I'm kind of the opposite, every "big budget" game feels like a slog of a wannabe Hollywood movie ... the only thing is it's written by people who are B/C/D-rate screenwriters at best. No top end writer is going to work at a game studio over a Hollywood gig.

So it just feels like all this self indulgent crap of games that are trying to be like movies and it just becomes exhausting to have all these cut scenes at the start of every game.

It's almost more refreshing to find a game that doesn't take itself so seriously or isn't trying so hard to keep up the illusion that it's like a Hollywood movie. 

Given that the majority of games on PS5/XBS have their graphics held back by targeting 60fps, and mostly feature bigger levels with more action, characters, and explosions and stuff going on, I actually wonder if Hellblade II will be one of those games like The Order 1886 or Rogue Squadron II that holds it own as one of the best looking games of its generation even after years of further progress.

Personally, I want less of Hellblade, The Last of Us, and Call of Duty and more of Hi Fi Rush, Chorus, Paper Mario (in the mold of TTYD), and Lost in Random.

I'm curious to see it announced and compare it to all the leaks and rumors.

Not every game needs to cater to all audiences. If you look around, tons of games release regularly that fall into the ballpark of your interest. More so than what you want less of. CoD is the outlier of frequent releases, but most of these "mature" games don't release very often. 

Reminder that this topic is about about graphics, not whether you like this style of gameplay.

Better graphics = worse gameplay. It's just a simple matter of budget.

Companies that spend so much resources on visual impressiveness, like Hellblade and TLOU, don't have enough resources to spend on making the game unforgettably fun. And companies that spend too much time on making games fun don't have resources to make it look as visually stunning.

Still discussing graphics, but moreso the impact it had on the rest of development, as people complain about how bland the gameplay of Hellblade is despite the insane visuals.

Also, I enjoy the freedom to say what I want, when I want, wherever I want, and if a forum decides against that very basic human right, I'll not continue giving that place my clicks and go elsewhere where freedom is valued. If I want to talk about the Tellytubies giving me nightmares as a child in the thread about Project Cafe rumors a decade ago, I'm gonna do it!

#FREEDOM

Not necessarily; graphics and gameplay are separate departments, one doesn't have to take away from the other. There are plenty of games that have both great graphics and great gameplay.

And you may be free to say what you want, but this is a forum with rules, and the rules state derailing a thread is not permitted.

Gonna pop in here and say - you don't have that freedom.  In fact you don't really have that freedom anywhere.  There are rules online.  There are rules in businesses.  Heck there are rules in peoples houses.

You aren't going to be allowed to bother people by breaking the rules. And if you can't handle that very basic idea that you aren't worth more than an entire thread of people you will be removed.