7 Video Games We Wish had a Photo Mode
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Virtual photographers know the pains of taking breathtaking screenshots in video games without dedicated photo modes. Even for regular gamers, titles have a graphical style with an immersive world full of adventures, oddities, and nightmares they wish to capture better. However, not all AAA or indie games have a camera mode. Here are seven titles that The Load Screen team wishes had a photo mode, listed in alphabetical order.
1. Destiny 2
With all the graphical updates Bungie has unleashed for Destiny 2, none of them contained the treasured photo mode to take better shots of unique Fireteams. There are thousands of combinations of skins for a guardian’s guns and gear, but no good way to show them off. Even the planets that make up the game’s playable area offer unique climates that would benefit from an in-game camera mode.
2. Detroit Become Human
Quantic Dream developed a game truly ahead of its time for modeling and futuristic semi-dystopian design in Detroit Become Human. It boasts an amazing cast, including Jesse Williams, Clancy Brown, and Lance Henriksen, who star as graphically detailed characters and lifelike androids. Even the penetrating gaze of the start menu’s AI is one of the most photogenic we have ever encountered. That same detailing carries into every Hollywood cinema-worthy episode of this single-player title, but it misses a photo mode.
(Image credit: Quantic Dream)
3. Elden Ring
For a title that many hardcore gamers will consider Game of the Year for 2022, Elden Ring is missing a good in-game camera system. FromSoftware made a crazy difficult campaign set in a destroyed city surrounding one of the most majestic trees we have ever seen but only gave us a telescope to see anything with better details. Good luck getting usable screenshots in a game where everything is lethal and multiple deaths cost Runes, which is both experience and currency.
4. Little Nightmares Series
The indies Little Nightmares 1 and 2 are hauntingly beautiful, so it was hard to pick just one to put on our list. The lighting choices and overall darkness used in most scenes within the games developed by Tarsier Studios add to the mysterious mood. The shadowy child protagonists run into deranged and demented creatures with a taste for the living. Each encounter has a Tim Burton feel but lacks a good option for capturing the uniqueness.
5. Stray
Traversing a uniquely developed post-apocalyptic city as one of the cutest feline protagonists makes Stray one of the best indies in 2022. BlueTwelve Studio put its heart into making the perfect adventure for a cat. Still, they did themselves a disservice by not giving gamers a photo mode to immortalize the game’s epic cuteness! The player can interact with every robotic citizen and cause momentary havoc, but they must be quick with the screenshots to catch the action.
6. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Taking good pictures in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is easier for some PC players with the right Nvidia graphics cards, but others, including console gamers, are out of luck. There is no word from the developers at CD Projekt Red about adding a camera mode in the next-gen update for one of the best single-player games available. In it, Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer have many adventures in war-torn lands that hide beautiful architecture and nature. Even the enemies have beauty in their grotesqueness but try timing a decent screenshot mid-combat against these unforgiving foes.
(Image credit: Telltale Games)
7. The Wolf Among Us
Telltale Games created an amazing-looking comic book view in The Wolf Among Us. They used the right amount of cell-shading that works well with the alternative designs for fairy tale characters like Bigby Wolf, the big bad wolf himself. Every storybook creature has an adult personality that shows through their design, so capturing them better with a photo mode would be nice. Hopefully, Telltales Games and Adhoc Studio will consider adding one to their glorious sequel.
