In the pursuit of realism in our games, we have instead found the uncanny

I've been saying for years at this point that I think games have potentially reached their peak in terms of graphics. At the very least, it's hard to imagine games that look much better than what we see today, without taking away elements of their playability and giving us a more cinematic, but less immersive experience. There's nothing wrong with that, and if I'm honest, I'd rather see developers not bother too much with making games look better or more realistic these days, as increasingly we're bordering on creating the uncanny in pursuit of realism.

What do I mean by that? Well, the uncanny or uncanny valley feeling stems from us being able to recognise something as familiar, but also know that what we're seeing is abnormal. It can create quite an unsettling feeling, and is used to great effect by the horror genre. When I'm talking about the uncanny feeling realistic graphics are creating, these stem from seeing 3D models and realistic faces that look a lot like people, but still feel gamified to the point where they don't come across as such. We'll get to some examples in a minute, but first I'll highlight that not every game that makes "realistic" models and people suffers from this.

The Last of Us and its sequel, Horizon's Aloy, and Ninja Theory's work with the Hellblade games all manage to be realistic, without making me feel like I'm looking at a digital flesh puppet. It's not just recent titles that fall into this trap, either. But, it's almost always the case that the extended pursuit of realism leads to us seeing characters that look "human" in many ways, but remain unbelievably uncanny to the point that it affects a player's immersion. I'm immediately pulled out of a world when I'm made to realise that the character I'm chatting with is no character at all, but the closest attempt to recreate a human the dev team could muster.

This problem only gets worse the closer we get to the full human recreation. Something that concerns me greatly about the upcoming Exodus is how its human models fall into the uncanny element of realism. Everything else about that game has me excited, but when I see character dialogue, there's something off that's difficult to explain, but is a feeling shared by a good chunk of people online. It's not a make-or-break factor for a game, but I believe that it can help or hinder a title significantly in getting its designs over on an audience.

Concord, if you'll allow me a few more kicks at that dead horse, featured designs that were all too realistic, to the point where all of its human characters looked like they were headed to the nearest comic convention, and that its alien creatures were people in cosmetic make-up better suited to a B-tier horror movie from the 80s. Alien species or fantasy race designs also suffer when they border to close to the human. Avowed's Kai may have had the dulcet tones of Brandon Keener, who also played Garrus in the Mass Effect games, but none of the Turian's natural charm.

Beyond making me feel uncomfortable in my seat and reminding me that I've bought a product, not a world, the needless pursuit of realism extends to make it feel like a game is lacking its unique style. Despite massive changes in genres and settings, I can cobble together the aforementioned games, with them existing in the same space in my mind thanks to their uncannily realistic models. Whereas, if I think about games that pursue their own style, even while having fairly realistic looking characters, they are free to occupy their own unique space in my mind. That doesn't mean you need to ditch the idea of a character looking like a person, but perhaps they don't need to have such a shiny face, dead eyes, or a vacant smile. Geralt of Rivia doesn't really look like anyone, but I buy that he's a person when I'm playing through The Witcher games, more so because of his dialogue, voice acting, and the uniqueness of his design.

Realism should also extend beyond a character just looking more like a person or a creature that's adjacent to a person. You can make a character feel real without it having to be grounded in the reality of the player knowing you used a face model for it. If we can return back to Garrus for a second, I think he's a great example of a character who by no means you would ever think is a real being, but has been made with an air of realism seen through the lens of Mass Effect's world. His build, his face, the roughness around the edges all make him more realistic than the uncanny, smooth and glossy face you'll get from Kai, for example.

What uncanny realism does is it peels back the curtain on the process of gaming. We're more aware than ever as gamers about how the sausage is made, and so our immersion is more at risk than ever. When you see mouths not moving quite in the right way, or characters that look like people dipped in a vat of oil to create a glossy sheen, it is a better indicator that what you're experiencing isn't real than a cartoonish character. The pursuit of realism is inherently flawed, because what we experience in games will never be real, so when graphics start to look as good as they do today, I'd much rather see developers pursue their own style, their own way of making people than having character models that feel like they can be slotted into any AAA product. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Baldur's Gate III, they both have people in their games, characters that are realistic in many ways, but are also massively stylised to the point where you know they fit their world in a very specific way.

Overly exerted "realism" doesn't just linger on the face, either. Returning to Exodus, when I look at the companions that don't bury themselves inside mech suits, or even our main hero, I'm left looking at their space suit more like it's a cosplay than a cool armour I can swap out with upgradable pieces. It might be more realistic for a space suit to look as it does in Exodus, but I'd much rather have something that lets me play into a fantasy than limit it for the sake of what would feasibly be possible were this sci-fi world to exist.

This isn't a direct criticism of any of the games mentioned here, as (Concord aside) they all have plenty of other elements that will win me over and have me praising them to the hilt, but I fear I can never fully immerse myself in the ways I would with the games mentioned in a positive light, primarily due to the uncannily realistic models I see on my screens. I don't know how we fix this entirely in the industry, but I think it's about time we stopped pursuing realistic graphics, unless we're reflecting the real world. If you're making a fantasy game, be fantastical. There's no reason not to adopt your own style, bring that concept art to life in all its glory and weirdness, and leave a unique stamp with your game visually.