2011 (Driver San Francisco) vs. 2016 (Watch Dogs 2)

Alright, game dev here though the statement has already been made over a collection of other comments: * Driver SF is a racing game, racing games can take greater liberties with graphics because they only have to keep track of a few things like car positions, velocity, basic collisions, etc... even if they do have NPCs they are very basic NPCs with collisions disabled / they run away from your car. * Watch_Dogs2 is an open world game, a LOT of things have to be processed at the same time, cars, people, boats, etc... the collisions are better than those in racing games, there's all kinds of AI interactions going on between a great number of agents, making an open world game that also looks fantastic and runs well is an achievement. * Driver SF has no motion blur on this screenshot, making the road (which occupies almost 50% of the screenshot) look well defined. * Watch_Dogs2 has motion blur enabled on the screenshot, making the road (which also occupies almost 50% of the screenshot) look like a blurry mess and giving the overall feeling that it actually looks worse. * Driver SF has an evening lighting setup where everything is darker (sun facing the camera, casting large shadows towards the viewer), darker CGI tends to look less uncanny as we cannot see as many details as we would on a well lit scene. * Watch_Dogs2 has a left-right lighting set up which sets up a huge contrast between light and shadow, making it look more cartoony / less realistic than it is most of the time. * Driver SF has a cloudy sky which adds more variation / detail to the screenshot. * The Watch_Dogs2 screenshot was taken on a mostly clear day, making the sky look boring.

To be honest both of these screenshots feel like they were cherry picked to favor Driver SF and make Watch_Dogs look bad in comparison, if you're going to compare something (even though these are different genres and one can take more liberties with the graphics than the other) make sure you do it under the same camera and lighting conditions, preferably weather as well (and at the max settings both games are capable of).

/r/watch_dogs Thread Link - i.redd.it