Lushfoil Photography Sim Review

With modern advancements in video game visuals, the idea of a built-in “photo mode” is almost ubiquitous now in AAA titles. I’ll admit to spending way too many hours definitely not progressing in some games for want of capturing every jaw-dropping vista or impossibly-detailed set decoration I possibly can – it almost feels like a waste of all of those development hours if I’m not taking the time to truly appreciate everything. But what if you took 90% of the game out of one of these games and focused almost exclusively on the photo part?

The product of a solo developer (with support from publisher Annapurna), Lushfoil Photography Sim attempts to answer that very question. It’s an impressive visual effort running in the very same Unreal Engine 5 that powers a lot of those AAA experiences, though the subject matter also means it offers itself up to an even greater level of scrutiny. With no ray-tracing features, shots of bodies of water can be a bit quirky, for example, and I’d gladly have traded the PS5 version’s 60FPS performance for an uplift in some areas. Still, the overall effect is nothing short of breathtaking.

Australia mentioned

It’s the atmosphere of these distinct locations across the globe that really pours through. The painstakingly authored nature, carefully selected conditions and accompanying soundscapes all contribute to a fantastic sense of place. In the time I’ve had the game, I’m already finding myself nostalgic for its virtual getaway destinations, often booting it up just to potter around Fushimi Inari Taisha or Le Prarion for a bit before I play something else.

Lushfoil is very slightly more of a video game than I’d anticipated, which is to say I was expecting almost no video game and got just a little bit, as a treat. Rather than hand you a brochure full of picturesque locales to shoot your shot(s) in as you see fit, the game has you work for the privilege of each new outing by gating them through a quota of specific photo targets and some scattered collectibles.

I love Death Stranding

While the latter works just fine as an incentive to explore every forking path and scan your surroundings with a keen eye for pickups themed on each region, the former makes for decent goal-setting for those of us who need a little direction in an experience this open-ended. A board posted in each map shows a selection of example photos that you’ll need to replicate, with a merciful degree of flexibility when it comes to how you frame the shot once you’ve found the correct subject and angle. If you’ve ever appreciated the likes of Pokémon Snap but wished that nothing moved, this could be more your speed.

It’s just as well, too, because you’ll want all the time you can get to become acquainted with your virtual DSLR and all of its functions. This is the kind of game that photography nerds will revel in for how it simulates a real camera, but it’s also quite gentle in bringing in the unfamiliar among us with some optional tutorials strewn about, and absolutely no sense of urgency. I’ve barely touched a camera in years beyond the one that’s in my phone, and playing Lushfoil immediately took away a lot of the anxiety around figuring out what all of those symbols and numbers on a “real” camera actually mean. There’s genuine potential here as an introduction to the art, and I’d be surprised if it doesn’t inspire some new hobbies or careers.

Trauma

The game’s greatest trick actually has less to do with its ability to simulate the technical intricacies of photography, though, and more with the magic of a photo’s ability to capture and preserve a place in time. Every shot you take and keep in your growing in-game album is more than just a visual record – with a quick button press, they can instantly transport you to exactly where you were standing and looking when they were taken. It’s fast travel by photo album, and it kinda rules. There are limitations; you can only fast travel within the same region/map, but it’s a genius way to realise the art of photography in the context of a virtual space.

Undermining that, though, is the way the game’s storage of your photos works – at least on PS5. Here, your shots are only ever saved in your in-game album, and not as screenshots in your PlayStation’s storage. What this means is twofold; firstly, you’ll need to manually screenshot any photos you want to share outside of the game. Second and more concerning, there’s a hard limit on the number of photos you can store in-game and, with the quality level set to maximum, it’s only a couple dozen before you’ll need to start trashing them. Filling an SD card is annoying enough in the real world, but to have the same issue in a virtual environment is kinda wack.

Final Thoughts

I love to see projects like this in the games space, ideas that are hyper-specific and borne of a deep passion for something, and then given some genuine backing in production. Lushfoil winds up a wonderful game of Show and Tell, where the Show is Matt Newell saying “Look at all these great trees I made!,” and the Tell is a set of handy instructions on how to take a really good photo of them.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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