One thing I never was a fan of in TES was bethesda's art style, nothing ages faster than than a game that tries to look photo realistic and for that reason i always wished bethesda had gone for a more stylized art style, though I cant deny Skyrim looks pretty good. How do you guys like their new art style?

I generally prefer the realism style. It makes games immersive. Other games that are similar in theme have gone for more stylized approaches, and that's good for them, but I've never been able to get behind any of them and imagine them as places that could actually exist. You can compare Fallout 3/New Vegas to Borderlands, for instance. I really like Borderlands, but it's a comic book, not a realistic place.

I like realism. I don't want to play a cartoon personally.

Bethesda's art style I would say is "Decoratve realism" or "epic realism".

I've always enjoyed Bethesda's art style. It seems somewhat different while still acknowledging a great deal of real world influence.

I see what you mean, though the most immersive game ive ever played was shadow of the colossus. It was pretty stylized and still looks great by my standards.

Now that is a good game.

In general, Shadow of the Colossus is realistic, but it's full of stylized art. I think it's a difference of looking at a beautiful painting in a museum vs being the painting. It's certainly on an epic level that's harder to accept as realistic than Oblivion or Skyrim, but it's pretty shiny.

But it's also important to consider that there is no black and white when it comes to realistic and stylized. It just depends on the standards you put it against. At the end of the day, a stylized painting and a hyper-realistic painting are still paintings, and it's just the artist's interpretation of what it should be. You can have games that are lifelike in some aspects, but it's impossible to simulate reality in full. Gears of War and Fable look more realistic than Borderlands and Tales of Vesperia, but you can compare them to games like Mass Effect and Heavy Rain and the characters in them can seem very artificial and stylized.

eh, Elder Scrolls really doesn't need japanese stylized art, imo.

I like it on Skyrim more than prevous games, simply because the graphical quality (especially, and most significantly, the character art) is that much better.

But I'd say there's enough of the stylised in Skyrim for it not to be considered wholly "photo-realistic" as well, if only in design; it's perhaps inspired by Frazetta (and certainly Conan), after all.

Stylised realism... not like in some other RPGs that have some guy with a 12 foot sword and swinging it around like its a saber or anything like that... oh wait skyrim will soon be like that thanks to some modders.

I'm not picky when it comes to art style.

I'm quite fine with what I've seen of the game's art style, it looks realistic enough where realism is applicable, but in terms of the actual design of themes, it seems like Bethesda still remembered that they were making a fantasy game, there's a degree of fantasy feel to the armor, archetecture, creatures and such, but like the characters, effects and such that I've seen look believable. The end result is that it feels like your in a fantasy world, but it still looks like what that world might look like if it were real, and this is usually how I prefer my Medieval European fantasy to be. Now, there are some games that I feel benefit from a more stylized appearance, however, for the Elder Scrolls, I still prefer the game to look as realistic in terms of style as the technology available permits it (Though not necessarily design, so I'm perfectly happy to keep the ornate fantasy armors, for example.) In the end, developers should do what best conveys the feel they're going for with the game, as long as they do that, I won't complain unless the feel they're going for doesn't appeal to me to begin with. It just so happens that for the Elder Scrolls, I think a less stylized appearance fits best.

Now, it is true that the graphics of more photorealistic games seem to age quicker, which I think comes from two things, first, stylized graphics don't need such advanced technology to look good. Whereas realism can be easily ruined by graphics that aren't up to the best of standards, stylized graphics leave more to the imagination, therefore, once they start to get dated, it doesn't hurt them as much, further, even once a game's graphics are no longer impressive from a technical standpoint, I can usually still appreciate its design for what it is. Crysis may look impressive now, but I doubt people will praise its graphics in ten years, creative enough art design doesn't necessarily need the best graphics to look good. Still, I don't think developers should worry too much about that, because time has proven that if a game is good enough, people will continue playing it even once it's graphics start to become dated, and if the game is highly moddable, people can create graphics mods for it to help it look better if they're no longer satisfied with the graphics. Just look at Morrowind and Oblivion, both were games that were considered graphically impressive in their time, but technology moves on, however, with the help of graphics mods, I can play both games now and have them look much better than they did upon release. In short, even if the graphics start to look rather dated in a few years, I don't think that will stop people from enjoying Skyrim, if Bethesda succeeds in creating a game with as much longevity as we've come to expect from the Elder Scrolls.

I disagree that TES games are realistic over stylized. I think they are a very realistic looking form of stylized art, and that's what I love about their graphics. Realistic-esq, while still maintaining a fantasy look and feel in the graphics.

Agreed. And Skyrim's look will not only be the most realistic looking TES game, but the most immersive because of it, IMO. I loved the graphics of Oblivion, but when I saw Mass Effect characters, then the animation and gore of Gears of War 1 and 2, and then the great-looking realistic environments, vehicles, and modeling done in Battlefield: Bad Co. 2, I start to realize just how dated, stylized and unrefined the Oblivion graphics are in many ways.

The interesting thing about that is that Skyrim still has an epic style to it despite its more realistic look, almost reminiscent of the CGI Beowulf. Consider this picture - http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/93395/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/images/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110211094552237.html?page=mediaFull and this one - http://www.allmoviephoto.com/photo/2007_beowulf_005.html

You can see they both look good, and both realistic, while still obviously rendered graphic models. I realize there will eventually be games that use graphics more advanced than that film, and that will certainly be impressive. Some good demos of graphic tech for character modeling are already out there on youtube that look better than that film's graphics.

However, I can say for one that right now I am impressed by the huge difference in characters for Skyrim compared to those from Oblivion.

What do you guys think? What should TES go for in graphics, style or photorealism? Or a mix of both like Beowulf?

A mix, I think. I personally tire of "complete realism" so to speak. We've got that in real life, why would I want that in a game?
I also don't want anything overly stylized. Not that I have a problem with that, Team Fortress 2 is extremely stylized and it looks great, but games like TES should maintain a great deal of realism. Just not enough to get boring. And seemingly, Skyrim is a healthy mix of them both, or "epic realism" as was pointed out earlier.

I like highly stylised. Even on PC, we're only just starting to get enough power to make things that actually look realistic, and we should probably limit ourselves to graphical styles we can actually do. Realism is, by definition, a very difficult style, because there's so very much to simulate.

Yeah, those mods just annoy me when I see them. When I see them I think to myself, "OK then, moving on...".

Anyway as far as the art goes, I quite like Bethesda's art style. I remember some time ago I was looking over some Morrowind concept art and being quite impressed.

No, Skyrim will not soon be like that. You will have the option of having your version of Skyrim like that. Modders put a tremendous amount of effort into what they do, and just because you don't like certain mods doesn't give you a right to bash them.

After seeing the giant natural land bridge with the town on it in the trailer...I'm happy. Is it realistic? Well...not exactly, but if one did exist it probably would look like that. I've always been more of a medival realism guy myself, not to bash giant mushrooms or anything, but its just not my cup of tea. Fallout 3 was a really fun game too and I really enjoyed it, but the style just isnt for me.

I liked Oblivion more, simply because of the style the art went for. And with Skyrim, I'm not to worried. Nords are my favorite race, and I loved the way Bruma looked. Skyrim isn't going to disapoint me with the way it looks, that's for sure.

Yeah, it's something in between. It's more realistic but it shows a lot of more Fantastic elements.

Now I'm waiting for the inevitable bashing of Dragon Age 2 in this thread...

Skyrim's art style I thought was very far from realistic. A lot more fantastic and "illustrated", as someone else put it, than realistic.

And Im sure he takes a tremendous amount of time doing whatever he does for a living/enjoys. No biggie

He wasn't bashing - just stating the ridiculous nature of certain mods. And a lot of people would agree. Its just a matter of opinion


As for Skyrim, I prefer a more realistic approach. I understand that BGS certainly cant shoot for photo realism until the next generation is out, but I wouldnt be surprised to see them look at games like Crysis in the future. Of course that doesnt mean the world has to be as sterile as Crysis.

That has to be one of the most overrated games ever. I love the art style in TES. It strikes a good balance between stylistic/realistic.

I, personally, don't like the theme-breaking anime style mods - but I'll defend their right to exist. If you give somebody freedom, you can't turn around and say "Actually I don't like that". I'll even defend the, er, somewhat less PC mods coming out of the modding community of our Japanese friends - while I don't agree with them, I think it's fantastic that they exist, and wouldn't have it any other way. That there are mods I don't like is a good thing - a great thing.

Skyrim's art is FAR from realistic.
Look at the stones and mountains and the pine trees.

To be honest, I don't like it.

Edit: Actually, the art which I mentioned above is practically the only thing I dislike. I really like the art Bethesda has done for armors, weapons, characters, buildings, etc.
Just not stones, mountains and the pine trees.

I think the opposite tends to be true. Look at DA2. Awful art style that will certainly appear dated in a few years. I like the look of Skyrim. They seem to be channeling Frazetta.