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.
Art style will always be more important than graphic fidelity, imo. Having a less realistic-looking game with a strong art style allows the game to age better with time.
Take a look at the first Borderlands - it’s from like 2006 or 2008, but it still looks good today because of the cel-shaded art style it went with. Meanwhile the first Uncharted looks goofy as hell today because it was trying to look realistic during that same timeframe that Borderlands was released.
Art style, fidelity, and realism are all somewhat separate. Yeah a good art style can make a game timeless. There are countless examples of that. But it doesnt mean that realistic looking games cant have a great art style. I think cohesion is a huge part of what people mean by "art style". Realistic looking games that focus on having a cohesive look can also be fairly timeless. They may not compete with today's fidelity (resolution, technology, etc), but Assassin's Creed, various Battlefield games, Crysis 1, and plenty more all look great if you look at them today.
Theres also the concept of somwthing not realistic, but high fidelity. Minecraft RTX is simply amazing. Taking that already timeless art style and increasing the fidelity doesn't suddenly remove the timeless factor, and i love that. I want more of that. Even if it means i need a fairly beefy gpu for such simple graphics otherwise.