Proclaiming your game is ‘Now in 4K!’ is a fun thing to brag about, and also the most appealing way to sell consumers on a pretty new thing without needing to get too deep into technical details. But it’s also proven to be largely pointless.
In films, it makes more sense to output as close to the original image as possible, and that means 4K will be a more true resolution that does a better job of displaying the details directors originally intended. In games, however, it’s a stretch rarely worth the processing power. Instead, we should start caring more about lighting and ray tracing, whichOblivion Remasteredis a perfect example of.
Ray tracing is used to simulate real-world lighting, where shadows, reflections, refraction, and illumination are all happening in real time instead of a pre-baked solution we’ve become so accustomed to.
The Difference Between Resolution And Dynamic Rendering
I’m not a developer nor a game designer - so nothing I say is gospel, and this all comes from my own personal experiences as a consumer and critic. Okay, now that you legally can’t get mad at me, let’s dive in.
When theSwitch 2marketing started talking about 4K upscaling, I rolled my eyes. For one, upscaled 4K is even more pointless than true 4K, but my biggest gripe is that the feature was thrown around when I got my first 4K TV in 2017, and to see it still being used as a primary brag in 2025 just feels empty - especially when other, more noticeably impressive features exists,such as Nintendo’s abandoned OLED screens.
But hey, at least the Switch 2 has HDR now - another feature that felt very relevant in 2017 as I booted up Final Fantasy 15 and was blinded by the sun.
This isn’t about Nintendo, but games in general. The only reason it comes to mind is for recent marketing, but if you also take a look atBreath of the Wildrunning on the original 2017 hardware, it was running in 720p handheld and 1080p docked. However, despite the subpar textures in the game, the lighting and art design carried it, making it look better than many games on more powerful platforms.
And then we have emulators, where people can mod in ray tracing; it suddenly makes you realise that a game that’s running as standard in 720p/1080p can look incredible when the lighting is done right - no need for 4K upscaling and HDR (though admittedly I don’t think the Switch 2 was ever going to reach Nvidia RTX levels just yet).
Oblivion Remastered Balances Everything To Showcase Lighting At Its Best
As I continue to re-discover Cyrodiil in Unreal Engine 5, I’m frequently amazed by just how beautiful the game is. Yes, it’s demanding, and the textures are fantastic (I’m running it at 1440p on my PC), but the real beauty comes from its ray tracing. Entering the cities I once knew so well feels refreshing as the sun hits the streets, the light flickers through the trees, the reflections on the water show the rippling steeple of the chapel, and the bricks of the buildings cast a shadow of subtle depth between each one of them.
All of this isn’t reliant on textures being 4K or even the most realistically rendered assets - it can help to enhance things further, sure, but lighting is something that can bring almost any art style to life. I’ll continue to have little interest in games or hardware that boast 4K to me, but mention RTX or some enhanced lighting methods, and — like an Oblivion NPC snapping to focus on you at the beginning of a conversation —you’ll have my attention.
