Can I live here? It must still be cheaper than San Francisco
3D artist and level designer Benoît Dereau, who has previously worked on Dishonored, has made one of the most impressive Unreal Engine 4 tech demos I’ve seen, as far as photo realism goes. It makes PT look like a videogame!
A cool thing to me about approaching photorealism is readability. In the space between abstraction and this, there are games that tried to look realistic, but technical limitations date them, make them feel muddy and obscure useful visual information. It’s why Grim Fandango or Wind Waker–games with style and iconography–look better than most things.
But imagine a detective game with this level of detail, where exploring a small crime scene can be done without the need for guiding visual/UI cues because everything is like real life. Could be neat. I’m always trying to figure out ways more developers to make detective games that don’t suck, though.