10 Biggest Graphical Leaps Between Video Game Sequels

Graphics are an interesting category in gaming, particularly the debate of stylised versus photorealism. Not every development studio has the money to spend on photorealistic games, take Team Cherry, creators of Hollow Knight, for example. They chose a more stylised approach to their art, creating a beautiful, immersive world, regardless of if its realism.

This way, they can save on their budget and create an art style that’s timeless, helping it remain playable in decades to come. Whereas something like Call of Duty, or other yearly released triple-a games, will do their best to stay with the graphical times, keeping as photorealistic as possible by reusing assets or updating them when they have to. This creates a situation where each title barely progresses in visuals and over time, each game becomes outdated.

This second method doesn’t do much in regard to our artistic interests and definitely doesn’t qualify a game for this article. Instead, we’ll be looking at video game series that jumped in graphics, sometimes because of time, sometimes between generations; or, as with almost every Rockstar sequel, maybe they simply wanted to innovate, improving character design, environmental assets and ultimately, the world you’ll be playing in.

Speaking of Rockstar - and we’ll be doing so plenty in this article – Grand Theft Auto has been a ground-breaker since its very first iteration, allowing gamers to carry out their cops-and-robbers fantasy, massacring people without a care in the world. This, of course, doesn’t do the series justice because in so many different ways Rockstar have been able to innovate. We can use the incredibly short leap of two years between Grand Theft Auto 2 and III as our first example, moving from a 2D small-scale world to a 3D open-world with varying missions and activities.

Bear in mind that it didn’t feature flyable vehicles, followers or switchable characters, but going from the 2D, arguably lacklustre sequel in Grand Theft Auto 2, which was seen as more of the same, Grand Theft Auto III kicked the series back into the mainstream. It wasn’t the first game to feature a 3D world, by any means. What did make it stick out, though, was that it offered players things to do in that world, instead of simply being big for the sake of it. From the new driving mechanics, with a variety of vehicles, sprawling missions with interesting characters and most importantly, combat where you could now aim precisely, as opposed to spraying in front of your character.