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It feels like western blockbuster games development is dying. Amid endless rounds of ruthless layoffs and studio closures, a component shortage crisis driving up hardware prices for both PC and console users, and the industry's often-disastrous pivot to live service, it's hard imagine a healthy future for the kinds of lavish, seasonal tentpole releases that used to be the bread and butter of the medium.
I know western studios still release these things. In 2025 we had Assassin's Creed Shadows, Doom: The Dark Ages and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 to name a few. This year: Forza Horizon 6, a forthcoming Wolverine game, and 007 First Light.
But none of those 2025 games had the cultural impact of a Silksong, Arc Raiders or Clair Obscur, nor were they as sticky as Nintendo, Capcom or Konami's blockbuster output. It's roughly the same narrative this year so far: Forza Horizon 6 was fine , but Korea-made Crimson Desert was a viral sensation. Many, many more people read about Subnautica 2 on PC Gamer than they did 007: First Light.
When they actually get made and not unceremoniously canceled, blockbusters with luxurious seven figure budgets and inescapable marketing just don't have the clout they used to. But there's one massive exception looming on the horizon.
For Real
GTA 6 really feels like the last of the dinosaurs. For one, a big part of the conversation will focus on its envelope-pushing graphics, which feels like an increasingly irrelevant point of discussion in 2026.
When the rotely realistic-looking Bond game did go moronically viral, it was because the graphics, which strove for realism, weren't realistic enough.
The drive towards ever-increasing graphical fidelity has been inseparable from this medium since its birth. It's why we have Doom, Tomb Raider, Crysis, Oblivion and Cyberpunk 2077. It's why we have console generations and dedicated GPUs. It's probably why there hasn't been a new The Elder Scrolls game since 2011.
" Immersion " is near universally valued as the goal in blockbuster development. The word's ubiquity goes hand-in-hand with the medium's obsession with graphical fidelity, which overwhelmingly manifests as realism. After all, what could be more immersive than a videogame that looks like the actual world?
The more realistic a game's shimmering isle or wartorn city, the better. In western blockbuster development, realism has disproportionately ruled the roost compared to, say, the cel-shaded Borderlands look, or that one weird anime Need for Speed game (remember what EA and Insomniac did to Fuse ?). Even fifth and sixth gen mascot platformers were marketed for the realism of their newly impressive 3D spaces.
But I don't think the majority of people playing games care about graphical fidelity and its attendant "realism" anymore. Games like Palworld, Peak, Phasmophobia and Valheim make bigger cultural splashes than IO's new Bond game did. Crucially, they all look different. The way they look translates as a sensibility or a purposeful style. But when the rotely realistic-looking Bond game did go moronically viral, it was because the graphics, which strove for realism, weren't realistic enough .
(Image credit: Crytek)
If you were born the year Crysis released, you're 19 now. If you were born the year Skyrim released, you're 15. Graphics have definitely "improved" since then, but nowhere near to the extent they did between, say, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. It's not even close. And yet, it's these iterative nudgings towards greater immersion that defined big splashy games and the marketing of them for decades.
Remember when Spider-Man 2 went viral because the puddles got nerfed? That's the parodic end result of the industry's focus on realism as a measure of its progress. Meanwhile, my tween daughter rotates between Minecraft, Stardew Valley and Hades 2. Some of her contemporaries subsist entirely on Roblox brainrot.
The big exception to this generational shrugging off of fidelity is GTA 6. It'll likely be the best looking "realistic" videogame ever made, but it won't be because of its underlying computer technology. Its unprecedented realism will be mostly attributable to Rockstar's budget. Rockstar—which has reportedly spent well into the billions on GTA 6—can afford to employ a team of people dedicated to making dog fur look uncannily lifelike, or body sweat drip and roll in a very true-to-life way. It's not mere technology that gets us here: it's the result of Rockstar being wealthy enough to pay people to do it .
(Image credit: Rockstar)
Advances in realism can no longer come from John Carmack sitting alone in a room making true colored lighting from scratch. It comes from massive teams of specifically-qualified people working on all those finer details most players won't notice. Most studios, even big ones, can't afford to make every building in an open world city look different. The people in these massive teams all command a wage, and there's a limit to what most studios can pay. Rockstar has as close to "no limit" as the industry gets.
That's ultimately what the graphical arms race is in 2026 and beyond: whoever has the most money and the strongest will to spend it wins. And no other studio is even close to rivalling Rockstar in these stakes.
Graphics Accelerator
What happens to the big western blockbuster after GTA 6? I don't think GTA 6 will kill it, but it'll maybe have a Baldur's Gate 3 effect. Developer Xalavier Nelson Jr. presciently warned about this phenomenon in the lead up to the RPG's 1.0 release. To expect that "every RPG should be like [Baldur's Gate 3] going forward" would be to create "the expectations and conditions to ensure your favorite creators may never be able to give you the thing you love ever again."
Maybe GTA 6 will emphatically murder the arms race that has been petering out for years.
Which is true, but it's also been an unfortunate reality in game development for as long as I remember. Many are the hairy tales of stu...
GTAWithRockstar'sProbablyAmidAssassin's Creed ShadowsDoomThe Dark AgesKingdom ComeDeliveranceForza HorizonWolverine
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