For the longest time, game developers have strived to make games with breakthrough, realistic graphics. While this has certainly remained the AAA developers' domain, smaller studios have also tried to mimic this style, while indie developers stuck to graphics reminiscent of Flash games of old.
There has been a recent resurgence in retro graphics, that has allowed small indie developers to make successful, fully-fledged 3D games with the best modern game engines. These games have a clear and cohesive style that makes them enjoyable, even if the visuals are somewhat subjective among players.
10 Wrought Flesh
Wrought Flesh is a low-poly FPS game that attempts to mimic the style of old PlayStation games, and it does so quite successfully. The game features several locations that show off its low-poly models and low-res textures in different environments, and the game's negative reviews are mostly focused on a few bugs and the length of the game.
While it's certainly no horror game, Wrought Flesh also uses its low-poly and low-res style to create the horrific-looking creatures in its world. Perhaps what makes this visual style work with horror so well is its ability to force players to fill in the gaps with their imagination.
9 Nidhogg 2
A far cry from the original Nidhogg's style (simple, flat-color pixel art), this sequel's graphics are despised by some fans of the game, considering it's a rather different take on the art that they are used to.
While for many, it may seem like Nidhogg 2's art is the result of poor art direction, the visuals seem intentionally ugly. As quoted from the Steam Store page for Nidhogg 2: "the captivatingly grotesque art of Toby Dixon", and some reviews even mention that the art compliments the absurdity of the game.
8 Chop Goblins
This self-proclaimed "micro shooter" is packed with ugly, pale, low-poly goblins, but not to worry, the entire game is about killing those pesky low-poly freaky goblins. Many players are happy to indulge in this goblin shooter, perhaps in part to how they look.
Although Chop Goblins shares many similarities in its style with plenty of other games that follow the graphical tropes of the "boomer shooter" and the PlayStation revival (low-poly models and low-res textures), what makes it truly cathartic is the completely focused gameplay of pursuing the stiffly animated, titular goblins.
7 Golden Light
Golden Light is a survival horror FPS game filled with disgusting creatures, jump scares, and horrid environments. With its obsession with meat, drab colors, unnerving music, and intense atmosphere, Golden Light's ugliness is at the core of its style and theme. All of this is achieved through a cohesive low-res style with a gross color palette used carefully to create the meat-obsessed world where the game takes place.
What's great about Golden Light is how it uses its grotesque art style (in combination with its unique prop-hunt, jump-scare-fueled twist) to facilitate its horror. The colors, textures, and the way its disgusting creatures are animated make every living thing in the game horrifying to behold.
6 DUSK
A vanguard of the boomer-shooter revival, and arguably still one of the best, DUSK's purposeful hearkening back to 90s shooters like Quake and DOOM make its visuals less appealing to the masses, and this may have made the game fail to be commercially viable years ago. However, DUSK's art direction is a surefire success.
One thing that is perhaps worth noting is the importance of context, especially with a game like DUSK. Boomer-shooters have a very clear demographic, which is something that helps them with both marketing and sales, but even those who have never played a '90s FPS before can still take a very quick look at DUSK's Steam page and know exactly what they're getting into. It's this context and telegraphing, married to the faithfully developed gameplay, that makes the game's retro, and at times ugly style, work in its favor.
5 Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
One of the most disappointing sequels for most fans of the original Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, this game has been a topic of controversy in games, especially at its launch. Many fans didn't enjoy the game's flat-out ugly visuals and the brutality of its themes, story, and gameplay. When Kane & Lynch 2 focused its art style around mimicking documentary films to achieve as realistic of a look as they possibly could, it heightened all aspects of the game's ugliness, and it's apparent that many players were turned off by the game's realism and brutality.
However, it's also possible that due to a lack of telegraphing, either through gameplay or marketing, players didn't understand the context and purpose in which the style was applied, in which case the game could appear insensitive, crude, and offensive. It could be argued that it's this potential misunderstanding that caused Kane & Lynch 2 to fail where it could have succeeded.
4 Caves of Qud
Caves of Qud is a classic rogue-like feature tile-set-based pixel art that's only a few steps away from what games like Rogue were known for. This makes sense, though, considering the game is heavily inspired by classic old-school rogue-likes, taking influence from their extreme difficulty and granular mechanics.
Caves of Qud's simplistic, flat color graphics may be enough to turn some players away, but using this graphical style puts players' focus on the gameplay over the graphics. Furthermore, the graphics are instantly recognizable as rogue-like graphics, making the context clear to the game's demographic.
3 HROT
HROT is another retro FPS, although this one is made unique through its setting: "a small socialist country neighboring Soviet Union (Czechoslovakia) after an unspecified disaster in 1986." One thing that makes HROT unique graphically is that the game was written in a custom game engine that imitates "1990s software-style rendering with unfiltered textures and polygon jitter".
The drab, retro, low-res graphics of HROT only add to the game's dark and depressing tone and feel, synergizing perfectly with the game's story and gameplay to create a truly thematic experience.
2 Murderhouse
Puppet Combo's Murderhouse, like other games on this list, uses dated graphics to enhance its horror. The game uses PS1-style low-poly graphics, along with some post-processing effects, to create the look of an old VHS B-Movie horror from the '80s. As such, the game essentially feels like being in a slasher film.
Strangely, the VHS look of the game makes it feel more realistic and immersive; the dated graphics allow players to fill in the gaps with their imagination and experience the game as though they were inside a film, a very powerful feeling that makes the old-school graphics look less like poor art direction and more like an intentional decision.
1 Cruelty Squad
While Cruelty Squad may appear to have no style whatsoever at first glance, players simply need to look into the color-filled mess to find some patterns within the bright and off-putting colors that make the game look like it's missing textures. Cruelty Squad excels intentionally at low-poly models, basic animations, and a variety of texture detail and flat color.
Cruelty Squad's lack of coherence is what makes up its style, and while it sounds like excuses are being made for it, the game's FPS success speaks for itself. The lesson to be learned here, perhaps, is that the game's success with its art style is due to it being purposefully synergistic with its gameplay.