Been the same way for over 10 years: Just Better Lighting Graphics Breakthrough

This is a 3-panel meme that uses the iconic Donnie Darko therapy conversation template to joke about trends in modern video game graphics development. In the first panel, Jake Gyllenhaal's character Donnie states 'I made a breakthrough in graphics rendering'. In the second panel, his therapist asks the skeptical question 'A breakthrough or just better lighting?'. In the final panel, Donnie confirms the punchline 'Just better lighting', paired with a screenshot of the graphically impressive open world game Horizon Zero Dawn, which relies heavily on advanced dynamic lighting for its visual quality. The meme pokes fun at the fact that most so-called 'graphical breakthroughs' in video games over the past decade have been mostly improvements to lighting technology, rather than fundamental jumps in other rendering or texture technology.

This meme originates from Reddit, posted as a user-created meme with the original title 'Been the same way for over 10 years'. It repurposes the existing famous therapy scene template from the 2001 film Donnie Darko, which is a widely used meme format for questions revealing an uncomfortable or relatable truth.