Shadows and lighting are the backbone of immersion, yet it’s striking how many modern PC titles only implement primary shadows — from the sun or moon — while completely skipping secondary shadows indoors or at night. Walk into a house lit by a fireplace, or stand near a torch in a dungeon, and your character casts no shadow at all. It feels unfinished, especially when mobile games in the same genres manage to include these effects.

Examples are everywhere: Dyson Sphere Program, Enshrouded, Crimson Desert, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Diablo IV, Horizon Zero Dawn/West — all show shadows outdoors during the day, but indoors or near artificial light sources, shadows vanish. In “most wanted” upcoming titles like Lunar Strike, Soulmask, Deep Rock Galactic, Last Flag, Spellcasters, Den of Wolves, Brightfall, Rivage, Nioh 3, Resident Evil Requiem, the same issue appears.

Lighting effects suffer too. Many recent games render special effects — spells, skills, explosions — in a single flat color shade. It looks uncanny, stripping away depth. In Thick as Thieves, Killing Floor 3, Last Flag, Spellcasters, Luna Abyss, Remnant Protocol, Rivage, Starsand Island, Liquid Swords, the problem is obvious. And in Light No Fire, one arrow explosion turned the entire screen white — the radius was so exaggerated it drowned out everything else. That’s not dramatic lighting, that’s broken balance.

What makes this bizarre is that mobile games often do better. They use baked shadows and efficient lighting systems that run even on weaker hardware. So why are PC releases, with far more power available, cutting corners? There’s no technical reason — it’s either budget, shortcuts, or misplaced priorities.

Good lighting isn’t just cosmetic. It’s atmosphere, immersion, and realism. When developers skip secondary shadows or flatten effects into one color, it breaks the illusion and makes otherwise beautiful worlds feel hollow. And saying “other games do it worse” doesn’t excuse it. As Geralt of Rivia put it: evil is evil, lesser, greater, middling… it’s all the same. Bad lighting is bad lighting, whether small or big.