Years later, Shadow of the Colossus remains one of the most visually arresting games ever made. Granted, the effects are dated. Even the remaster is showing its age. However, we do not believe that graphical intensity is the only metric by which a game's visually impressive quality should be measured. A visually impressive game will show you things, unlike anything you've ever seen before. Seeing the vast scale of each Colossus, as well as the gorgeously rendered environments where they live, remains powerful decades later.

Another older game, Okami with its paintbrush aesthetic. remains one of the most beautiful and unique ever put to screen. While, again, the graphics are limited by the original hardware for which the game was developed, HD remasters have amped up the quality, making it look crisp and beautiful. Okami is a game that never strives for realistic graphics. For this reason, it succeeds.

Scorn has yet to be officially released, but gameplay trailers alone have shown this game to be something extraordinary in the visuals department. This horror game draws heavily from the works of HR Giger -- the same artist who designed the xenomorph in Alien. The environments are a bio-organic sprawl of body horror grotesqueness. It looks absolutely wretched, which makes it beautiful.

Ghosts of Tsushima is one of the best renderings of feudal Japan in gaming history. The world is lovingly constructed, putting you in the shoes of a man walking through these streets and mountainsides. Few things are as satisfying as cresting a hill and looking out to the sprawling landscape, knowing it's all there for you to explore.

The original Final Fantasy VII blew minds with its pre-rendered cutscenes during the PS1 era. It seems fitting its remake, Final Fantasy VII: Remake, similarly awed audiences with its breathtaking level designs, beautiful characters, and crisp animation. This game is a beautiful work of art worth the twenty-something year wait for its release.

The Metro series has for years now rendered crumbling, hollowed-out worlds for players to explore. The newest game, Metro Exodus, takes that to a new level, using cutting-edge graphics to depicts a world so cold it nips at your bones as you play. It feels incredibly immersive.

Welcome to Hell. Doom and its sequel Doom Eternal put you in the shoes of the Doom Slayer, sending you to the vile horrors from which demons reside. The original Doom game helped push graphics to a whole new level back in the early days of the FPS genre. The new games manage to take that raw experience and put it into a gory, 3D package.

Visual impressiveness has little to do with how strong your graphics card needs to be in order to run the game. Sometimes, less is more, as is the case with Journey. This little game lasts a mere two hours, yet tells an entire story with its minimalistic visuals alone.

The recent PS5 release of Spider-Man: Miles Morales showcased the incredible power of the Playstation 5. Sure, this game is ultimately a remaster/sequel to the PS4 Spider-Man game, but added to this are so many small little additions. Snow melts on your costume, windows reflect you -- these are just small touches that make Spider-Man feel all the more real.

From Software had to be on this list somewhere. Their games have created worlds that live rent-free in our heads. However, arguably, of all their games, Bloodborne ranks as the most visually impressive. It recreates a gothic setting on the bridge of cosmic horror, with some of the most grotesque monster designs ever conceived, rendered before your eyes.

Resident Evil VIII has yet to be released, yet already its...character designs...have gotten a lot of people talking. The game looks like an atmospheric nightmare based on its demo alone, but the game really reaches new heights by its...verbose character designs.

Cuphead is a miracle. This independent game lovingly based its graphics on old-school animation from the 30s and 40s. In the process, the game feels like a cartoon, come to life. Some games have attempted this, such as Dragon Ball FighterZ, but only Cuphead has managed to so entirely feel like a lost Disney short.

Death Stranding is, in essence, a walking simulator, but it's such a good looking walking simulator that most people tend to forgive it for being that. Hideo Kojima's breathtaking game is many things -- maybe a little too full of itself, for sure -- but he has once again created a world that feels lived in and dangerous at all moments.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a beautiful game. Surprised to hear that, huh? Well, don't be. The game allows you to travel all around the world. Spare a few bewildering graphical glitches, this massive game has created every sort of environment and atmosphere you'd find in the real world. It's an experience you truly must-have for yourself. It's simply incredible. Many sandbox games allow you to travel across the land, but how many allow you to travel from one end of the world to the other?

The Crysis series has always been the benchmark for how powerful your PC is. If your PC can run Crysis at full specs, it's doing something right. So which game is the most visually impressive? All of them. This is a game that forced nerds to buy the best graphics cards they could find JUST to play it. The most recent entry in the series, Crysis Remastered, came out this past September. So...what're you doing reading this list, you nerd? Just play Crysis.