Graphics

The lighting effects are often beautiful.

The Secret World reached its three-year milestone recently, and the game's vintage is painfully obvious in the dated-looking textures in particular. The game offers some truly beautiful sights to behold, and I challenge anyone to not be awed by the ruined streets and crumbling skyscrapers on show in the New York raid the first time they see them, but getting close to any of the objects in the environment reveals some pretty low-resolution textures, and basic-looking object models. It's a credit to the art design team, then, that the game looks as good as it does.

It doesn't hurt that The Secret World supports some impressive DirectX 11 effects for players who have beefy enough hardware to render them. On maximum settings, the rain-slicked streets of Seoul, and the foggy forests of Maine make for breathtaking spectacles. Unfortunately, the game engine is not especially well-optimized, so even the latest and greatest hardware sometimes struggles on maximum settings.

Atmospheric environments abound.