talk about the reasons for their selection. We briefly summarize this for you for the individual titles:
The 15-year-old game Portal got some love from its developers in 2022 and has been remastered with ray-traced/path-traced graphics.
Portal RTX uses the latest graphics techniques and inspires the experts with its dynamic lighting. They argue that light is an important factor in immersion, and that a little false shadow or lack of lighting is a quick reminder that you’re in a video game.
The lighting in Portal RTX is precise, gapless and interacts perfectly with the environment, so the experts were impressed with the overhauled graphics.
According to the experts, the oppressive horror game actually deserved to land at the top. But technical problems with the release prevented that. However, the graphics were so well received by the Digital Foundry that it had to be in the top 3.
The experts say Callisto Protocol still uses the older Unreal Engine 4, but you wouldn’t see that in the game. They were thrilled that the game could boast high-quality graphics at every turn and that the old engine had been pushed to its limits.
In addition, the animations of the characters in the game are praised. The transfer of the motion captures from the actors into the game is “incredible”. Some playable parts already look like cutscenes.
The winner of Digital Foundry’s graphics ranking is particularly impressive because of the characters in the game. Expert John Linneman even goes so far as to say: “They really do look and move like real people now”. You can find pictures of the game in our play report.
One can interpret the body language and recognize emotional impressions on the face. The many clothing details round off the overall impression. You actually feel like you’re talking to a person and not an inanimate dummy.
But the world is also “how stupidly detailed” and designed in such a way that it gets a further boost with better hardware – which can be seen in the differences between the PS4 and PS5 versions.
But the water, the lighting or the tracks that figures and even small animals leave in the grass also provide impressive effects.
By the way, we may soon be able to travel the world of Horizon in an MMO: Sony is probably planning a new MMORPG for Horizon: Zero Dawn – bring the developers of Blade & Soul on board.
If you want to see the analysis for yourself, here is the English video from the experts at Digital Foundry:
Which titles stand out graphically for you? It doesn’t matter whether it’s from 2022 or earlier. Leave a comment on the topic.
On MeinMMO we recently published a list focused on the big releases of 2023. The next graphic hit that we can marvel at next year may also be here: 5 extremely ambitious multiplayer games that are scheduled to appear in 2023