Half-Life looked a lot better than that, but yes there are diminishing returns in detail. However we're still far away from realistic lighting, weather and other atmospheric effects. CGI in movies still isn't there. There is a clear difference between last gen remasters and current gen games in the lighting. Games have just recently begun with realistic materials for lighting, yet real time ray tracing is still out of reach.

Besides lighting, physical properties are still mostly no where to be found. In racing games you either have a rock solid chain link fence or a lamp post that simply snaps of when you hit it. The cars get scratches yet damage modelling is still in its infancy. Some games use pre-defined damage, GT5 tried some dynamic damage modelling which made the cars look like melting candles... Crackdown 3 is taking real time damage to a new level, yet it still doesn't look very realistic. Buildings shatter into pieces, but that's as far as it goes.

Most of the improvements will be seen in motion.  Yet there's still plenty to improve graphically. Take a step back and see what reality looks like in 1080p






We're getting there

Look up diminishing returns. That's exactly what we're currently dealing with. The difference between 6500 and 65000 polygons isn't as noticeable as the difference between 6500 and 650.

Until we inevitably break that barrier, high budget games will focus on other assets, like frame rate and particle effects, with lower budget games focusing on detail because it's simply cheaper. Look at Ratchet & Clank: The new game is as low budget as you'll ever see from a third party, and they're developing an absolutely stunning game visually. Meanwhile, an AC-type game is focusing its budget more on adding more to the world than beefing up graphics.

Well it's not just better visuals that more powerful hardware allows, there are also things like bigger worlds, better AI, more characters on screen, frame rate, resolution, etc.

Technically the Graphics will get better. Visually, I don't see much more room for improvement. In the future, Graphics will just be presented in the form of numbers, just as it is now, but in the future that's all they'll be. You won't be able to distinguish the 20th generation f game consoles from the 19th. I'm not saying consoles will last that long or they won't, but you get the point. That's why I prefer stylized games because they'll never be out of style.

Diminishing returns. Go play Crysis and you'll see it lacks much of the polish seen in modern games.

welll look... When the PS3 and Xbox came out they were the MOST POWERFUL gaming things ever even more powerful than the PCs. and look at the current gen right now.... they aren't as powerful.   

Graphics today are nowhere near complete. For example, Physics are still a complete joke at the moment, Animation or Character Models are far from lifelike, Sounds lolo, Variety of Assets (open fields, forests, buildinds are full of duplicates), Framerate lollo, Resolution trollolol, pretty much everything....

When PS5/X2 releases and people have had years of playtime with PS4/X1 and gotten used to the level of graphics, then PS3/360 games will show their graphical age.

Just how I remember Shadows of the Empire. ;)

Diminishing returns also depends on the game. It's easy to cherry pick close examples. For example TloU vs The order.



Sure, that's photo mode of the remastered version vs direct screenshot.

Yet compare Oblivion with The witcher 3 and it's a different story




And there's still a long way to go.

It will definitely get better as consoles become more powerful. Games already look really realistic so the improvement now isn't that big of a jump, but it will definitely improve in the future