4 Most Beautiful Games of May 2019

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Developed by Asobo Studio, A Plague Tale: Innocence kind of snuck up on us a little this month. However, what surprised us most about this game was just how stunning and beautiful it looks.

It doesn’t quite have the big budget that other triple-A games like Uncharted do, and it’s definitely a much smaller game in size and scale. Even so, this linear adventure is so tightly designed, and it’s easy to tell that there was a ton of love and detail poured into the process of creating A Plague Tale.

The rat hordes, in particular, look stunning when they glisten in the street lights, and Asobo Studio definitely went all out with this game’s gorgeous lighting effects to make it look as realistic as possible.

Dauntless

After spending an extensive amount of time in its beta phase, Dauntless is finally out for real, and it still looks every bit as pretty as it did in its pre-release footage and materials.

Dauntless goes for a much more cutesy and cartoony look, complete with a bright and vibrant color palette that just helps the game to pop. The environments and lush locales are beautiful to look at, but more impressive are the monsters themselves who just look utterly unique and distinct, and help to set Dauntless apart from its other monster-hunting peers.

We’ve seen similar graphical styles in recent years (Overwatch and Firewatch come to mind), and there’s a reason for that: it just works.

Observation

Observation is a little sci-fi horror game that released this month, and it strikes a nice balance between realistic and cartoonish graphical styles.

The character models are detailed and intricate enough, but they still retain an element of that comic book-style animation to give the game a fairly unique look. More importantly, though, Observation also looks fantastic thanks to the focus that’s been placed on its lighting effects.

As a horror game, Observation thrives on creating atmospheric tension with shadows and light, as well as smart camera angles to constantly keep the player guessing.

Outer Wilds

Speaking of sci-fi games with cartoony graphical styles, Outer Wilds is a beautiful sci-fi exploration game where you get to venture out into space, the next frontier.

Outer Wilds is played from the first-person perspective, which brings you so much closer to the action and the beautiful sights in the solar system. There are so many different biomes to explore, and the clay/cartoony style of the game truly adds life and character to it.

It’s not just the lighting effects that help to bring the game to life; it’s the particles and little effects that make Outer Wilds’ world feel like a living, breathing entity.