http://www.twinfinite.net/2015/07/20/bethesdas-fallout-4-not-meant-to-be-the-most-stunning-rpg-ever/
This is what the focus of game design should always be; screw graphics. I want a game that is interactive and immersive as possible; that is best achieved through a world with as many physical objects as possible.

Are you suggesting this game chooses graphics over gameplay?

I prefer a marriage of the two, to be honest.

(In case my tone wasn't clear, I was being completely sincere; graphics really are a negligible concern to me; its nice when a game has em, but gameplay is way, way more important.

Depends on what you mean by graphics. I don't care about texture size, multisampling and all that fun stuff. Atmosphere and aesthetics is what is important. The visuals has to fit the theme of the games story and world. I think every Bethesda game has that unique look and feel to them, while not having the best graphics ever. I am glad that the new engine handles lighting better.

I think you need a balance. Yeah, gameplay should never be sacrificed for pretty looks, but I can't see myself playing Skyrim at 640 resolution.

Well, to me, Atmosphere can stand in for graphics. Let's talk Morrowind. Base vanilla, no mods. That is a game that has not aged well graphics wise, and even in the day it was a fairly ugly game. But what it lacked in graphics, it made up for in atmosphere. It set the mood, the music pulled you in as you meandered down dirt roads or off into the wilderness. The dim lighting of caves and ruins gave you a haunting chill. Rain pouring over Balmora. Things like that.

Graphics are only important in that they don't distract from the game play. Like, I am playing a game and spend more time getting distracted by the bad graphics than I do playing the game. The flipside is, if the game is beautiful, I might spend a moment here and there admiring the graphics but other than that focus on the game.

Warcraft 2 is exactly the same way. It has old DOS graphics but the artwork holds up to this day. As far as Morrowind goes, even now the sunsets in that game look gorgeous.

There are plenty of good looking games from the 90s out there.

Oh if it is one thing I'll give Morrowind, was those gorgeous sunrises and sunsets on the Odai Plateau. There was just...something there that made it worth getting up at 6am in-game.

Warcraft 2 got by this by using more sprites than actual models.

But yeah, Gameplay over graphics. I don' mind going back to old ascii graphics, as long as the game is fun.

Let's release Fallout 4 as a text adventure and see how many copies it sells. I'll buy five.

The water is what i remember the best from Morrowind. It looks amazing.

Also the great thing about the game not pushing for graphics makes it so no one can scream "downgrade" at launch

I am with you, Now I just have to find a monochrome green or amber monitor.

Fallout NV is my favorite game of last gen and it is uglier than Sickle fight. My favorite game of all time is a SNES game (super metroid)

Gameplay. ALWAYS.

Amazing, makes me want to play it now. I saw a fan-made Fallout, text-based demo about a week ago on Reddit somewhere. Can't remember what it's called. Anybody know?

Why is this even an issue?

I'd understand if the trend were like NBA with having pretty much the same game every year with updated graphics. I mean, how much more can you add to basketball? IT'S BASKETBALL.
Now the CoD franchise, much as hate to bring up the topic as it's subject to plenty of criticism, following the same trend: Same game, Better graphics. The series has it's audience and let's end it at that.

FO was never a series that was known for graphics. FO2 is pretty much same as 1 with slight changes; same with FO3 and NV and they're all classics.
In 2-3 years computers will be able to handle much more data at once. We'll be having games playing at 120 FPS and our eyes won't know the f king difference.
When I get my next computer it'll ALWAYS have a rom of Castlevania 1, the one I consider to be the best of the series because it still holds up.

You people complaining about this, I'm sure you've played games before. You mean to tell me any other system before the PS4 and latest 8 ram PC games are garbage just because they have inferior graphics?
Yeah and Newton was garbage too because he wasn't as good a Physicist as Hawking.

One of my favorites too. Never be able to beat this [censored] in the console, only using save stats.

ASCII or bust

I prefer Gameplay over graphics but Fallout 4 shouldn't suffer in the graphics department. I think it looks amazing, not Witcher 3 levels but still really good.

A balance between the two. But game play is more important. Like look at fallout 3 and skyrim or even morrowind their graphics were not all that great compared to other games at the time but the game play and freedom made the games great.

Yes graphics are important in the sense we don't want it to look like a ps2 game but good graphics don't really matter if the game play svcks.

Honestly lighting is the most important aspect of graphics for me, and it looks like Fallout 4 nailed it.

Clutter and cheese....

..

.

Some games have both. Especially this gen and upcomming titles.

As much as I would love to agree that graphics are not all that ... the first mods I always add are those that improve the graphics. So I guess underneath it all I am truly a graphic [censored].

I guess my only saving grace is that if the game isn't good enough on it's own I never bother trying to make it look better.