The most Photorealistic looking Videogame

 

                                                                              

Technology, as with most things, is a function of time. Which means as time goes on, things get better and better. And nowhere does it apply more than Visuals in videogames, where the degree of realism in exactly proportionate to the passage of time. But there’s always an (or in this case, several) exception to the rule where a small number of games exist which features visuals so far ahead of their times that they not only look better than most games years after their original release, they just never look dated at all. In this way, they pretty much transcend Time itself, and stand apart from the 99 percent of games as a beacon of example demonstrating that if something is made with enough Love and care, it can truly stand the test of time.

And this article is about celebrating one of those extremely rare videogames which, by virtue of it’s exceedingly rich and far-ahead-of-it’s-time visuals, have achieved the rare prestige of being truly Timeless when it comes to graphics. It came out in 2015 but still effortlessly looks better than ALL videogames out there. In fact, I wonder if it’ll look dated even 10 years from now, or if ever, in that case. Perhaps not even technology can make it any more realistic, that’s how much of a visual masterpiece this game is. So without further ado, here’s Need for Speed (2015), the videogame with timeless visuals.

Screenshots alone can’t do these visuals justice cause videogames look their best when they’re in motion—the yellowish tint of the sodium street lights, the ambient occlusion, the Shaders, the road textures—this game might have the most realistic in-game depiction of a rainy night road, even in an era of fully ray-traced titles out there.

Personally, this game took me to the ‘uncanny valley’ or to the point of total suspension of disbelief far more than any other videogame that I’ve ever played. There were so many moments during playing that just made me stop and marvel at the environment while thinking “This has got to be real”, it’s truly astonishing when a videogame does that.

So if you love videogame graphics, you really owe it to yourself to experience NFS 2015 in it’s full visual glory. And it does seem odd that this game isn’t as much highlighted for it’s jaw dropping visuals like many other titles, when it indeed deserves all the praise it can get when it comes to pure graphical goodness. Released in 2015, it’s still the most photorealistic looking NFS game ever made, and easily the most realistic looking racing title ever. And it sure looks to stay in that position for a very long time. But now I’ll just let the visuals do the talking, so sit back and enjoy this delightful feast for the senses.