The Best Graphics in Video Games of 2023

Obviously graphics are getting better and better, and as we go into 2024, a pretty high standard has been set. Hi folks, it’s Falcon, and today on Gameranx, let’s talk about the best graphics of 2023.

10. Horizon: Burning Shores

Starting off with number 10, it’s “Horizon: Burning Shores.” Now “Horizon 2: Forbidden West,” already looked very, very good. It was made for both the PlayStation four and five, but still, man, is it a good looking game. That being said, the “Burning Shores” DLC, which was exclusive to the PS5, looks even better. The highlight of course is the burning shores themselves. They’re vibrant, they’re detailed. I mean, look at this. This is by far the most fantastical environment we have seen in these games. And wow, is it a cool place. When you think about what’s possible on PS4 hardware, it’s really well beyond that. The giant cliffs, the ruined skyscrapers, the volcano, the sky, it all looks incredible and it’s on a scale that just wouldn’t be possible if the DLC came to both PS four and five.

I mean, everything else sticks to the regular high quality we expect from Guerrilla Games, facial animations, character models, all incredible. But it’s also what we’ve come to expect with them. It’s really the scale that feels like something new. They really went above and beyond that. And “Burning Shores” does a lot in terms of expanding what you think a Guerrilla Game can be.

9. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

At number nine is “Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.” DLC that basically feels like a sequel. The new area, Dogtown, is intricately detailed and dense. The first time you enter the bazaar it’s just like, “Wow, so this is what ‘Cyberpunk’ can look like.” And that’s not to say that they were a slouch in the main game. Once all of the crap got ironed out, everybody kind of looked at “Cyberpunk” as a very high quality, incredible looking game. And this is above and beyond that.

It really shows off the amount of detail possible in an open world action game. Like every mission looks fantastic and is filled with these bespoke elements that don’t get repeated. I mean it’s really, really impressive.

The new characters, of course, look incredible, especially Idris Elba as Solomon Reed. It’s probably one of the best celebrity performances ever in a video game. Just amazing in terms of the subtle things that Idris Elba does as an actor. That isn’t to dump on Keanu Reeves, who also, you know, I mean he’s Keanu Reeves. I’m not 100% sure I would put him on the same caliber of actors as Idris Elba, but he does have a charisma that few people have. Also his performance in “Phantom Liberty” is pretty damn good anyways. And “Phantom Liberty” is always throwing you in these really unique and interesting situations and encounters.

It’s a rollercoaster ride of visually stunning environments and characters. I mean we’ve talked about “Phantom Liberty” a lot in tons of detail, but it really does make “Cyberpunk 2077” feel like a new game and it sets a very high standard for open world action games.

8. Final Fantasy 16

At number eight is “Final Fantasy 16.” So this is a game with very good graphics, generally way above average. But if we wanna highlight one thing about them, it’s the icon battles.

These things are totally insane. They’ve got these crazy seamless transitions between cut scenes and combat. The monster designs are cool as hell. It just takes spectacle in video games to the next level. And the game, it normally looks really good in cut scenes, it’s just a lot more subtle. It’s not always flashy like the icon battles. Unfortunately the later half of the game likes to bathe areas, like full areas, in this kind of sickly purple light that’s not super appealing. There’s honestly parts of this game that are kind of ugly, to be frank, but when it looks good, it looks really, really good.

Again, cut scenes are really nice. They have these fantastic character models, very cool fantasy designs, tons of subtle little world building details in the background. Just top-notch environments. There’s so many locations in the game that are crazy detailed and we only see it for a few seconds in a cut scene. It’s kind of crazy the amount of effort that went into stuff that, I mean, we see in passing. But again, the real star of the show are the icon battles, where your main dude turns into a giant monster and goes absolutely nuts. The amount of effort that got put into each one of these battles is gargantuan and it shows in every single frame.

7. Dead Island 2

And number seven is “Dead Island 2,” which is a shockingly good looking game with some of the most photorealistic environments I have seen in a while. We’ve seen a lot of games lean into fantasy recently and that’s definitely not a complaint. It’s fun. The best fantasy says something about the real world, and well, it’s happened lately, but it is also nice to have something come along and make more mundane places pop. And “Dead Island 2” pulls that off in spades. Areas are small but meticulously detailed. Everything looks very carefully made and rendered to look as real as possible. The character models look good, but I mean they’re obviously fake. They’re character models. You can only go so far currently. I don’t know if we’ll ever get past that whole Uncanny Valley thing.

We do some pretty impressive stuff, but I’ve never seen a sustained performance throughout an entire game where it just looked like a human being. That’s fine, though. It’s the levels where this game really shows off. That and the stomach churning violence, I will say. Stuff’s kind of hard to show ’cause it’s gross, but the zombie chopping action is crazy satisfying because of how detailed the procedural damage is. Like it’s a technical marvel and there are YouTube guidelines against showing it, unfortunately. Yeah, YouTube’s got us more scared than the dead in “Dead Island 2,” and it’s not like they’re not scary.

6. Portal Prelude RTX

And number six is “Portal Prelude RTX.” Hey, you like “Portal,” right? I know I do. “Portal” and “Portal 2” are perhaps some of my favorite games in existence. And the thing about “Portal” is it has very simple, very minimalistic graphics, a style that doesn’t attempt to push beyond the clinical. I mean obviously, once you get through “Portal 2,” you get into the, you know, more messed up test chambers. But “Portal,” the original, and particularly “Portal Prelude RTX,” are generally that clinical test chamber thing and it really looks cool when you throw in the ray tracing. You got RTX and DLS S3 and that really makes a big difference with “Portal.”

I mean those aren’t the only changes. You get the ray trace reflections, you get lighting, shadows, tons of amazing stuff. Like if you’re annoyed with games where it’s kind of hard to tell the difference between ray tracing being on or being off, it’s like night and day in this. Such a massive step up visually.

5. Jusant

And number five is “Jusant.” I’m not French, though, so I’m always tempted to call it “Jusant.” This is a very different game. It’s got a very novel control scheme that definitely takes things above and beyond. But also, it really reminds me of if you decided to take all of the climbing in “Tomb Raider” or “Uncharted” and just went all out, making it into the mechanic of the game. Like I said, the controls are a little more complicated, but it’s a very cool game. It comes to us from Don’t Nod, the “Life is Strange” studio. It’s a weird choice, but they’re a studio that makes lots of weird choices. They seem to not want to be known for one type of game.

It’s one of those games where the design is just so damn good and the character animation is as well. They don’t really push polygons too hard, but they know what they’re doing to make something that is visually stunning to see. Every area is packed with all these little details and senses of wonder. It’s one of those games where you just wanna find a nice spot and enjoy the view.

4. The Dead Space Remake

And number four is “The Dead Space” remake, which requires no pronunciation consideration. You’re out in space and there is living dead messing with you, really making things tough for you. Aw, dang, these dead. Why did I ever come up to space in the first place? Nah, this is one of those absolute classics. And the remake has done nothing but regard it with reverence. I think a large part of that is returning to the original “Dead Space,” aside from any compatibility issues you might have, it holds up.

So they knew what they really had to do was not necessarily work on the game design ’cause the game design is very modern and pretty much immaculate. They had to take the things where stuff just didn’t quite work and make it work. And you know exactly what I’m talking about. That damn asteroid shooting part. That was the worst part in the game and now it’s, I mean, a lot better. But let’s be real, this beautifully grotesque remake just has all these incredibly detailed environments.

Everything looks stunning, but at the same time, it looks like “Dead Space.” All the ray tracing really ups the game. You get the ambient occlusion, you get the fog effects, it all looks so good. And the faces, definitely a big step up from the original, but the levels are what we’re here for. The Necromorphs also more disgusting than ever. There’s new ways to mess ’em up ’cause they really did go in on making the dismemberment system better and just a good looking game all around, really fun, too.

3. Metroid Prime Remastered

At number three is “Metroid Prime Remastered.” Yes, a Switch game. But it deserves special mention because it is a remarkable remaster. There were so many parts in this game where I was like, “This is a Switch game?” ’cause it just looked incredible. And what’s weird is the performance is just rock solid at 60 frames per second on a system where more and more games have got major trouble with the frame rate.

And the thing is, is this is a stylized game. So perfect realism was never necessarily the goal. And the GameCube original still looks good. I don’t necessarily think it looks great. It’s a GameCube game. It can only go so far. But “Metroid Prime Remastered” was rebuilt from the ground up to be more immersive and detailed and it’s crazy. It just, the stuff that I think it really goes above and beyond is stuff like how rain hits your visor from different directions. It’s beautiful work, especially for a Switch game.

2. Alan Wake 2

And number two is “Alan Wake 2.” You can’t do anything but call this a groundbreaking game. From the moody environments to the incredible facial animations, all the wild artistic flourishes. The ways that this game combines live action with gameplay and doesn’t come off immersion breaking, it’s weird. And it embraces how weird something can be specifically. The whole musical number is absolutely insane. Definitely not the showcase for the graphics in the game, but totally insane. All the character models and animations just look great. But a special mention has to go to Ahti for his unbelievably realistic model, which is a huge step up from what we saw in “Control.” And “Control,” if I’m completely honest, is great.

But still, the first time I saw him talk in this game, I was blown away. The best foreboding woods in gaming history are in “Alan Wake 2.”

1. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

And finally is “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora,” which just has incredible visuals top to bottom. Obviously a game being rendered in real time can’t match up with what a movie is doing, but it’s pretty close. The world of Pandora is amazing, and you know, I’ll even say, I’m not a fan of “Avatar” and.

I was impressed with this game, both from a visual standpoint and even just from the fact that it’s basically a good “Far Cry” game. The detail of Pandora really just cannot be beat, though. It’s an alien environment that manages to feel incredibly real, which is, I mean, odd. It’s one of those games that makes you wanna stop and look around all the time.

Bonus Mentions

I do have a couple of bonuses for you. “The Talos Principle 2.” A real unreal five showcase. It’s like “Mist” if “Mist” was rendered in real time and also looked a lot better, actually, ’cause “Mist” didn’t actually look that great if you look back on it. I mean relative to everything, when it came out, it did. You get what I’m saying. Shockingly good looking for a $30 double A game. Really a surprise.

“Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.” Weirdly enough, Insomniac managed to make an already amazing looking game look better. It’s like a Pixar movie come to life. Between animation, the character models, the effects and environments. It looked incredible on PS5, but with a beast of a PC, it can actually even look better, which is kind of shocking.

And finally, “The Finals.” My new favorite time waster. Combine “Mirror’s Edge” pretty but dystopian, but pretty realistic environments with like, “Red Faction: Guerrilla” level destruction. Actually, taking it a step past there, maybe even, this multiplayer FPS is just a remarkable achievement that still manages to run buttery smooth, even when it gets incredibly chaotic and you can barely tell what’s going on. It’s clean and professional in every way. Just an incredible looking game all around.

And that’s all for today. Leave us a comment, let us know what you think. If you liked this video, click like. If you’re not subscribed, now’s a great time to do so. We upload brand new videos every day of the week. Best way to see ’em first is of course, a subscription. So click subscribe. Don’t forget to enable notifications. And as always, we thank you very much for watching this video. I’m Falcon, you can follow me on Twitter @FalconTheHero. We’ll see you next time right here on Gameranx.