Digital Foundry has chosen the games with the best graphics of 2024

As every year, the Digital Foundry editors have prepared a special video in which they discuss the games with the best graphics of the past year. While the focus is on technical quality, the overall visual style is also noteworthy, as evidenced by some honorable mentions.

You deserve it, for example Persona 3 Reboot whose Metaphor: ReFantasiowhich undoubtedly loses to modern titles in terms of technical processing, but compensates for this with animation and the already mentioned style. Other honorable mentions received e.g. remastered by Nightdive Studios or the second part of the remake of the trilogy Final Fantasy VII subtitled Rebirthmainly thanks to the fantastic videos.

Of course, the main focus was on the top ten. Again, the top seven were not judged in any way, but the trio of John Linneman, Oliver McKenzie and Alex Battaglia organized the top three titles to determine the overall winner.

RPG entered the top 10 Dragon’s Dogma 2 from Capcom, mainly thanks to its rich use of ray tracing for realistic lighting in a large open world. What happened next remake of the adventure game Rivenwhich was originally published in 1997, it captivated editors, especially Linnemann, with its enormous advances in graphics while maintaining an impressive visual style.

Other games with the best graphics this year according to DF also include: Dragon Age: Guardian of the VeilAlex Battaglia highlights here an extremely realistic hair treatment based on technology from the FIFA/EA Sports FC series, but for the needs of a large character-building RPG, the developers at Bioware have taken it even better.

There were also a couple of games for UE5, in particular Silent Hill 2 Remake And Black Myth: Wukong. Both charmed with beautiful lighting and high detail, and specifically Silent Hill also with very detailed character models, facial expressions and cutscenes. Both games were in contention for the top three but ultimately fell short due to significant lag issues and less-than-perfect PS5 versions, especially Wukong.

The top ten also included two platformers: Astro Bot And Penny’s Big Lead. If the editors liked the first game mainly for its visual style, clean graphics and advanced physics, then the second mentioned attracted even more unique processing or the fact that the developers created a completely new engine for the needs of the game.

However, now we are in the top 3. Took third place. Star Wars Outlaws from Massive Entertainment. The game uses the Snowdrop engine, like last year’s winner Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and while it was Avatar that the editors ultimately noted as being a slightly more impressive game, Outlaws also has a lot to offer in terms of graphics. Editors particularly praised the use of ray tracing for lighting, reflections and shadows, and the overall treatment of the Star Wars universe.

The fight for first place was very stubborn, but in the end she ended up in second place. Senua Saga: Hellblade II. A very linear narrative game, much like a film, editors were captivated by the realistic character models, facial expressions, excellent lighting, high detail, cinematography and beautiful environments. In the end, Hellblade II didn’t win mainly because it has a limited experience in terms of gameplay, which also only targets 30fps on consoles.

First place went to the recently released adventure game. Indiana Jones and the Big Circlewhich won over editors with its high detail, environments, fidelity to the film series and especially the use of ray tracing, or rather PC path tracing, for realistic lighting, shadows, reflections and better materials. In the end, Indy took first place mainly due to the fact that compared to Hellblad it is a larger and more dynamic game, which, despite all this, runs very well and is stable on all platforms, on consoles and when using ray tracing. , it targets 60 frames per second.