RND/ To consider PC screenshot paintings of the supreme emptiness of Apex Legends:
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To consider Apex Legends one of the more aesthetically ugly (neckless, safe, generic, corporatized, sterile, wishy-washy, bland) games around. As though the developers threw every single known style at the wall and kept whatever failed to immediately slide off back into the toilet. For what exactly the style or ‘look’ of the game? Not that this is even that important in the modern age where the overall spectacle of the game is what counts, and not the look; the meaning of the look. The meaning of the look of Apex Legends appears to be ‘Anything’. A style of non-style. The style called ‘Mishmash’. Not exactly ‘tribal’, not entirely ‘cyberpunk’, nor truly ‘anime’.
One can easily imagine looking back at this game, not with ‘fond’ memories but with ‘decidedly mixed’ memories. What was it, exactly? What kind of universe was Apex Legends? Dark Souls, now that’s a universe with it’s own style. Same with the original Doom, or Quake. But Apex is the Apex Of Emptiness. Of hollow aesthetic signifiers, of a ‘Born Sterile’ art style. Almost like its creator’s didn’t give too shits what was being shown on screen, just as long as players played it. What counts is engagement with the platform, the amount of shitty cosmetic skins, animated banner poses, $100 dollar loot boxes filled with empty digital dogshit. In many ways, consider Apex Legends an (/inherently evil) hypercorporate Free To Play model made Violently Bland Virtual Flesh.
Virtual Photography Exhibit: Global Videogame Capitalism and its Existential Threat
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