Featured Image Credit: Rockstar Games
Topics: Death Stranding, GTA, GTA 6, Grand Theft Auto, Kojima Productions, Rockstar Games, PlayStation, PlayStation 5
Topics: Death Stranding, GTA, GTA 6, Grand Theft Auto, Kojima Productions, Rockstar Games, PlayStation, PlayStation 5
With photorealistic graphics becoming more and more popular in current video game releases, a recent example has caused a big discussion online as one 2025 title shines above the rest.
It is easy to forget how far we have come in terms of photorealism in video games, but even looking at a title from a decade ago shows us what technology is now capable of.
Thanks to things like Unreal Engine 5 and better technology in general, studios are able to capture humans better than ever before and that is definitely the case for the recently released Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.
Kojima Productions’ latest title was released fully just yesterday but it is already being praised for its incredible face models and graphics and as a result, some fans have taken to r/GTA6 to claim that Rockstar now has some competition.
Advert
One user shared a comparison image of Grand Theft Auto VI’s Jason to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’s Sam Bridges and despite the former game not set to be released until May 2026, many claim that it will still be unable to match the graphics of the latest Death Stranding entry.
“Honestly Death Stranding 2 character models look better. They look more real,” one user claimed and that opened a whole can of worms.
User GGG100 took the time to explain, commenting, “Rockstar’s characters aren’t meant to be photorealistic like Death Stranding’s, as they’ve always aimed for stylised realism where the characters match how they look in the concept art.”
This is indeed true as many people forget that photorealism is not what every game strives to achieve but that does not mean that their graphics are “better” or “worse” than other titles.
User Juice_1987 had another point to make.
“You're comparing an apples to oranges game. DS2 has in no way near the same size, scope and attention to detail as GTA VI, so they can afford to pump up the character detail. Map size, NPC amount, NPC interactions, mission structure, etc. etc. will be much bigger/in depth in GTA 6, and all that stuff comes at a cost.”
It seems as though this is a big area of contention in the gaming world but maybe we should just play the game and make these decisions for ourselves, especially as one title in this discussion is still not set to release for another year.