I was recently playing The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter again and got to wonder how games that both run Unreal Engine 4 can look so different. I am also wondering why DTG do not make tsw look better in such a way as The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter Looks. (screenshot of the vanishing of Ethan Carter) (Train sim world 4 Blackpool Branches)
TSW has a lot of asset and map loading (think Euro Truck Simulator 2), so I guess it's to improve performance.
Tsw has much more going on. It needs be a close representation of the environment. They need to model a bunch of traffic and assets which take up a lot of resources. Lots more moving parts and I guess a bigger world. Simulators are different from other games
I think you are really comparing apples to oranges here. Most games have pretty small worlds so almost every bit can be art-directed to look a certain way. Games like TSW on the other hand need to cover a huge area so it's just impossible to make everything detailed and unique. Then there's the question of art style (even when going for a realistic look) where TSW needs to be somewhat practical (so none of that distance blur effect or very strong fog by default) because you need to be able to clearly see signals and stuff.
The Ethan Carter image looks like a painting, it's a very nice artistic style but not in the least bit appropriate for a game trying to simulate the real world. Also the hole the metal pole goes through is identical on all 3 pillars, such sloppy reuse of assets in close proximity would likely warrant multiple threads lamenting how DTG are lazy and just in it for the money.
