Considering their size (a few hundred people for the whole studio AFAIK), Remedy consistently punches above their weight when it comes to graphics. Off the top of my head only Remedy and CD Projekt Red are able to compete with the big dogs (Unreal, Unity, EA Frostbite) when it comes to image fidelity and performance. Their GDC/siggraph/etc presentations are fantastic for anyone interested in computer graphics or technical art.
Alan Wake 2 is easily one of the most beautiful (from a technical perspective - IMO also from an artistic one but that's a 100% subjective thing) games ever released and it still looks good even when you turn all the settings down, which is a true achievement. It's hard to make a game scale down to older hardware while still looking good.
Though as commentators like Digital Foundry have noted, the game runs really badly if your GPU doesn't support Mesh Shaders (they mention the use of those for culling in the article). Mesh Shaders in this case enable a lot of really smart culling and dynamic level of detail so that things like coffee cups or tires can be perfectly round without having the 'every NPC has 10k-poly teeth in their mouth' problem that's currently sabotaging Cities Skylines 2's performance, and this is one of the big advantages offered by Unreal 5's Nanite.
Alan Wake 2 is easily one of the most beautiful (from a technical perspective - IMO also from an artistic one but that's a 100% subjective thing) games ever released and it still looks good even when you turn all the settings down, which is a true achievement. It's hard to make a game scale down to older hardware while still looking good.
Though as commentators like Digital Foundry have noted, the game runs really badly if your GPU doesn't support Mesh Shaders (they mention the use of those for culling in the article). Mesh Shaders in this case enable a lot of really smart culling and dynamic level of detail so that things like coffee cups or tires can be perfectly round without having the 'every NPC has 10k-poly teeth in their mouth' problem that's currently sabotaging Cities Skylines 2's performance, and this is one of the big advantages offered by Unreal 5's Nanite.