{"id":135196,"date":"2025-12-15T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-195327"},"modified":"2025-12-15T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T16:00:00","slug":"digital-foundrys-graphics-of-the-year-awards-nod-to-some-switch-2-beauties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2025\/12\/15\/digital-foundrys-graphics-of-the-year-awards-nod-to-some-switch-2-beauties\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Foundry&#8217;s &#8216;Graphics Of The Year Awards&#8217; Nod To Some Switch 2 Beauties"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/914cfac2e326f\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/914cfac2e326f\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/914cfac2e326f\/large.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<aside class=\"object object-youtube\">\n<figure class=\"youtube\" data-videoid=\"nZ7pc4M-Uuk\" data-start=\"0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nZ7pc4M-Uuk?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1\">\n<p><iframe id=\"ytnZ7pc4M-Uuk\" title=\"YouTube Video\" class=\"resize\" data-src-fallback=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/nZ7pc4M-Uuk?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nZ7pc4M-Uuk?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1\" data-consent=\"targeting\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" width=\"890\" height=\"501\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>2026 is almost upon us, so naturally, everyone is thinking about end-of-year awards. Geoff Keighley <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/features\/round-up-everything-announced-at-the-game-awards-2025-all-switch-1-and-2-reveals\">hosted his ceremony last week<\/a>, and today, it&#8217;s time for the tech experts from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalfoundry.net\/features\/digital-foundrys-2025-graphics-of-the-year-awards\">Digital Foundry<\/a> to get involved, as they run down their best graphics of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>It will come as no surprise that the shortlist this year is mainly comprised of titles found on PS5 and Xbox Series, with the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/ghost_of_yotei\" class=\"external\">Ghost of Y\u014dtei<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/mafia_the_old_country\" class=\"external\">Mafia: The Old Country<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/silent_hill_f\" class=\"external\">Silent Hill f<\/a> getting their flowers, but a handful of Switch newbies got a nod too.<\/p>\n<p>Digital Foundry dedicated the entirety of its honourable mentions section to the Switch 2 this year, giving a shoutout to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/mario-kart-world\">Mario Kart World<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/kirby-air-riders\">Kirby Air Riders<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/fast-fusion\">Fast Fusion<\/a> for &#8220;maximising the Tegra T239 in different ways&#8221;, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/star-wars-outlaws\">Star Wars Outlaws<\/a>, which DF calls &#8220;currently Switch 2&#8217;s best &#8216;impossible port&#8217;.&#8221; The outlet also highlights Panic Button&#8217;s work on the Switch 1-to-2 upgrades.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not to say that Switch 2 is entirely absent from the official top 10, mind you. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/metroid-prime-4-beyond-nintendo-switch-2-edition\">Metroid Prime 4<\/a> lands a spot all of its own, with DF calling Samus&#8217; latest &#8220;a lighting masterwork &#8211; a prime (pun intended) example of how pre-baked lighting inside carefully crafted environments, whether fully indoors or exposed to outdoor elements, can implement attractive lighting phenomena like emissive lighting while also organically leading players.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/metroid_prime_4_beyond\">Switch 1 version<\/a> of MP4 even gets a shoutout in the Digital Foundry listing, with the outlet praising how it delivers &#8220;so much ecosystem diversity within large exploration zones at a steady 60fps, building upon the already impressive likes of Metroid Prime 1 Remastered to push the 2017 console to its limits.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As ever, Digital Foundry&#8217;s top 10 is unordered until hitting the top three, with the seven preceding entries sorted alphabetically instead. Here&#8217;s the full list, as laid out on the Digital Foundry website:<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Dying Light: The Beast<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Earthion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Ghost of Y\u014dtei<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Mafia: The Old Country<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Metroid Prime 4: Beyond<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Routine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Silent Hill f<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Assassin&#8217;s Creed: Shadows<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Doom: The Dark Ages<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A pretty good year for good-looking games, then! You&#8217;ll find the team&#8217;s explanation for each entry either in the video at the top of this article or by heading over to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalfoundry.net\/features\/digital-foundrys-2025-graphics-of-the-year-awards\">DF site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/nintendo-switch-2\/related-articles:195124,194665,194796 @ 1765849507 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n<p><em>Are there any other titles that you&#8217;d add to this list? Let us know in the comments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[embedded content] 2026 is almost upon us, so naturally, everyone is thinking about end-of-year awards. Geoff Keighley hosted his ceremony last week, and today, it&#8217;s time for the tech experts from Digital Foundry to get involved, as they run down their best graphics of 2025. It will come as no surprise that the shortlist this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}