Why the hell do people have such beef with Borderlands 3's graphics?

I'm making this rant as a reaction to the constant news articles and people saying BL3's Graphics don't seem to be an improvement. Here is what I have to say:

While I agree that in a technical aspect borderlands 3 (from the look of everything so far) hasn’t improved since 2 it has improved in another aspect and that is improving upon the artstyle that it’s very known for. Borderlands 1, in terms of artstyle was an experiment to see where they could go with kind of artstyle granted they didn’t go too far with it on account of its dark and brown colour palette it still did a good job of establishing that it’s style. Then we have Borderlands 2 which was the version 1.5 of this artstyle, this time they experimented and played with colours more and with the character design to bring the world to life the problem was variation among certain things particular enemies and maybe some areas like Bandit Settlements all looked the same except for their logo. Borderlands 3, from what I have seen so far, has improved on the character design specifically the variety among different characters and different environments; looking at the Psycho cosplay guide has shown me that just as there will be an RNG for guns, there too will be an RNG for enemies, to keep them as different and not too samey as possible. This can also be seen in the design of the planets areas we have seen so far where they play with the colour palette more to make each area more distinct and noticeable. My favourite example has to be New Meridian on Promethea, how the use of neon colours tells you that it is a modern day future metropolis and the area being littered with rubble and stuff tells you that it is a warzone. So while Gearbox didn’t improve technically by giving Lilith realistic skin they did give her an new makeover that still tells you it’s Lilith while making her feel a bit more animated and in some sense.

Borderlands 1&2 still hold up in terms of artstyle and looks compared to other games at the time, more so Borderlands 2, but most games just didn’t age very well because of the tech but today it’s still nice to look at. This is because of its artstyle which was purposed to be recognizable and long lasting. I admit there isn’t much you can do technically to make it better, other than say improving animations, but you can make it more defined and unique among other works to really hit it home. I say that Gearbox, from what I have seen has really hit the nail on the head in that aspect.

In fact, I would say not improving graphics too much to where it’s a giant leap in tech will probably benefit them in the long run as this art style is technically, and hopefully easier to work with as it doesn’t seem too complex graphic-wise, where hopefully (and I hope to god that I don’t jinx this) it will have less severe bugs than most realistic looking games that I have seen so far. It may even benefit them in terms of sale on PC, hopefully (and I hope I don’t jinx it) the game will be easier to run on less powerful rigs increasing sales in the long run.

While I agree people have different preferences on what they mean by improvements and what counts as such generally it’s still very early to tell, even with most of releases we don’t know what could change. I just want to end on one quote:

Sometimes making a better sculpture isn’t about getting more expensive materials it’s about working with what you have and maybe mostly even a little more imagination and pizzazz.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Submitted July 05, 2019 at 06:06PM by MetalAnt12 https://ift.tt/2RYtjng