Digital Foundry's Best Game Graphics of 2023 - PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch - Another Amazing Year

Far Cry: Avatar has fantastic visuals, but lacks substance. Just like the films that it's based on, then.

Cyberpunk is on the list , but starfield is not , nice joke

Dead Space original looks better to me than the latest one.

Amazing showcase, beautifully spoken, Digital Foundry is such a treasure. These games are incredible, what an amazing gaming era!

Sorry guys but i disagree. Alan wake 2 is First place, followed by cyberpunk and avatar. Path traced games just are on another level, and alan wake 2 assets are the best i have ever seen. But yes, avatar is a good looking game but the technology foundation is old and it shows in some aspects. Lighting is not on par with cyberpunk, and assets are very far from alan wake 2 level. And i got the feeling that it is procedurally generated avatar, without soul. The other two games have artistic merit too. But again, avatar run so much better

I'm shocked at how good an Ubisoft game can look and come out on top!? I need to try this game now!

Call me old, but what now takes one glimpse of a FPS to render is what I was taught to program to render in minutes or even hours 20y back in povray and friends...and it's not even enough now we need more and more...UE5 is paving the way for showing the next moves, and once we're there today's demos are gonna look like crap...2023 might be "yet another year", but man, look where we are now, and where we're going! that's just crazy, and DF is with us on the crazy train for sure! thx for your always on point analysis, always appreciated! :)

Resident Evil 4 Remake was my GOTY. The VR mode is incredibly fun.

I more less agree with the pick... Massive and Remedy r incredible studios delivering top notch results. It's also kinda amazing in 2023/24 we still keep talking about amazing graphics of the Crysis games. There's something amazing and legendary/iconic what Crytek has delivered to the industry with Crysis games which has meaning even years after their release.
Fingers crossed for Crysis 4, hopefully it will deliver something very special and shock even the best level of graphics out there when it comes out.

Dead island 2 should be in there somewhere

I think with Alan Wake 2 even without path tracing it looks stunning. Has some amazing raster effects

I sick of all the jungle environments woods like areas need more urban focused graphics

Jedi Survivor is still broken. AND i think it's visually stunning BUT only the very first level. The open world level after that looked so horrible, even on PC. I couldn't play it longer, because i couldn't stand the stuttering. One of the few games i would really love to play but it's just impossible. I think you guys are too soft with that, the game's performance is, to this date, unacceptable on EVERY plattform. They don't even try, it sold well, that's it. We eat that garbage and you let it pass

I like graphics a lot but what I like more is innovative gameplay and physics. I see that none of the games on the list are amazing in Artificial intelligence, environment based gameplay or physics.

Max Payne 2 had good ragdoll physics compared to the first, Crysis 1 and Far cry 2 had lots of interesting physics and f.e.a.r had great AI. And all of that enhanced gameplay, what games are supposed to be praised for.
And all that was back in 2007. Focusing too much in graphics have led us here.

All of these shiny games will be forgotten when the next set of shiny games comes out. But the games that have great gameplay will live on.

A love letter to video games with astounding technical achievements. Loved the show

This IS bigger than the Game Awards. I'm watching people with credibility have a productive conversation and not an embarrassing corporate shill gushing over his famous friends. "Hey everybody, I know Hideo Kojima! Welcome to the Game Awards."

re dead space i think GI might go against their artistic intent? those dark pools of shadow hiding who knows what adds to the anxiety factor. i loved the remake as much as i loved the original and that end scene is still as chilling as it ever was.

I would certainly want to see something completely new from Guerrilla.

Cyberpunk with Pathtracing is honestly one of the best game ever made, and every one should try it just to see how this world is amazing. I I hope they will improve graphism and implement it on PS5 or PS5 Pro because this change completely the game and this open world is amazing.

As a pc graphics snob i was consistently BLOWN AWAY by how good Mario wonder looked. It was definitely bringing out some child like joy in me.

Not a single Mention of Hogwarts Legacy in neither worst releases, best graphics, or any of the collections for "my game of the year" and I really don't get why it's not showing up anywhere. It's like one of the most sold games of the year and it looks very good, has RT but it seems like it is being ignored on purpose. Feels weird.

The guest you guys had on for this episode is the absolute best real life representation of how I envision the man-child that's living in his mom's basement to look like. That only comes up to get a fresh Mt Dew and bag of Cheetos.
Thantkhs for having on the thow guyths

i dont know about resident evil 4, is very very beuatiful but there is a lot of mistakes, RE Engine is obviously powerful, is something i preach for so long now. And the raytracing in all games of RE Engine is subpar to say the least, normally just some reflection or something. I'd love to see rtgi. all in all is a good gourgeous game, even if I prefer the original RE4
There is this video called "Resident Evil 4 Remake is NOT a Masterpiece, it's PEAK Remake Culture." i like very much, the guy points out a lot of things I would myself, even if i dont agree entirely with the video. But i digress.

Did I miss baldurs gate 3? That came has the best character models I’ve ever seen and tons of detail everywhere

Graphics don't always equal fun, Alan Wake 2 was a bore fest imo, as was Robocop, which was like an arcade rail shooter. It looked fine, but nothing stellar. And Avatar? Never been a fan of the movies, nor the games. I personally would chose Dead Space Remake and RE4 Remake as the realism overall just took from the originals, and expanded so greatly on them. And they were FUN games, from a fun (more fun) time for gaming. Other than that, not much else (graphically) or otherwise appealed to me last year as I felt it was by far the worst year for games, movie and music. Which are my top three hobbies. And I'm 48. So I grew up watching all of these things evolve into what they are now. But my interest in gaming is waning because there is literally nothing, NEW under the sun. And I'm not seeing anything of interest in the near future. Even Indiana Jones (my dream title), being first person kind of killed it for me. Just my two cents.

Robocop Rogue City shows that a very realistic game (scenarios) can run well on average graphics cards. Alan Wake 2 could have done the same without the use of Mesh Shaders. I play on the rx 5700 xt and I can play with 45 FPS in Epic mode Robocop graphics, without crashes, very fluid.

I think path RT is the future, and it's incredible for every light source to influence the visuals. However, I haven't drank the Kool-Aid yet. In every video I see of people talking about Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk, I see these visuals distortions where the technology doesn't work well yet. Like something that should be a crisp light flickering all over the place. It's just not ready for primetime, and I would pick pretty much any of the other games over these two for best graphics of the year. What drives your opinion is whether you value how high the max fidelity is (like every light reflecting) versus how you value the worst case (like obvious flickering of lights that looks like total garbage).

completely disagree with Robocop, bad texture and modeling work. Bad effects, just coz it uses new tech doesnt cut it. looks like 2012 game to me.

Notice how it now takes the VERY best looking next gen games to even look noticeably better than PS4 games. As opposed to the average game surpassing the best looking previous gen games.

Dang, how did I miss this! So important for me now especially buying gaming pc. Cheers!

Alex, the reason you don’t write “like” as every 5th word when you write your beautiful scripts is… “insert answer here”
(And your answer is why you should slow your mind and order your words before you speak so that you don’t say “leyk” every 5 words)

Really upset with how the folk behind Hi-Fi rush were treated
These companies ( XBOX, PS4, Etc) are utter scum.

It's funny because this video came out so long ago but you all make videos so easy to rewatch

I'm surprised they had a "hard" descission here. Doesnt matter what Alan Wake looks like, we all know how difficult and almost unheard of (another example would be Horizon FW)it is to render this level of detail and density, make it open world, and then make it run at 60fps on consoles, easy choice is Avatar.

Picked up Jedi Survivor during the Steam sales and it was a great experience all round. I was surprised how good the graphics were. RE4 remake was nothing great. Indeed RE4 and DS remakes improved the graphics but the gameplay felt too easy compared to the originals.

Currently playing Avatar FOP and agree that the graphics are good but AW2, free version of cource, was much better. CP2077 still holds first place for myself.

Digital Foundry wins best video game video of the year!

Ubisoft boughtthem forthis one. AVATAR better than forbidde west?

Now you can have all those games on PS5 Pro, for £700, £800 if you want a disk drive, £850 if you want a cheap round plastic stand, for a near 17% increase, I'm building a PC, not buying on pure principle.

The Alex dude the only thing that come out he’s mouth is “Is better than what you got in console’s” lol. I can’t stand him. I love pc and console but this dude is just a simple console hater for whatever reasons 😂

I thought this was supposed to be best graphics overall of 2023 not best graphics considering the platform of 2023

am I the only person that thinks ray traced lighting looks TERRIBLE every time anything in the world moves? the shadows, illumination, everything moves in SLOW MOTION in current year. the bright sign that flips between colors 57 minutes in here should make the scene go from orange to blue in a fraction of a microsecond, not SEVERAL SECONDS. I find it incredibly distracting and problematic that the lighting slowly fades towards correct every time you place a block in RT minecraft. a room with no windows can appear fully lit by the sun. honestly I think it slowly fading to dark is worse than if it just did the math and then updated it all at once after some delay, probably. that doesn't make sense for most contexts though.

is the solution just more powerful hardware that can do it faster, until you don't notice it happening?

I think Alex should really be curbed a lot, and i notice John and Oliver both do. The guy can be a PC fan and still actually discuss console builds fairly. Hes a disgrace in this particular video