History Main / RealIsBrown

* In general, as comics coloring processes and paper have improved, colorists have used more moody, subtle colors. The introduction of computer coloring in the 1990s (including gradients) resulted in a brief burst of bright colors and rainbow effects, before everyone settled down and started doing more moody shades. A later reprint of Creator/JackKirby's [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor "Tales of Asgard"]] stories recolored them with modern techniques. This [[WhatMightHaveBeen should]] have been an exciting juxtaposition of old and new artistic methods... except they made everything ''brown.''

* Most Live-action television TeenDrama/YoungAdult employee DarkerandEdgier to quite literally mean, a cool lighting filter on EVERYTHING because it's edgier.

* Flashbacks in ''Film/TheDaVinciCode'' may seem to give the idea that The Past Is Gray.

* Following the runaway success of the first ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' film, the toys in subsequent toylines were striving for "realism" meaning fewer Cybertronian (alien) alt-modes, and more realistic color schemes. This resulted in things like a character who traditionally was red being turned white with red trim, and more true to this trope, figures getting random brown plastic (on characters who traditionally never had any brown in their coloration). While this was mostly dropped by the time the second movie rolled around, the more realistic aesthetic did stick around for the third resulting in a great number of gray, beige, or brown vehicles.

A handful of 2D and early 3D games used this to make up for a limited number of onscreen colors, as they operated on limited-size color palettes, and requiring more hues to display a scene meant sacrificing subtle variations in saturation and brightness for those hues (as each variation requires a separate color in the palette). Starting with [[UsefulNotes/TheSixthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64]] the colours became less restricted, allowing for games that had wider palettes and thus could support many different shades of grey, blue and brown. But the golden age of this trope came when [[UsefulNotes/TheSeventhGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames consoles became powerful enough]] to use ''{{color grading}}'' effects, not even a decade after films began to use it themselves. With almost no examples to guide developers and an eagerness to stand out from the previous generation, it was both easy and tempting to abuse color grading.

It was also used to cover up a limitation of lighting and shading engines - a light shines down and illuminates an object from that side, sure, but figuring out where the light goes ''after'' that and what ''else'' around it might also be illuminated (a process called interreflection) is extremely difficult for the computer to simulate, especially when it needs to do so 60 times every second. Until around the [[UsefulNotes/TheEighthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames eighth generation of console games]], the only solution was to use static lighting (accurate light and shadow mapping planned out in advance) and while reasonably effective, it comes at the cost of not having dynamic or interactive terrain or lighting, which in turn means no smooth day/night cycling or destructive terrain physics. Again, if everything is tinted one dull color, it's not as noticeable.

* On the UsefulNotes/AmstradCPC, ''Mutan Zone'', ''Solo'' and ''Sol Negro'' (which all had graphics by Carlos A. Díaz de Castro) ran in medium-resolution mode with a palette composed of brown, gray, orange and black.

* The world of the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn game ''Amok'' seems to consist primarily of dimly-lit brownish voxels.

* Compare the colors in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon]]'' for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS to those of the three ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' (''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade Binding Blade]]'', ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade Blazing Blade]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones Sacred Stones]]'') released on [[UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance its predecessor]]. Everything is notably duller in the next-gen game. In turn ''Sacred Stones'' had a more muted palette compared to its predecessors, likely because the game was designed for the backlit models of the GBA SP.

* Cleverly parodied in the ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' series: one of the unlockable cheats is the "Next-Gen Filter", which washes the game in a brown filter and adds more bloom. It gets topped with the [[OrangeBlueContrast Blorange filter]] in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 titles.

->'''Cranky Kong:''' Bah! When I was a young fella, the technology we had only let us use [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem 25 colors on screen at a time]]. Now we see people using even less than that ''by choice''. Kids these days...

* ''VideoGame/Doom64'' has a noticeably more drab color palette compared to previous games in the series, due to most of the levels being [[EvilIsNotWellLit having a dearth of light sources]].

** ''VideoGame/Doom64'': [[https://nintendoeverything.com/doom-64-screenshots-fact-sheet/ While it has colorful environments]], the vast majority of the setting is dark military bases and castles.

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' was originally supposed to look very gritty and realistic, but halfway through the development, the development team noticed how the artists used cel shading and other bright colors in their concept art, which caused the team to like it and change the entire game to reflect it. The first game is still quite brown-tinted and desaturated, with all other colors very pale in comparison to the brown and grey, with the rare bright green patch of greenery every now and then. The developers lampshaded this when they introduced ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', saying that the artists learned that colors other than brown existed. It starts you off in a snow-capped valley next to an ice shelf, with lots of blue and white. Other environments include a lush green and stone-grey mountainous valley, a shining clean modern city filled with blues, yellows and silvers, a volcanic region with a purple tint as a result of all the [[{{Phlebotinum}} Eridium deposits]] being mined there, dense swamps and jungles, dried up ocean beds in a tropical setting, among many others in an effort to avoid this trope. There still are the usual desertic and trash-laden areas, to help establish the contrast.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfJuarezBoundInBlood'' and ''VideoGame/CallOfJuarezTheCartel'' both have the "coffee filter" look typical of many games from that time period (the late 00's to the very early 10's), in contrast to the ''[[VideoGame/CallOfJuarez first]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/CallOfJuarezGunslinger fourth]]'' games in the series, which are actually very colorful (the first game actually being quite heavily saturated to the point of looking oversaturated to some people).

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake'' did this before it was cool, with nearly the entire game being washed-out shades of brown and grey, with a radioactive-green color filter throne on top for good measure. The mansion is so unceasingly brown and run-down that you might forget that people lived in it until a couple weeks prior to the game’s start. It’s an especially noticeable example since the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil game it remade]] had a quite vibrant (inspired by the [[Film/TheShining Overlook Hotel]]) color scheme that made the mansion more “eerily sterile” than “haunted house.” TropesAreTools, the remake is often regarded as the best looking game of the next decade (or two) in no small part due to the muted color scheme letting the artists get around the GameCube’s limitations, although the original aesthetic has its advocates.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake'' did this before it was cool, with nearly the entire game being washed-out shades of brown and grey, with a radioactive-green color filter throne on top for good measure. The mansion is so unceasingly brown and run-down that you might forget that people lived in it until a couple weeks prior to the game’s start. It’s an especially noticeable example since the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil game it remade]] had a quite vibrant (inspired by the [[Film/TheShining Overlook Hotel) color scheme that made the mansion more “eerily sterile” than “haunted house.” TropesAreTools, the remake is often regarded as the best looking game of the next decade (or two) in no small part due to the muted color scheme letting the artists get around the GameCube’s limitations, although the original aesthetic has its advocates.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake'' did this before it was cool, with nearly the entire game being washed-out shades of brown and grey, with a radioactive-green color filter throne on top for good measure. The mansion is so unceasingly brown and run-down that you might forget that people lived in it until a couple weeks prior to the game’s start. It’s an especially noticeable example since the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil game it remade]] had a quite vibrant (inspired by the [[Film/TheShining Overlook Hotel) color scheme that made the mansion more “eerily sterile” than “haunted house.” TropesAreNotBad, the remake is often regarded as the best looking game of the next decade (or two), although the original aesthetic has its advocates.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'', despite being set in a realistic setting and using horror as the theme, was quite colorful and bright due to the Playstation being fairly new and the developers not knowing what the system could do at the time. The remake on the Gamecube shifted the color and brightness in the opposite direction by making everything dark unless there was a good light source nearby and all the colors are muted and washed out with a mix of brown and gray. Since the Gamecube was much more powerful than the Playstation, the developers were able to capture the feeling of survival horror on a realistic level. ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' in particular inspired a TON of later game conventions.

* ''[[VideoGame/GuiltyGear Guilty Gear: The Missing Link]]'' looks notably washed-out palette-wise compared to the future installments in its series.

* ''Film/TheMatrix'' and its successors tint all of the scenes which take place in the Matrix in green, underscoring its surreal nature.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' uses a mix of shades brown, green, yellow, and gray. A good portion of the game is in a desert, but areas like plains, forests, or beaches are also awash in brown colours. Especially noticeable if we compared it with the vibrant and colorful world of Spira from [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX the previous entry.]] This might be explained by the fact that the main designer, Akihiko Yoshida, is a fan of earth tones as evidenced [[VideoGame/TacticsOgre by]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics his]] [[VideoGame/VagrantStory work]].
** Most of the other ''VideoGame/IvaliceAlliance'' games use this trope, as well. Very much [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools deliberately used]], as a way to contrast Ivalice's more grounded setting against the high fantasy of other Final Fantasy games.

* Midgar and Junon in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' are designed with shades of gray, brown, and a dark filter to make the colors look even more muddy to emulate how the cities would look with the mass amounts of pollution from the Shinra company. Every other place in the game is a lot more vibrant with more variety in colors. The outside portion of Cosmo Canyon is a mix of red and brown due to the terrain and the setting sun's light.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is noticeably more muted than its SNES predecessors, with most of the playable cast being some combination of forest green, navy blue, and shades of tan in their color palettes (Terra and the Moogles being the main exception). Enemies that work for the Empire, such as grunt soldiers, robots, or magitek armors, are also duller in hue than the much more diversely-colored wandering monsters - again, with [[MonsterClown one big exception]]. Similar to ''VII'', one of the main visual signifiers of [[AfterTheEnd the World of Ruin]] is the palette changing from the faded greens and rich browns of the World of Balance into an ugly dull tan with rust-red oceans.

* Compare the colors in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon]]'' for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS to those of the three ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' (''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade Binding Blade]]'', ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade Blazing Blade]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones Sacred Stones]]'') released on [[UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance its predecessor]]. Everything is notably duller in the next-gen game.

** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' [[AvertedTrope averts this]] in order to make the characters look TruerToTheText.

* ''[[Film/Barbie2023 Barbie]]'' depicts Barbieland as a bright, artificial world with hues of pink throughout. The real world in contrast, has a slightly muted color pallete.

* The Lammily doll, created as counterpart of ''Franchise/{{Barbie}}'' is designed with the average proportions of a healthy american woman and has brown hair and eyes, matching her "realistic features".

* ''[[Film/Barbie2023 Barbie]]'' depicts Barbieland as a bright, artificial world with hues of pink throughout. The real world in contrast, has a gray and muted color pallete.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedMirage'' has an optional "nostalgia" filter that desaturates the otherwise vibrant visuals while cranking up the blue and gray, mimicking earlier games in the series.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' plays this in a similar level. And if there's nothing to brown-ize (or whatever color seems to be supposedly prevalent in an area), the bloom gets intensified.