I am probably unqualified to speak about this, as I am using an RX 550 low profile and a 768P monitor and almost never play newer titles, but I want to kickstart a discussion, so hear me out.
The push for more realistic graphics was ongoing for longer than most of us can remember, and it made sense for most of its lifespan, as anyone who looked at an older game can confirm - I am a person who has fun making fun of weird looking 3D people.
But I feel games' graphics have reached the point of diminishing returns, AAA studios of today spend millions of dollars just to match the graphics' level of their previous titles - often sacrificing other, more important things on the way, and that people are unnecessarily spending lots of money on electricity consuming heat generating GPUs.
I understand getting an expensive GPU for high resolution, high refresh rate gaming but for 1080P? you shouldn't need anything more powerful than a 1080 TI for years. I think game studios should just slow down their graphical improvements, as they are unnecessary - in my opinion - and just prevent people with lower end systems from enjoying games, and who knows, maybe we will start seeing 50 watt gaming GPUs being viable and capable of running games at medium/high settings, going for cheap - even iGPUs render good graphics now.
TLDR: why pay for more and hurt the environment with higher power consumption when what we have is enough - and possibly overkill.
Note: it would be insane of me to claim that there is not a big difference between both pictures - Tomb Raider 2013 Vs Shadow of the Tomb raider 2018 - but can you really call either of them bad, especially the right picture (5 years old)?
Note 2: this is not much more that a discussion starter that is unlikely to evolve into something larger.
I prefer good gameplay over great graphics. The brain knows how to fill in the gaps and allow for immersion. Thats why most recently Battlebit Remastered has left such a big impression. It's gameplay is really good and it is a much better game than the last Battlefield, although the Battlefield has much better graphics.
The same goes for some of my other all time favourites. Deep Rock Galactic, Terraria, Minecraft all do well without amazing graphics and take up much less drive space as a nice side effect.
I think some of the issue also has to do with art style more than graphics. Realism is by far the hardest style to achieve, and it seems to be the preferred one for a lot of gamers probably because it makes them feel more adult or something. But I think a lot of games could gain a lot from striving to look good rather than realistic, settling for an art style and committing to it.
From what I've seen around it seems like Baldurs Gate is doing just that, and it seems to have shook up the entire industry.
Art style makes a huge difference. And it's one of those things that you just see and don't really register as much as "more shadows" or whatever.
I don't understand how anyone can play Battlebit with the UI as it is currently.
Blue dots floating around everywhere.
I am playing mostly 32v32, so I've never been bothered by the blue dots. It can be overwhelming in the largest game mode, but then again you can also modify the HUD in the settings.