Unity, Unreal, and other modern 3D engines let a solo developer create something that looks nearly AAA if they buy decent assets. The problem is that turning a

Unity, Unreal, and other modern 3D engines let a solo developer create something that looks nearly AAA if they buy decent assets. The problem is that turning a pretty walking simulator into a game with good mechanics, interaction, sound, consistent style, and a fun factor (not to mention story and characters) is always going to be hard, unless you’re able to ask GPT5 to generate all of that for you from a few sentences. If you have a pretty physics/walking simulator, but very shallow mechanics etc, it feels hollow. If I had to guess, I’d say that an equivalent amount of development on a 2D pixel art game will give players less of that hollowed-out feeling. The more graphical detail you provide, the less is left to the imagination, and therefore the implicit expectation of detail goes way up.