I'm Sick of Clouds That Don't Move in Games

This will probably be one of the more strange opinion pieces I produce for games, but it truly does bother me when games of this generation do not include clouds that move. It's honestly gotten to the point where it's the first thing I look at when I go to play a game. I simply just walk out into whatever beautiful and open area they've created, then look straight up.

It's terrible that they've created such beautiful environments that are filled to the brim with graphical detail, yet the skybox is just this ugly picture that stands still. Clouds are beautiful things being something I'm sure everyone in their life has spent some amount of time just staring at as they gracefully soar across the sky. It's also an essential part of immersion of modern games, I can't be the only one that's charmed by the graphics then looks up and releases that this is a fake world.

It's not real to begin with, but the levels of graphics that are present on modern games it's terrible to see an ugly skybox. Before I dive into the rest of this cloud focused opinion piece, I also included some gifs below so you get an idea of what I'm talking about when it comes to games and their clouds.

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The first example I have for games that don't include any clouds would have to be Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. This is a damn fine looking game. It's awful that a game at this level of detail has no moving clouds and actually a really ugly skybox. I'm not quite sure why this part is skipped in the game as any look a bit upwards or to the backdrop makes this show up. I understand it may take some rendering power to get the clouds moving, but it can't be that bad as this is an old game getting a new coat of paint over it.

I also see this in other games where it's just an odd still picture in the background like in Plants vs Zombies: GW2 and Forza Motorsport 6 to name a couple more. I'd also include the recent Hitman title, but they opt for just blank open skies. These are just a couple of examples from games that I've played recently and spend most of my time on. There are many games that do include cloud movement which is great and it's a newer thing to build in a game. It's just odd seeing these beautiful new titles have such a static element to their environments and it makes the world feel less real.

For whatever reason it's become some sort of weird standard when I play games and one of the first things I look for when playing a title. In comparison to those games with static clouds you can a look at the two other gifs I put into this article, Star Wars Battlefront and Rainbow Six: Siege to get an idea of how much nicer it is to have a sprawling background cloud system.

I feel that it's a big deal when it comes to immersion and especially with the expansion of virtual reality where you're first hand seeing these worlds it'll take away from the experience. Well, I hope you enjoyed this more odd opinion piece on clouds and really hope it has opened your eyes to take a look at virtual worlds you explore. A funny thing might be that non-moving clouds now stick out to when playing since you never noticed it before. You can read some additional opinion pieces that are are linked below.

Read Why Star Wars Battlefront Only Lack Launch Content
Read Why Backwards Compatibility has Been Great

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