It used to be that saying a new game looks like a PS2 game, or any platform several generations past, was derogatory. But whether it's a case of rose-tinted nostalgia or disillusionment with the current state of gaming, comparisons to older games aren't just a compliment but something many modern developers are consciously leaning into.
"PlayStation 2 graphics are timeless, they still look amazing, and that's something we wanted to do for our game's graphical style," says Diego Redondo Gonzalez, the art director of Duskfade, a 3D action-platformer that is very much a tribute to the PS2 era of cartoonish 3D action platformers like Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and Sly Cooper, the kind of games that Sony's first party studios no longer make, in other words.
