I don't like this trend, I thought it was something to do with Unreal 5 but it's a trend that I'm seeing from all games on all engines. The new visual appearance leans way too heavily into being overly sharpened like Bullshots from the 8th gen era. 

Look at this. At how sharp the graphics are. Am I the only one the feels slightly sickened by the look like post processing has upped the sharpness to max? 

Honestly, no idea what you are talking about. I like a clean/crisp screen.

Yeah but too crisp and clean. Looks nasty, the grass looks worse than 8th gen games, the blades are just too sharp at a distance. Causing everything to have a kind brittle visual effect. I'd agree it looks less clean than 8th gen games. 

I don't know about consoles, but on PC typically you can adjust how sharp items are in the distance.  Personally, I like the sharpness.  

I like it. MHWilds looks fantastic.

I've brought something like this up before. It seems like back in the day with the PS1 and N64 (using a CRT), my mind had to fill in the blanks more, and that went a long way toward connecting with the game in a way that started to decline during the 360 generation. For some reason, GTA 3 felt more "real" to me than GTA 5... even though it was like a cartoon by comparison. OOT as well. It felt more engrossing to me than BOTW.

I bet there is science behind it. Something to do with forcing the mind into using more of its imagination etc. Would be interesting to study it.

It looks bad because it's unrealistic sharpness. Far off background objects should be blurry because that's how we see them in real life.

I can't stand ultra crisp shadows in games either. Shadows are supposed to be eitherial.

Not something I notice but I desperately want Chromatic Aberration to go away forever. It pisses me off as much as Bloom Lighting. It makes my eyes hurt. I guess it depends on the game looking too clean. Racing sim. Clarity is probably the best. Gears of War? Not so much. Cyberpunk setting again not so much. Basic examples. Armored Core can work from a grimy look. Daemon X Machina I like to be crisp with a sharp contrast of colors. Same with Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. GTA should probably have some blur in far away objects. Something like Break Arts II has a semi Tron look it. So since everything is highlighted by neon lines. I want to see those as far as possible since everything else is black.

Yep, it's definitely hitting some kind of uncanny brain thing that our brains don't expect to see, feels really weird and like you said our brains must be asking what the fuck is that, it's looks real but it's not, somethings wrong here, alert! Alert! Perhaps depth of feild effects could solve this, they seem to have stopped using DoF as of late though.

I forgot about bloom lightning lol. You'd have thought that went away but it evolved into HDR, I purposely blind myself now with HDR lighting effects.