If there's a single throughline for the PC gaming year that was 2025, it's finally accepting that the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn't make sense anymore.
Tech has hit a hard graphics plateau: raw generational updates are now nuanced upgrades measured in single-digit frame gains rather than evolutions anyone with eyes can appreciate, and the subsequent pivot to AI-generated frames and experimental hair follicles aren't really revving anyone's engines when those upgrades cost a month's rent. Even if the latest hardware really was all that, the precarious AI bubble is locking normal humans out of it anyway.
It's good timing, then, that cutting edge graphics are increasingly irrelevant to keeping up with the hobby. A bright spot of 2025 was the continued rise of "friendslop," a cringey internet-spawned label for a broad genre of cooperative games designed for groups of friends.
Though it looks like it's sticking, friendslop is a terrible name for these games, because it (perhaps unintentionally) lumps them in with a growing pile of low-effort games cranked out by anonymous Steam grifters every day, and of course, actual AI slop. The well-intentioned use of "slop" probably refers to the subgenre's deliberate use of janky physics and ragdolls to conjure comedy. In REPO, navigating a valuable and fragile vase down narrow hallways is uncomfortable, awkward, and intense—much like actually moving a cherished piece of furniture from one house to another.
But there's nothing sloppy about games with a simple premise, instantly learnable controls, and crucially, with an art direction that accommodates whatever hardware you have to play them on. To have all of that at once and still end up with a fun game is anything but low-effort.
Don't agree at all. If you're limited on resources, you can certainly make an excellent game without intense graphics. But sophisticated graphics also can make a game. I often find myself in these types of games just wondering around and taking in the view and appreciating the artwork in it.
Of course a good game will also be efficient and not require a fucking $2k GPU to run properly. And with hardware prices going through the fucking roof it's also good to ensure that your game will run at all on low end hardware.
It all comes down to personal preference.
This is not the case for any of my favorite games, for example.
It was not presented as personal preference. It was presented as "the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn't make sense anymore".
It makes lots of sense, even if you don't care for it.
Yeah, I am saying I think it comes down to personal preference, not arguing against your point.
Their assertion is that fancy graphics doesn't necessarily equal good gameplay, and the major industry players are focused on ever-increasing frame rates instead of game quality.
Nobody cares if your game is fully immersive and rendered down to the atomic scale if it is boring or the game mechanics are shite. Sure you can wander around and look at stuff and gasp at the physics, but unless the game is titled "Look around and enjoy it" , that's not the point.
That's not what they said.
I agree to an extent, but good graphics can’t save a game with bad gameplay.
I bet you’ve never heard “the game isn’t fun but I put hundreds of hours into it because it’s beautiful!”
In contrast, good gameplay can save a game with abysmal graphics.
I’m willing to bet money you’ve heard something around the lines of “it doesn’t look great but I just can’t stop playing!”
Right but that's not what it says. It says "the pursuit of fancy graphics doesn't make sense anymore".
This is the case for many of the original NES games.
Yeah to say they dominated seems a bit extreme. Some people are mostly looking for a virtual activity to do with their friends, and for those people quality of the game itself is secondary in a lot of ways to the ability to play it with their chosen people.
Agreed, couch co-op games are doing well in general because they’re an easy hangout activity and only require one console/computer. Couch co-op has been out of vogue amongst the big publishers (I’m sure a fortnite player is more valuable to them) so people are using what’s available. The few by big publishers with nice graphics have been popular as well (split fiction, it takes two).