«Momentum» — is an original column from my Telegram channel. What you’re reading is an English translation of the piece I first published in Russian, so some turns of phrase may feel a little rough. Btw, it is just a way of structuring my own thoughts aloud, putting them in order and searching for a live dialogue. Enjoy the read!
You know, there’s this funny yet strikingly illustrative phenomenon called the “clean glass effect”. I’ll explain what I mean and why this seemingly everyday thing has lodged itself so firmly in my mind in the context of our beloved gamedev. This will be a bit… Encyclopaedic to start with.
Why did glass swallow the landscape?
Imagine ancient times. Houses had no double-glazed units, nor even glass in the usual sense. At best the wealthy might have oiled hides or mica in their windows, while most people had simple holes in the wall, plugged at night with whatever was at hand (if windows existed at all). Understandably, this caused a host of problems: it was dark, uncomfortable, security was mediocre, and the world beyond the wall remained one big unknown until you stepped outside.
Then, centuries later, it appeared — glass. The first experiments were, to put it mildly, far from ideal: thick, cloudy, bubbled and distorted, “fat” and unwieldy, functionally awkward panes. Through such glass you could hardly examine the street, catching only blurred silhouettes and a general sense of whether it was day or if night had already fallen. Yet even that was a breakthrough! Light could enter while weather stayed out, and there was at least some connection with the outside world.
Years, decades, centuries passed. The technology of glass-making improved: it grew thinner, clearer, more transparent. At some point we reached near-perfect clarity. Glass became… just glass — an invisible barrier. It seemed the summit had been conquered. In its fundamental purpose — letting light through and offering an unobstructed view — the technology called “glass” had exhausted itself. Nothing more could be improved in that specific aspect.
But no! Human ingenuity never stands still. Double-glazed units for thermal and acoustic insulation appeared, tempered glass, bullet-resistant glass, panes with UV filters, with heating, self-cleaning surfaces… A slew of undeniably useful upgrades — yet, fundamentally, transparency had already been achieved.
As a “window onto the world”, glass had in essence completed its evolution. From here on, it is all service functions, which will certainly continue to improve, but the core breakthrough — perfect transparency — is behind us.
The Sisyphus stone of gamedev?
Why this sprawling lecture on materials science, you may ask — especially inside a “Momentum”? Because the other day a video on TT crossed my feed. I’ll attach it ri-i-ight here:
And that short clip, that tiny spark, landed straight in the long-smoldering bonfire of thoughts in my head about graphics in games. After all, most of my dearest, most defining gaming experiences came from titles you could never call graphical masterpieces or pinnacles of realism.
Don’t get me wrong: like many of you I’m eagerly awaiting GTA 6 and savoring the promised level of detail. Yet this almost religious, unhealthy (in my view) devotion to photorealism — the race for “even more realistic arm-hair” and “even wetter asphalt” — starts to remind me of our glass story: the pane is already transparent, but we keep perfecting it ad infinitum, forgetting why we needed it in the first place.
Which is why, I think, players (and yes, developers too) periodically need a kind of slap — a sobering flick on the forehead that reminds us: beautiful, realistic graphics are often just wrapping paper. Sometimes the wrapper is masterful and enriches the experience (in my TG channel’s previous post I mused on how the cinematics in ARC Raiders can serve the intended vibe — that’s a fact, and that’s systemic experience design).
The telling brawl at the last TGA over Astro Bot’s (arguably — fight me, I’ll be happy!) well-earned win against the other games (though I personally voted for Balatro!) only cemented my sense that we’re on the second loop of that spiral where players once again demand the triumph of “graphics” and “cinema”.
But far too often that wrapper hides emptiness or, worse, tries to swap deep gameplay for a tech demo. And the funniest part? This “graphics vs gameplay” debate flares up with enviable regularity every few years, like a seasonal fever. People foam at the mouth arguing, then settle down — until the next tech leap, and off we go again. Granted, these aren’t the golden days of the PS5 and Xbox SX launches with their talk of “teraflops”.
Nevertheless, it seems this time it’s my turn to be the catalyst of a storm in a teacup within a Momentum. I’m even ready to catch a splash of backlash in the comments. Because it’s so much more interesting when your mind gets “fooled” (in the best sense!) by stylised graphics that serve atmosphere, concept, a unique visual language — rather than trying to cosplay reality.
Smaller games are more grown-up than blockbusters
Now let’s get serious: how much do we really need this chase for absolute photorealism? Especially when we possess such a powerful tool as stylisation — when graphics can be not merely “like real life” but artistic, metaphorical, able to set a mood with nothing more than a chosen palette or the shape of an object. And, more importantly, when it can be wise to leave deliberate “blank spots”, a touch of the unspoken in the visuals so that the player’s imagination can finish the picture.
Think of the games — Minecraft springs to mind, but I’d even highlight the PS1-style graphics many indie titles now use — where the visuals were, to put it mildly, schematic, yet gripping gameplay, an intriguing world and strong mechanics conjured images in your head far brighter, more vivid and, crucially, more emotional than the gleaming models in an AAA blockbuster ever could.
That elusive “fun” everyone talks about is born not from polygons per square centimetre but from the interplay of systems, from an engaging challenge, from the sense of discovery and, vitally, from interaction with the player. And that “fun” is the best artist: it will paint the most incredible vistas and the tensest scenes in your mind, even if all you see on-screen are pixel people, schematic icons, contour maps, cubes or little tokens.
Speaking of “small games” and concentrated experiences, I want to share an observation that will likely become the topic of my next, more detailed article. Over the past six to twelve months I’ve noticed I’m spending far more money and, just as important, time on smaller, often indie projects that some might call “childish” or “simple.”
Games like White Knuckle, Animal Well, COCOON, Old School Rally, Book of Travels, Keep Driving, Arco, Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip — or even the slightly paradoxical LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, into which I’ve somehow poured 200 hours. Yes, I realise this is pure subjectivity at times: art (games) is always about freedom of interpretation and personal taste. Moreover, I’m doing this not only and not simply for fun — but that’s another story. Still, what hooks me in these projects is the concentrated, distilled gameplay, the sharply targeted mechanics and that immersion which doesn’t demand hundreds of hours to unfold. As a rule, they state honestly:
«I’m here to entertain you for 10–20 hours, to give you a pure emotion without overloading you.»
And, you know, sometimes — as maximalist and, perhaps, a bit childishly cheeky as it may sound — I’d love to send many people into a sort of “gaming quarantine” filled with titles that offer so little graphics and so much gameplay. So that our lovely better half can step away from their gacha games for a while, and we, the lads, stop, forgive me, masturbating over every new glint on a beer bottle in a trailer. Just to remember that games are first and foremost about interactive experience, not about the quantity or quality of the rendered picture. Of course, I’m well aware: progress in simulation and graphics is unstoppable, and it will inevitably find its symbiosis in games — where else but in them should we test-drive new technologies?
A window onto a grey wall?
And here we reach, you know, a slightly philosophical crossroads I’ve been sketching out. So where exactly is this Sisyphus-“graph-maniac” stone rolling? Will it ever make it to the mountain-top, or will the chase for the perfect picture remain an eternal, exhausting and, perhaps, not always meaningful labour?
Because it isn’t only about the glass being perfectly transparent. What also matters is the landscape we see through that glass. If behind the crystal-clear visuals lurks a dull, empty, derivative or simply poorly designed game system, that transparency is worthless. It’s like owning the most advanced window only to look out on the blank wall of the house next door: top-tier tech, zero joy.
A good game can live on without good graphics, but a bad game with good graphics will always sink into oblivion. I know this thought — gameplay first, graphics second — is hackneyed to death. People have said it, say it and will keep saying it. Yet I couldn’t help voicing it through my own prism, my fresh (or, if you like, “green”) perception.
Sometimes you gaze at this industry and see how that collective Sisyphus-“graph-maniac”, with stubbornness worthy of a better cause, drags his boulder of photorealism up the peak of a technological Tower of Babel.
And there he is, seemingly almost at the goal. The tower is complete, glittering with its polygons, puddle reflections and wind-tousled hair. Our Sisyphus-architect finally steps onto the topmost balcony of his Babylonian edifice to survey the brilliant, technologically flawless world he has created — and beholds… an empty landscape.
And staring at this “achievement”, this gleaming “nothing” that consumed millions of person-hours and dollars, you can’t help asking one simple question:
That very “king of progress” for whom we have so long and diligently sewn garments of the purest polygons — is he, by any chance, naked?
See you where the secrets are hidden → t.me/slepokNTe 👀
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