See that above? Beautiful, isn’t it? It might be hard to believe, but that screenshot was taken from a video game that’s almost a decade old. Despite a distinct lack of visual grit, an overabundance of brown, and lack of main characters built out of solid testosterone, Jet Set Radio and its sequel created a different kind of interactive world, one not set within the boring confines of our own existence. And it hasn’t been the only game to take this approach, with titles like Okami, the recent Prince of Persia and the entire Mario series offering colorful, pleasing worlds that were brought to life with superb animation and a unique style. But do gamers want their games to look this way? Does the modern day console’s ability to render realism mean that designers need not think about crafting an extraordinary world for their game? In short, why do most modern day video games tend to look the same?

Well, the aforementioned technology is a big part of it. Games are built on top of engines, the developer’s foundation for their game constructs. In the early days, most games used engines built specifically for that title; the gameplay was so simplistic that the developers had enough time and resources to write a custom engine. These days, every game is so incredibly complicated that this type of customization just isn’t possible in many cases. Because of this, third-party engines - like Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 - are licensed out to other developers. Epic’s versatile toolset has powered nearly one hundred games in the past four years, including titles like Gears of War, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fatal Intertia and even the abysmal Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. While the ease of development offered by centralized engines is fantastic, the visual similarities between games that run on the same engine is often uncanny. Look at the collage below. Those are five different titles designed by five completely unrelated teams, yet they look as if they could be different levels within the same game. So what gives?