I just realized that Skyrim's graphics according to the screenshots aren't too far ahead of Oblivion's. For example, the low-poly grass and the textures in the skeleton cave look ever so similar to that in the previous game. Sure, there are some parts which are extremely aesthetically pleasing, such as the new water and mountain mist, but are these shiny new additions just covering the overall problems?
Discuss.

Careful now, you don't know what you've done. Prepare to be attacked by two camps - the graphics don't matter, I'd much rather play a morrowind camp, and the "yeah, it's sort of not that great" camp. I'm in the latter.

Do that graphics REALLY matter all that much? They look modern as far as I am concerned, and much better than the graphics Beth has produced so far.

The animations and character models look 100% improved. But the lighting and colors are still oversaturated, which bothers me to no end.

I think this has been the general trend in gaming for the last several years. Probably because most gamers can't afford to always have a higher end system and perhaps more signifcantly the "consolization", where the graphics are sandbagged a bit to make an easier port to consoles.

yeah I thought that too and how the game is going to be the worst game ever released and Cod will beat it this year / sarcasm

it is a multiplatform game with loads of content, it can't be super detailed graphically with something like grass, which there is lots of and full of content too.

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Surprise surprise, we've hit a ceiling on the graphical capabilities of the current generation of consoles.

I for one have noticed quite a bit of improvements over Oblivion, and even some over Fallout 3.

And, as has been said before, the trailer is composed of Xbox360 level graphics. PC will support higher, Todd has said.

Wild guess here but maybe because they are making it on the exact same machine they did with ES IV.. Software only goes so far and they are reaching that across the boards in all games right now so to get better graphics you have to risk size and to get bigger size you have to risk graphics.. only one way to fix that and that way will be out in 2015 until the same thing repeats in 2018-19.

:shrug:

I'm yet to see any other game like Oblivion or Fallout 3 to compair the graphics too. Its just so big along with all the things that we can interact with...its hard to expect much in the graphics department for something like this. We'll notice a larger jump with the next system cycle of xbox and playstation, but until then they'll be smaller jumps.

I agree completely. Bethesda should have waited, such as they did with Oblivion, to move onto a bigger and better console.

I also find the latest news concerning about how all three platforms are going to look the same, as I've just forked out alot of money to build a Skyrim rig :facepalm:

I think it looks way better than Oblivion, and with dx11 support we can expect some very interesting and graphically intense mods. Also with such an open ended and content heavy game, it would be hard to have Metro-like graphics I would think. Im not worried.

Graphics always look better while in motion. Motion hides the flaws which screenshots reveal.

Just wait until they release more gameplay footage.

IMO it can get down to morrowind graphics, actually i wont mind it being loaded by MSDOS. honestly. The last thing i care about is the graphics.

The graphics are fine. They're a hell of a lot better than a lot of games and that's enough for me.

Well they did say PC will get DX11 support and better textures. Besides, Vanilla Oblivion on PC maxed out looks loads better than on a console. So remember that we are getting better textures and eventually someone will make the "Holy **** Tesselation!" mod and it will look vastly superior. Remember that a lot of the bugs and things being removed from Oblivion was because they only had the 360 for a few months to test before release. If they release it now on something they know the specs of well it will be a lot better. Just be glad you have a Skyrim PC rig, mods will make it all super pretty.

I guess I just found it strange, a game released in nearly 2012 (whereas Oblivion was released early 2006) and the graphics look the way they do. I mean, I don't really know if years matter or what goes into graphics being 'better.' But since Skyrim's map is so small (Oblivion's size again) I figured the graphics should be a lot better because they'd have a lot less map to model. But if nothing else, I at least think everything should be completely novel for what Skyrim's map size is. It should be Grand Theft Auto IV novel, even more. Nothing should be repeated/everything should be different. But again, I really don't know what goes into graphics being 'better.' And if consoles really hold it down so much and if years differential matter. Graphics are relative as well to the individual perceiving with how they associate things as polished graphics and unpolished graphics.

Bethesda should have waited to move onto a bigger and better console?!???!!!? But this will happen in about 5 years!!! they will surelly have TES 6 almost released in that time!

Besides, Oblivion has good graphics. Of course I preffer better graphics also but what I see suggest that Skyrim surpases a game with good graphics.

I heard that that video was taken exclusively from the xbox version of the game right? If that's true the PC version might look significantly better by comparison, here's hoping.

Remember, Skyrim also has a bunch of AI and items with havok physics to render, whereas GTA doesn't have nearly as much. It also has static NPCs that remain even in death (for a few game days). GTA bodies and blown up vehicles disappear in the time it takes you to run around the corner and go back.

It's been 4-5 years since Oblivion came out. None of the big 3 have even talked about the next generation, meaning they are at least 2 if not 3 years out.

What I would have done was released Oblivion 2.0 (obviously a different province, just fixed the animation and gameplay issues such as level scaling) around 2009. Then waited another 3-5 years to bust out the big guns on w/e new console comes around.

This is the result of making the game more for consoles than for PC, which has caused a lot of problems over the last 5 years

GTAIV is not the game you should have the bar set to graphically. RDR Redemption is Rockstar's best game to date graphically and next month LA Noire will hold that title.

Myself, I thought it looked fine the way it is. Huge open world games like Skyrim don't generally have tip-top graphics like Crysis, or most modern FPS's for that matter.