Best art style/direction of 2015

Steins Gate - The grimy art, water colours and hypnotic eyes gives it a very unique art style.

A contemporary town or city is usually pretty interesting setting for an RPG, considering most of them do the fantasy/sci-fi thing. Playing in a modern town is what made games like Persona and Earthbound so interesting.

I fully agree. Thre are way too little contemporary RPGs, especially without fantasy elements. I'm still longing for an Alpha Protocol 2...

I'm still in love with how Life is Strange is looking O_O

Yeah I'm wondering about 3DS and Vita games myself, but I barely played any this year...

Bravely Default on 3DS last year had a great art style.

Witcher 3, Divinity OS, Bloodborne, AC Syndicate and Ori.

AC: Syndicate's art direction is complete realism.

I think it does it really well ^_^

Yoshi or Splatoon for me. I do like Bloodborne and Xenoblade X though as well.

@R4gn4r0k said:

@heguain said:

Witcher 3, Divinity OS, Bloodborne, AC Syndicate and Ori.

AC: Syndicate's art direction is complete realism.

I think it does it really well ^_^

I loved Black Flag, Brotherhood, AC2's as well.

Best art direction in any AC game: Revelations ;)

AC Chronicles: China had the most visually distinct artistic design.

I really like the artwork from that game:

Mad Max has really impressed me. I never would have thought that a post-apocalyptic wasteland could look so beautiful. There are so many subtle little touches to the game that really make it immersive. The game does an excellent job of establishing how the world is very brutal, destructive, and full of despair. However, once you venture away from the scummy people that inhabit the world, you can still find beauty and hope in exploring the world.

Bloodborne and The Order.

I know there is nothing objective about it, but I want to say Ori objectively gets it lol. That games visuals will never age a day, we're going to be seeing it in these art style lists for years to come. It's the new Wind Waker in that sense.

But personally, I just dig Bloodborne so much. I'll go ahead and say it, it's probably my favorite art style in any game ever. A lot of the individual assets look rough around the edges, but it all comes together to be this dreadfully beautiful thing. At times it looks more like a brilliant painting than a video game. You can tell those artists loved what they were doing, so much effort was put into making every area look like a well thought out composition.

Cool. Very nice choice ! Mad Max has a really great art direction. I was really impressed by the storms.

I'm wondering what is up with the Ultimate Edition of Ori coming out this year :P

I haven't played Bloodborned, but when I get the chance I'll definitely dig into the setting and artstyle I know it.

Well, can't deny it was awesome. But it's not my personal favourite art in an AC game.

Best AC game artistically is the first one.

(imo :P)

@R4gn4r0k said:

@heguain said:

I loved Black Flag, Brotherhood, AC2's as well.

AC Chronicles: China had the most visually distinct artistic design.

I really like the artwork from that game:

I didn't play it. Still want to get around to play it. I saw some screen shots though, art does look awesome.

Yeah, I've already gotten a good ways into Ori, but I'm wondering if I should just put it aside until that comes out.

But man, Bloodborne. It's an excellent game, but that art style really elevates the experience big time. And every time you think you've seen the coolest looking shit, be it the environment or the creature designs, the game constantly 1-ups itself with something even cooler and more dreadful to look at.

I really wish it was on PC. Mainly to alleviate the occasional stuttering, but also to clean up the image a bit.

Ah....opinions. :D

Pillars of Eternity

The pre rendered background gives the game a handcrafted feel which elevates it to something special imo. It impressed me visually more than most AAA releases.

I said "more of". A couple here and there isn't jack compared to the fantasy medieval games released yearly. All these D&D, LOTR types with orcs and dragons yet never a leprechaun games. Zelda, Pillars, Witcher's...that style has been done and redone to death. There aren't that many like ME, FF but certainly RPG's could take on many other fantasy elements besides those. FF series certainly draws on the more varied and if not strange alienesque worlds. More of that please, maybe a real time RPG with the fantasy elements of FF 7,10, 13. preferably with less anime...I personally just hate anime. Perhaps a world where magicians dress like gothic vampires in a Halo like multi world RPG...no, sounds too much like StarWars but hey anything different than a leather clad barbarian copied from Conan is great to me.

Love that trailer. I could truly die a content man laying my head on the bosom of a woman humming such a tune. I always get goosebumps watching this.

I know what you mean. Dark Souls and Bloodborne constantly throw new enemies and bosses at you when you think you've seen it all.

That's something a lot of other games fail in, keeping enemy design and encounters fresh on such a level.

Chances of it coming on PC are slim. Perhaps Bloodborne 2 (since Sony is looking to expand onto PC in the future)

Ori and nothing else comes close

and I loved how Ori obliterated Bloodborne at the Game Awards :D

Some shots of Mad Max which I took recently (taken from PC gameplay and not cutscenes)...

Blutborne

Great art style and map designs.

How can you forget this ? :D

From games I played?

SFV,Blitzkrieg 3,Homeworld Remaster and Journey.

@R4gn4r0k said:

@heguain said:

I loved Black Flag, Brotherhood, AC2's as well.

AC Chronicles: China had the most visually distinct artistic design.

I really like the artwork from that game:

Though it's Unreal engine 3, i thought they used UbiArt Framework.

One word : masterpiece.

Guess one game competes gorgeous art style of Ori and that is Trine 3.

@kozio: Did you enjoy Trine 3 ?

A lot of people say it's a disappointment compared to Trine 1&2. :(

Oh yeah, I found Homeworld Remastered has a wonderful art direction. They really took a great approach for remastering the graphics.

I still haven't played Journey 0_0

did you play it on PS4 ?

@lamprey263: Batman Arkham Knight

Why Batman?

@PSP107: Why not?

Ori Blind Forest

The Order

Witcher 3

Ori was the best for me.

Yoshi's Woolly World looks great.

@lamprey263:

I mean when I bought Arkham Knight for $20 a few weeks ago, I was literally fresh off just beating Arkham City the same week.

To me, It look like they just took Arkham City and slightly upgraded that look to Arkham Knight. And I don't claim to be a Batman expert, but the Art Style if the city doesn't feel like I'm in the Batman Universe. I do like it is always raining though.

Have to say Ori and the Blind Forest.

There is quite a lot of negativity around Trine 3, which is both understandable and sad. I like Trine 3. Frozenbyte can't please everybody. Despite all of the negative reviews, I bought the game because I like Frozenbyte's esthetics, as displayed in Trine 1 & 2. Trine 3 was, unfortunately, released early due to budgeting issues. It is still a fairly well polished game however. Lack of a skill tree, i believe this would have been added if the funds did not run out. I found Trine 3 to be graphically beautiful. I enjoyed the 3D environment. The 3D element was not overdone however, which is awesome. It is still a mostly linear puzzle platformer. The 3D aspect is only used to enhance that game style, not replace it. Well they took a risk to go to 3D, they learned from it. I hope they don't give up on 3D because I enjoy it and I think they did it right. Trine 3's story does end in a cliff hanger fashion after about 7-8 hours of play time. That said, if you liked Trine 1 and 2, you will probably like 3 and the changes it introduced. All in all, it was definitely a fun game.I hope Frozenbyte can eventually continue the story through dlc or something.