History SceneryPorn / VideoGames

** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'' sets a new standard for the series, with visuals, character designs, and animation worthy of [[Creator/HayaoMiyazaki a Miyazaki]] [[Creator/StudioGhibli Film.]] The launch trailer was so awe-inspiring, that some viewers were literally [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH_Re_4uEKc moved to tears.]]

** In the third stage, you take a ride on a train, with the scenery changing as you advance through the level. As you get the Slug Flyer, a city can be seen in the background, and as you reach the boss, a huge building block your view. As it passes by, the city is now entirely in flames!
*** The final stage in the fifth game has a similar burning city.

* The early-nineties point-and-click adventure game ''VideoGame/{{Universe}}'' had amazing, hand-drawn, pastel-colored background graphics. This was especially noteworthy for the Amiga version of the game, which had to work around the machine's color limit and still look good.
* The ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGuGames .hack//]]'' video game series has some very gorgeous plot-important set areas. ''.hack//GU'' pushed the video graphics capability of the [=PS2=] to its very limit: cathedral floors so polished you can see the character's reflection, giant ancient god-killer weapons in the background of the less impressive (but still pretty) playing fields... In fact, several characters in-game remarked how they just like to stand around and admire the view.

* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': There are breathtakingly beautiful PostCyberpunk environments to explore, one particular moment shows a entire scenery shot of [[NeonCity Noctis City]] to establish the well-circumstantial art.

** Plenty of adventure maps are loaded with this. Just look at the trailers for the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OC7a2uk_4qY Survival]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8gLS7Sr2S0c Games]], for example. The sweeping vistas of ''VideoGame/TheWizardBurgmund'', the awe-inspiring architecture of ''VideoGame/ThePharaohsCurse2'', the labyrinthine interior of the vast castle from ''VideoGame/MonarchOfMadness'', the eerily beautiful ruined city from ''VideoGame/{{Chronotide}}''... any adventure map worth its salt has at least some of this.

* As do later entries from ''{{VideoGame/Tekken}}''. If you talk about ''Tekken 5'', Moonlit Wilderness (an arena set in a field of flowers overlooking an abandoned castle at midnight) will probably be one of the first things to come to mind.
* Creator/ThatGameCompany are noted for this. ''VideoGame/{{Flow}}'' is a trip into a gorgeous microscopic world; ''VideoGame/{{Flower}}'' was a sweeping ode to the beauty of nature, while ''VideoGame/Journey2012'' put a lot of efforts to make sand look as pretty as possible. It's most notable in the fourth level. Their next game ''VideoGame/SkyChildrenOfTheLight'' looks just as astounding as its predecessors.

* For that matter ''VideoGame/Transformers2004'', especially the Amazon stages. When you finish climbing the mountain at the end of the first stage, and turn around and look back at the truly ''massive'' stage you have just gone through, and will still have to come back and search later.

* ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}: Drake's Fortune''. The whole damn game, and if something isn't this it's SceneryGorn.
** Its sequel ''Among Thieves'' lives this, with ridiculously intricate and detailed environments. The train level in particular, in which you will see gorgeous scenery for about half a second or so before its whipped away by the motion of the train. Of course, you will probably be more busy with the helicopter, but it really is nice.
** The third installment in the series, ''Drake's Deception'', turns it up to 11. How do you make a long, boring descent down a ladder interesting? [[spoiler:Have the camera pan away from the character to focus on an aerial view of the lost, forbidden city you just opened the giant doors to.]]
** ''A Thief's End'' pushes the [=PlayStation=] 4 to new heights with its incredible picturesque vistas and nigh-on photorealistic character models. Naughty Dog didn't have to go to near as much effort to render things that the player can never visit or the fibers that make up Nathan Drake's hair but that's just how they roll. There's also a PhotoMode that pauses the game letting you move the camera around (as well as adjust the FOV, DepthOfField and the like) and take pictures using the Share button on the controller. You can even remove the characters from the scene to just take pictures of the backgrounds.

* ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' might be TropeMaker for {{First Person Shooter}}s. It starts you off in a crashed spaceship. After navigating through narrow corridors and smoky machine rooms, which were visually impressive but still just rooms, you'd emerge from the vessel, and your jaw would fall on the floor as you gazed at the most beautiful [[color:blue:water]]fall, replete with small lake, lush vegetation, local fauna hopping and flying about, and... my God, the sky... look at ''the sky!'' The clouds are ''moving''!!! This sudden, breathtaking change of scenery is enhanced further by the presence of a [[VariableMix change in background noise from malfunctioning machines to an ambient soundtrack.]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: Rites of War'' is set on Davinuus, an Eldar maiden world, which is to say, a planet terraformed to be a verdant paradise, and the scenery is appropriately gorgeous. Of course, since this is 40K, that means you are going to end up [[MoodDissonance blowing everything in sight to smithereens]].
* ''VideoGame/WarioLand Shake It'' has some absolutely fantastic graphics, some of which were actually designed by [[Creator/ProductionIG a studio]] used to working on various anime series. [[http://www.the-nextlevel.com/media/screens/wii/wario-land-shake-it/ The graphics shown here]] illustrate this pretty well, especially the snow and jungle level. Also to a degree, you could probably say the older games had some stunning scenery and backgrounds as well. Like ''Wario Land 4'' and how each and every single room seems to use a completely different, sometimes jawdropping background.

* ''{{VideoGame/Wipeout}} HD'' is one of the relatively few games to run at 1080p, 60 Frames-Per-Second High Definition; and it uses it to wonderful effect. The entire series has shades of this, as each game packs in an incredible amount of detailing into the backgrounds (this is even more impressive given the 3 [=PS1=] and 2 PSP titles in the series), to the point where Wip3out was one of the few games on the [=PS1=] to use it's high-resolution mode!
* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' series:
** The first game in had mostly lackluster scenery, indulging in the DungAges version of RealIsBrown to a fair extent, yet also spots some gorgeous scenery (most of it appearing in Chapter 4 and involving Lake Vizima or the large fields of grain).
** The second is filled with absolutely stunning vistas, from a riverboat dock deep in the forest with fog rising off the water, to a multi-tiered Dwarven town in a windswept mountain pass.
** The third game has this all over. Especially the case for Kaer Morhen and the surrounding area. Skellige offers stunning scenes of boreal and alpine scenery. Even parts of Velen and the wilderness surrounding Novigrad, when it's not SceneryGorn ([[WarIsHell there's a war going on]]).

* ''{{VideoGame/World of Warcraft}}:''

* ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Reunion]]'' certainly qualifies as this from the very first screen. Everything from the ship and station models to the planets and their moons that inhabit some sectors are jaw-dropping. And then ''X3: Terran Conflict'' turned the scenery porn up to 11. It's hard to fly around Uranus or Saturn without going slack-jawed.

* ''Videogame/XRebirth''. The space stations of yore are replaced by massive, dozen-kilometer wide space cities with hundreds or thousands of civilian ships moving between their sections. The [[HyperspaceLanes Super Highway system]] catapults ships through solar systems at the speed of light, passing by (or in the case of Albion, ''[[ShatteredWorld through]]'') planets, {{BigDumbObject}}s, nebula, and even a black hole in Omicron Lyrae.

* The ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' series is absolutely full of this. ''[[VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland Secret]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge LeChuck's Revenge]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland Curse]]'' all have lovingly drawn and detailed art in the SCUMM UsefulNotes/GameEngine, while ''{{VideoGame/Escape|FromMonkeyIsland}}'' and ''{{VideoGame/Tales|OfMonkeyIsland}}'' have some colorful worlds drawn in 3D.

* ''VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron'' is, for the most part, a very straightforward, linear third-person shooter with some interesting background design. And then, every once in a while, you'll come across a gaping hole in the orbiting space station that allows you to see Cybertron, or you'll be driving along the Iacon Speedway to the Decagon, or you'll be flying through the carnage caused by Trypticon Station's weapon... and you'll be stunned. They don't use the [[UsefulNotes/GameEngine Unreal Engine 3]] for nothin'.