JAGGED NIGHTMARES
People have been wondering when indie games would move on from 2D pixel art for as long as people who hate pixel art have had access to comments sections on websites. The thing is, 3D art on an indie budget often looks incredibly rough and somewhat uncanny, where pixel art evokes naive, child-like wholesomeness. A 3D game made on a shoestring budget can look like it came out in 1996.
In the 1990s, games with wobbling, low-res textures and characters restricted to jerky movements and freakish faces still seemed freaky to us—which made them well suited to survival horror. It was the era, , and , games that were a perfect fit for their graphical limitations.
