How Cel-Shading Is Bringing Style Back to 3D Graphics

After years of endless waves of realistic-looking games, stylish 3D graphics are finally making a comeback with cel-shaded visuals. Cel-shading isn’t anything new for 3D games, but there’s a reason its resurgence has produced some of the best-looking games of all time.

Cel-Shading Creates a Bold Look for 3D Games

Cel-shading—also known as “toon shading”—is a rendering technique that allows for 3D visuals to replicate the appearance of 2D artwork. Games with cel-shaded rendering achieve this effect through the use of stylized shading techniques that rely on solid colors and a lack of color gradients.

This means cel-shaded games rarely use highly-detailed 3D models or realistic lighting techniques, instead opting for characters with smooth appearances and clearly defined shadows. Some cel-shaded games also use bold outlines around 3D models, exaggerated character designs, and vibrant colors to create their cartoon-inspired visuals.

Cel-shading allows 3D graphics to support a variety of art styles. Some of the most visually distinct 3D games carved their unique aesthetics out of cel-shaded rendering. Borderlands famously uses its bold cel-shaded aesthetic to bring a lighthearted tone to the sci-fi wasteland that serves as the series’ main setting. Similarly, the cult-classic Jet Set Radio—also known as Jet Grind Radio—features a more colorful and jagged visual style that takes heavy inspiration from street graffiti art.

Cel-shading is also one of the most important tools for video game adaptations of other media. Telltale Games’s The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us are both based on comic book series of the same name. Although they aren’t direct retellings of the graphic novels, these games are set within the worlds of their respective comics, and they reflect this by faithfully translating the original comic book art styles into cel-shaded 3D.

Anime-inspired games also use cel-shaded visuals to adapt recognizable 2D characters into a 3D format. Direct adaptations of anime like Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero! and the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games recreate iconic scenes by replicating the art styles, shading, and even camerawork of their respective series.

The anime-esque art styles of original properties like Metaphor ReFantazio and Zenless Zone Zero are equally reliant on cel-shading to deliver action and characters with a heavy dose of style.

While cel-shading isn’t the only way to create stylized visuals, it’s essential for some art styles to look remotely decent in 3D. The crossover fighting game Jump Force features a large roster of iconic characters from popular anime/manga franchises, but the game breaks tradition by rendering these characters with detailed textures and realistic lighting. Although Jump Force‘s unconventional presentation sets itself apart from anime games, it’s also an unfortunate showcase of why cel-shading is crucial for many art styles to survive the jump into 3D.

The mismatch between Jump Force‘s realistic rendering and cartoonish characters causes many of its character models to look like they’re made of plastic or clay. Almost every character has a stiff and lifeless appearance that becomes painfully obvious whenever the camera zooms in on them. The unappealing presentation is only worsened by the game’s drab color scheme and blurry textures.

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite suffered from a similar lack of cel-shading. Many of the game’s assets were reused from other titles, including character models taken from the cel-shaded Marvel vs Capcom 3. Although many of these characters looked fantastic in MvC 3, the lack of cel-shading in Infinite led to most character models suffering from blurry textures and uncanny faces.

A fan-made mod titled Marvel vs Capcom Infinite & Beyond restored the cel-shaded visuals—as well as introducing other significant improvements and additions—and the difference in quality is immediately obvious. Nearly all of the game’s graphical issues were resolved with the cel-shading fix, and even the original game’s worst-looking characters have been drastically improved with this mod.

Although cel-shading isn’t as detailed as more realistic rendering techniques, it’s just as complex—if not more so—than any other 3D style. Cel-shaded visuals require an immense amount of work to design custom lighting programs and stylized 3D models.

In some cases, it may be easier for developers to stick with more realistic art styles due to the complex and lengthy process of creating an appealing cel-shaded aesthetic. It’s easy to understand why many studios avoid cel-shaded graphics, but it has delivered some of the best-looking 3D games of all time.

Cel-Shaded Graphics Are Timeless

3D graphics rarely age gracefully. Graphics that seemed realistic back on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox will seem dated next to practically any recent releases. Even the best-looking games from just a decade ago don’t often hold up to modern graphical standards.

Thankfully, this isn’t a problem for cel-shaded games. Whereas low-detailed textures and simple lighting stand out as glaring issues in more realistic titles, cel-shaded graphics can pass off these technical limitations as deliberate design choices.

Auto Modellista wasn’t the best racing game on the PlayStation 2, but its striking cel-shaded art style has aged better than most of its contemporaries. Whereas other PS2 racing games like Gran Turismo 4 and Need for Speed: Underground depict their real-world cars in exhaustive detail, the licensed vehicles of Auto Modellista are styled to look like they were lifted directly from the pages of comics and manga.

Auto Modellista‘s vibrant colors and simple textures give the game’s cars and tracks a unique 2D appearance. The anime aesthetic is further emphasized by other visual effects, such as the speed lines that surround cars as they tear through tracks or the lines that trail behind your tires while drifting. Even the jagged 3D models and low-detail reflections contribute to the game’s animated presentation.

Ōkami takes a different approach to cel-shading with an art style that’s anything but simple. Every aspect of Ōkami‘s presentation is carefully designed to resemble a watercolor painting. Like many other cel-shaded games, Ōkami presents its world and characters with dark outlines and bright colors, but it adds subtle imperfections to each of these elements. Every line is shaped to resemble a brush stroke, with faint inconsistencies in their shape and thickness, creating the feeling that the game’s world was painted by hand.

Like a watercolor painting, colors smudge outside the lines, shadows are represented with pitch-black ink blots, and the course texture of the skies and backgrounds lends to the sense that everything you see in Ōkami was painted on a canvas. Despite its age, there still isn’t any game that has masterfully replicated the hand-painted style quite like Ōkami.

Probably the most famous use of cel-shading in games is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. While its cartoon-y art style was initially contentious among fans and critics, the game’s unique presentation has played a large part in its enduring popularity. Whereas most cel-shaded games feature comic-inspired art styles with thick outlines and bold colors, Wind Waker sets itself apart with its use of softer edges and a lighter color palette.

Wind Waker‘s cel-shaded art style is supported by a fantastic art direction that can be seen in its expressive character designs, memorable locales, and even the calm waves that stretch across its oceanic setting. Later Zelda entries adopted more realistic art styles, but the cel-shaded graphics of Wind Waker have aged far better than any of its sequels.

High-definition remasters have also revived cel-shaded classics with better visuals than their original release. The HD remasters of Jet Set Radio and Ōkami update the blurry textures of the original releases, allowing these already stunning games to look even more impressive. The Wii U-exclusive The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD delivered an even more drastic overhaul of its original cel-shaded graphics, updating it with a brand-new lighting system, improved textures, higher resolution (obviously), and an overall brighter color palette.

Unlike games with realistic graphics, the quality of cel-shaded visuals doesn’t depend on its hardware. A strong art direction and clever use of simpler graphics have allowed games from nearly two decades and multiple console generations ago to withstand the test of time.

Cel-Shaded Games Are Experiencing a Renaissance

In the early years of HD consoles, stylized video games took a backseat to photorealistic graphics. While there were some successful cel-shaded games released during this period—including Street Fighter IV and the Borderlands series—most games (especially those marketed towards older audiences) aimed to be as lifelike as possible.

However, gaming trends have changed since then, and more games have been willing to experiment with a wider variety of art styles. With this shift back towards creative presentation and unconventional visual styles, cel-shaded games have once again raised the bar for stylized 3D graphics.

Guilty Gear Xrd sparked a wave of beautifully rendered cel-shaded fighting games. Thanks to its clever use of limited animation (that is, animation produced at low frame rates), clever camerawork, and a striking cel-shaded art style, it’s easy to mistake Xrd‘s expressive 3D character models for 2D sprites. Xrd‘s presentation doesn’t just capture the look and feel of its pixelated predecessors, but outright surpasses them with visuals that boast more detail and personality than the 2D sprites of the past. The 3D visuals also allow the game to swing the camera around to dynamically showcase explosive super attacks and instant-kill finishers.

Guilty Gear developer Arc System Works has continually refined its cel-shaded presentation across other fighting games, including Dragonball FighterZ, Granblue Fantasy Versus, and DNF Duel. All of these games look fantastic, though Arc System Works arguably perfected this style with Guilty Gear Strive, which still boasts the most impressive visuals of any game from the studio.

Arc System Works isn’t the only studio to push the boundaries of cel-shading. Tango Gameworks delivered a similar visual feast with Hi-Fi Rush, a rhythm-action game in which your attacks are synced to the game’s soundtrack.

Although most of the game takes place in industrial factories and office spaces, Hi-Fi Rush‘s cel-shaded art style turns every stage into a colorful spectacle. Its stunning presentation is further helped by the fact that every aspect of the game’s animation—from the UI to the environment itself—moves along with the music, resulting in an experience that feels like playing through an interactive music video.

Nintendo has also continued to elevate cel-shading to new heights with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. In contrast to the cartoonish art style of Wind Waker, both games feature a storybook aesthetic that strikes a satisfying middle-ground between realism and stylized visuals.

Environments are grounded in detail (at least, as grounded as you can get for a setting with floating islands), but are coated in vivid colors that pop out from their surroundings. The result is a world that often resembles a painting, with bright greens illuminating the grassy plains and piercing reds surging through corrupted landscapes in the late-game areas.

Character and creature designs are similarly varied in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Both allies and enemies are presented with light colors and low-detail textures that resemble pastel art. Much like the environments, their designs straddle the line between the cartoonishness of Wind Waker and the more grounded styles of other 3D Zelda games like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. It’s a gorgeous art style that brings a picturesque quality to every frame while making the most of the Nintendo Switch’s limited hardware.

Of course, these aren’t the only recent games to use cel-shading in inventive ways. The Valkyria Chronicles series combines a traditional anime art style with the presentation of a watercolor painting. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk revived the iconic graffiti-inspired aesthetic of Jet Set Radio while updating it to present a sci-fi world that feels even more lively than its inspiration. Untitled Goose Game lacks detailed textures altogether, instead using flat colors, limited shading, and simplistic character models to create the game’s minimalist art style.

These are just a few examples of the many ways games have continued to use cel-shading to create one-of-a-kind experiences.

There are still plenty of other fantastic cel-shaded titles that I didn’t mention here able to mention here, such as the ultra-violent Wii-exclusive Mad World and the comic-inspired first-person shooter XIII. Cel-shading has a wide versatility for replicating iconic art styles and delivering completely original aesthetics, and its long-overdue revival will only help even more games become timeless classics.