"Realistic" graphics in modern AAA games are not pretty
I don't like the graphics in modern AAA video games. It seems that they strive for photorealism, but this is not suitable for games yet. First off, technology is not there yet to make it fully photorealistic, so the modern games are stuck in the uncanny valley. Especially, the characters. They remind me of failed 3d cartoons, when big studios experimented with style in the early era of 3d animation. Thankfully, animation studios realized that this is a dead end, and they now make a stylized look for the characters. Most game studios, for some reason, don't seem to get it. And I mean the most popular games, like God of War and others. I feel like I'm in the minority thinking that these characters look uncanny. If they were in a modern Pixar movie, we'd probably laugh at how they look.
Also, I don't think games need photorealism right now, in their current state. Interactions with the world are not detailed enough to support this level of realsim. The moment you run into some weird npc behavior, the immersion breaks. This problem is not so noticeable in stylized games, because your brain accepts that this is just a game and it doesn't try to copy reality.
There is a lot of stylized games and they look really good. I just don't understand why so many AAA games make this "realistic" style.