I just played Dragon Age Veilguard, and I’m now playing Dragon Age Origins, which was released 15 years ago. The difference in graphics and animation are startling. And it has a big effect on my enjoyment of the game. Origins is considered by many to be the best in the series, and I can see that they poured a ton into story options and such. But it doesn’t feel nearly as good as playing Veilguard.

Amazing graphics might not make or break a game, but the minimum level of what’s acceptable is always rising. Couple that with higher resolutions and other hardware advances, and art budgets are going to keep going up.