Best Graphics/Art and Technology games – 2025 Edition
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Another Year Of Gaming Technology
Here we are again, another bell tolled, another year older, another Christmas period past. to This year we have seen, in my opinion, a reduction of big, tech and art pushing games, a continuation of the past few years across all studios and publishers. But we have seen a more come from smaller, independent teams and Studios which is great to see.
My best Technology, Art and Graphics Countdown list has been running for 10-years now, with my long running 40 years of pixels has a companion piece and split of into a new segement coming soon but up for my patrons first. Join up for early access to some excellent retro treats you may have forgotten or missed. So, just what made it into my list in 2025, and further down you will see my prior year videos to remind you how we have progressed or retracted across those 10 years and 2 generation life cycles.
8) Star Wars Outlaws/Cyberpunk 2077 (Switch2)
This is, generally, a positive dual place for the quality of Switch 2 games, a small subset at least, that reflect ‘potential’ in the hardware and software combo of NVIDIA and Nintendo, but more so the future of smaller form factor, lower power gaming. Metroid Prime 4 does look better than the Switch version, but much of that is due to severe cuts on the antique original to hit 60fps, a 30fps title on Switch vs 60 or more over, 120 would be less impressive visually but ram and thus texture quality are the lions share, covered more in my review.
The big wins come from Ubisoft and CDP titles, 40fps modes, open worlds, high NPCs, current Gen visuals inc Ray Tracing and industry leading DLSS the quality in docked and hh mode impressed me and gives me hope we may see some epic versions on this hardware but also future Hand Held to come. Star Wars uses DLSS and Ray Tracing to deliver a close match to current Geneneration consoles and PC, under 45W and emphasises how good DLSS is at 720p base which is perfect for such small screens and even large ones when docked. Cyberpunk may be old, but the visuals quality, detail, scale and 40fps mode exceed what last Gen consoles could deliver and the enhanced phantom Liberty expansion seals the deal. Star Wars is the most technically proficient though, offering smooth gameplay, large, dense worlds, fast loading, constant streaming and Ray Traced lighting all with minimal sacrifices over PS5 let alone Series S.
7) The Midnight walk
I normally include a best VR title in my list, but for my 7th entry, it Has both 2D and VR modes covered, in the hauntingly beautiful midnight walk. The independent Swedish team, moon hood, took obvious muse from stop motion classics of the past such as Camberwick Green, Bagpus, and Artistically and Gothically, Tim Burton and Henry Sellick. Everything is physically made clay models which are then digitised, ensuring each finger mark, rough material surface is captured. The haunting, melancholic, yet stunning visuals look real, More so in VR both on PS5 PSVR2 or PC due to the improved scale and macro-observation. Although the VR mode is quite bare bones, more so a better seat. The film like blend of stylistic gothic design, animation style, characters, lighting and more, look and feel as far away from an Unreal Engine 5 game as you would guess, but it is. Highlighting my constant point about engines, tools and artists are not all the same and an engine does not define a look, result or style, no matter what many state.
6) Battlefield 6
Dice are hardly new to gaming and certainly PC gaming, which is where BF6 stand proudest. Pushing high quality graphics, framerates with low input latency, specifically with Nvidia GPUS. Coming off the lacklustre BF2042 the expectations were not high, by the terrible news of Vince Zampella’s death, marks this place with sadness for his family, friends and all the team. They delivered a back to basics sp and mp title that ramped up on the good and down on the bad areas of the prior game. 64 player limit helps the flow, strain and quality of the multiplayer action, but also gives the scale for future updates. Much better map design, higher fidelity asset quality and rendering, far better and more systemic destruction and physics brings more chaos, excitement and fun from each game. Be it straffing in an apache helicopter, top gunning a jet, or simply rocket launching a hotel lobby, the chaos, destruction and options bring back a decadent joy to the franchise that we have not seen since 2013s battlefield 4.
5) Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
Warhorse are a studio that make games for themselves, the best way in my opinion, then see if the audience exists with the same taste. Picking up the mantle from CDP and the Witcher 3, and indeed right from the end of the first, KCD2 takes all aspects of the original, which I reviewed and loved back in 2018, and raises everything up across the board. World scale and detail, texture quality, PBR materials, lighting, weather, interaction, NPC dialogue, story branching, character building, storytelling and still uses the stunning but sadly ignored Cryengine to deliver an RPG that Henry the VIII himself would want to marry…and then quickly behead.
As in the prior game, the real-time, dynamic time of day and indirect diffuse lighting present an authentic, yet gorgeous looking 15th century Europe to escape to. Utilising CryEngine’s sparse voxel octree global illumination (SVOGI), similar to The Tomorrow Children, by voxelising world geometry into simpler ‘chunks’ which are cone traced via an octree in software, I.e. not requiring hardware acceleration. This balances hierarchy density with frustum distance to ensure performance on a range of hardware including current Gen consoles and the plethora of PC. Delivering high quality, accurate real time diffuse global illumination, which allied with the excellent materials, organic world you get natural shadow light reactions and shade. A cracking sequel, visually and technically a big step up from the first.
4) Assassins Creed Shadows
This and the next game were the toughest to place, and I feel we’re split by little more than a fag paper. Ubisoft delivered a gorgeous and technically proficient new entry in the AC Series, rt reflections and GI really improved the games visual quality and built on the pre-baked and image based global illumination in the Decima engine well. Coupled with spline-based hair, improved character models, Smoother LoD transitions due to the brand new Microploygon feature, much like Nanite from UE5 and mesh shaders, Anvil now supports via their own solution. The new procedural destruction also helps systemic play, and, Like the RT features, many elements seem to borrow from Massive Entertainments Snowdrop Engine, which is never a bad thing for cross studio technology. It certainly looked the part across PC and Console with some drastic increases in material quality, light and shadow attenuation and general world accuracy.
A big step up on the technical menu with the PS5 Pro offering the only place on consoles to get Ray Traced Global Illumination and reflections in the fill game and still offer 30, 40 and 60fps choices for all. The Feudal Japan setting is well realised, with very large and open landscapes, towns, seaports and more to explore, climb, stealth and kill within. But the accuracy of the period and art and colour tones are not as impressive as it’s competition this year.
3) Ghost of Yōtei
Sucker punch grabbed my no 3 simply due to the mix of art, lighting and cinematography whilst keeping high performance and low latency, specifically following patch 1.10 enhancements. Technically, AC shadows pushes more on the modern feature set, but where Yōtei wins is in consistency, model quality, cinematics and those performance levels, at least on PS5 and PS5 Pro.
Technically we are firmly in the improve on the base rather than change for changes sake. The first game was incredibly strong with its art direction and romantic presentation of feudal Japan. Mount Yōtei takes centre stage here, literally, with obvious connotations of Mount Fuji. Like the first game, although not always as successful, it offers long stretching views with wind swaying pampers grass, particle driven leaves, animals and more. Textures are a step up, more detail, crispness on every fabric, katana and face. Character rendering and models have also improved with materials. Light reacts and diffuses across skin, cloth, rock and wood better, Moreno in the RT modes. Pre-set times of day are blended to allow a full 24hr cycle and dynamic weather, which use a similar probe-based IBL solution mixed with cascaded shadow maps, screen space shadows and ambient Occlusion. A great sequel that delivers a gorgeous game, but like many sequels, does not improve drastically on such a strong original.
2) Doom Dark Ages
From one PC legend in DICE to another, Id Software and ID tech need no introduction. Doom the Dark ages could be an Iron Maiden album cover, it looks that good. With its inherent use of Ray Tracing and later full path Tracing (modern GPUS only), ramped up the visual flair and quality with a hell of an upgrade. Sure, the console versions still look and play superbly, but the Path Traced PC version improves on the lighting accuracy, materiel quality and game’s visual identity, although the cost versus visual benefit can be a hard sell. The Path Tracing need for high end to top end, mostly Nvidia GPUs again aside, it does not negate the improvements and impact it offers with high framerates still part of that scope, although DLSS balanced or performance is more likely to remain above 60fps with PT.
But beyond the RT the other areas that deliver increases on previous ID tech engines are the procedural gore system, large, open-ended levels, seamless data streaming, destructible scenery, dense geometric enemies, exquisite animation and even hulking Kaiju demon scraps and overall bigger scale. RTGI on consoles is commendable, but no Multiplayer or VRR 120 mode, on PS5 Pro even, feels a step back from Eternal which did both. Still a commendable and artistically impressive entry, but nowhere close to the impact the original 2016 reboot delivered.
1) Death Stranding 2
Hideo Kojima is not known for understatement, or short cutscenes for that matter. But in his long and illustrious career he, and his equally skilled and talented team, have merged cinema, technology and games with varying levels of success. In the sequel to 2019s Death Stranding, he continues the trend of Postman Pat meets the walking dead using and pushing real-time visuals in a stylish, creative and original way.
Powered by Guerrilla Game’s Decima Engine once again, this PS5 exclusive, for now at least, continues the clear aim of photorealistic environments, and digital actors he and his team started back with the original metal gear solid. From a visuals and art design, they remain in the less is more approach. Focusing the core resources to the things that matter, with many areas being of simple colour maps, limited polygon counts such as medical desks, clinical white walls, desks, sheets, military bunkers, dorms, walls. Outside the same level of balance is struck, but here the terrain and scale is ramped up enormously over the interiors, juxtaposing the previously huge characters as tiny little pawns in this vast and stretching world. Photogrammetry scans form a large portion of the games ID, with photorealistic scenery that manages to convince you are watching video footage. The reasons are those real world, digitised materials in rock, bark, moss, the lighting being fixed on high sun, clear sky and top tier, film quality Physically based material reactions they pioneered with Fox Engine. The bright light, GI bounce, deep and stable shadows and AO give everything a solidity, consistency and accuracy that could be a scene from Lawrence of Arabia or Tatooine in Star Wars. As a technical, artistically and graphical treat, it is my undoubted and worthy winner, and considerably so.
