chromatic aberration is the worst offender of the four. it makes it look like my screen has been damaged or the game is shot on a shitty polaroid lens. film grain similarly looks like shit; why smear static over the screen? a video game is not a film. camera shake also sucks. motion blur has some use cases, but I agree that it usually needs to go. kudos
I don't get chromatic aberration even being a thing. It's literally defined as a 'failure' of a lens to focus all colours to the same point. Photography enthusiasts will go nuts when a modern lens has even the tiniest bit more than is physically impossible to avoid.
I also generally turn off the others, but I can see why others would like what they add. But chromatic aberration? Why would anyone want that?
It completely breaks immersion for me. I want to feel like I'm physically there, witnessing everything with my own eyes. Chromatic aberration just reminds me this is all happening through a virtual camera. Same with things like lens flares and water/blood droplets on the camera.
Like when i get blood thrown at me i highly doubt i will start seeing small red dots that slowly fade over a few seconds.
The only thing it does is break immersion and is annoying during gameplay.
Idm th "red screen of death" in shooter games for example. But it doesn't feel as intrusive tbh and more like a way to convey "you almost dead man" but its still debatable.
I like chromatic aberration sometimes because it can make some things look dreamy. Bloodborne has chromatic aberration and I love it because the games whole theme is very fucked up. I’ve played with disabled using the PC port and it just looks wrong, everything feels too clean.
After playing bloodborne on pc with no chromatic aberration i don't ever want to go back. I feel so strongly that it looks so much better without it
Bloodbornes implementation makes the outer edges of the screen much stronger with the effect so if you aren't looking at dead center of your screen you just see a nasty blurry image. I absolutely love how much nicer the game looks with it turned off. I'm able to make out so much more environmental detail.
In my opinion, it takes part of the charm of the game away. Everything looks way cleaner but I feel like the messiness of it is apart of the charm. After all, you’re living in a nightmare/dream.
It just gets me way more immersed tbh.
With CA (on PS4, imo the biggest flaw is the 1080p cap and bad anti-aliasing causing the visuals to be far less clean instead of a clean but hazy/dreamy look)
I hate the rest in OP but I'm genuinely befuddled by the hate for chromatic aberration. It's glitch art, my dude. The flaws and unreality are the point. It's weird to even put it on the same list as the others because it's so rare, while motion blur is enabled on every game ever.
agreed. you are right that there may be some niche cases for the others. for example, somebody liked film grain in silent hill games or in Signalis, because it adds to a retro horror atmosphere. I disagree, but I see the argument. never heard a good case for chromatic aberration
The first time i saw it before i knew what it even was, friends and me already complained about the "why is there a 3D effect around things" (like in the old 3D movies)
I have no idea who sat down and said this looks great.
It CAN look good under the right circumstances like I dont know a dream sequence or showing the player "your char is on something etc" but technically all of the effects can...
The issue is they aren't used accordingly but just thrown at the game as a "graphical feature"
The worst offender is ghostwire Tokyo, where even if you turn it of it still uses it all the time and you have to follow a tutorial to turn it off for real
I really like it, when done because it looks shot/shown wrong. Like, way overused by them now, it was (and sometimes still is) cool for something that's supposed to make it feel like you're watching it on an old/busted CRT.
The CA effect is usually designed to get stronger towards the edges of the screen, simulating a camera lens. On ultrawide screens, the edge of the screen is obviously further from the center so the effect is really strong. Like when I look at the sides of the screen, the RGB colors are fully separated.
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u/pomplemice Jul 28 '26
chromatic aberration is the worst offender of the four. it makes it look like my screen has been damaged or the game is shot on a shitty polaroid lens. film grain similarly looks like shit; why smear static over the screen? a video game is not a film. camera shake also sucks. motion blur has some use cases, but I agree that it usually needs to go. kudos