Veteran designer Randy Smith Evergreen, whose career includes work on several Thief games, believes many studios should prioritise strong content and satisfying gameplay over ever-rising visual budgets.
His argument is particularly relevant to immersive sims, a genre built around player choice, systems and atmosphere rather than visual spectacle alone. Smith Evergreen says independent developers should avoid allowing the pursuit of hyper-realistic graphics to turn manageable projects into enormous productions.
A smaller budget may suit immersive sims
Smith Evergreen recalls that the original Thief cost approximately $3 million to develop. He believes a comparable project could cost less today, partly because developers can access ready-made digital assets instead of creating every component from scratch.
For a modern Thief– or Deus Ex-style immersive sim made in 2026, he suggests a budget of roughly $3 million to $10 million. He is not convinced the audience is large enough to support the financial risk of a conventional AAA production.
“It’s not clear to me that the $3-million Thief or Deus Ex-style immersive sim that you want to make in the year 2026 is going to sell disproportionately different amounts of copies than the $250-million one that comes out of a big studio.”
His preferred approach is a smaller project developed by a fast-moving team of knowledgeable, passionate developers. That philosophy has parallels with the focused design often found in classic arcade gaming, where clear objectives and responsive play can matter more than technical excess.
When visual fidelity stops adding value
Smith Evergreen argues that a game only needs enough visual fidelity to establish its atmosphere and communicate the information players need. Beyond that point, additional detail can become an expensive production goal rather than a meaningful design improvement.
He remembers playing Alan Wake when it launched and being struck by how convincingly its visuals established that the character was travelling by ferry towards an island in the Pacific Northwest. For him, that level of clarity raised a simple question: if the setting and situation are already unmistakable, what does adding more graphics achieve?
He acknowledges that players would enjoy an immersive sim featuring spectacular vistas and the kind of polished environments associated with Arkane Lyon. However, he questions whether that level of presentation is essential to the genre’s appeal.
Gameplay can outlast production scale
As an example of a smaller, creatively ambitious game, Smith Evergreen points to FTL. The beloved indie title was made quickly and with limited resources, yet its strong gameplay and inventive systems helped it stand out over the long term.
That is the direction he would like to see more of across the independent sector: high-quality games made with care, but without enormous budgets dictated by a race for visual realism. For players interested in how presentation, controls and hardware work together, RETROCADE’s arcade machine buying guide offers a practical starting point, while arcade parts can help with hands-on projects.
The idea is not that graphics are unimportant. Rather, Smith Evergreen’s view is that visual style should serve the game’s mood and mechanics, instead of becoming the main reason a project requires a blockbuster budget.
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