I love how level creation for games like Doom and Quake has developed into these small, independent scenes, with a rich community history and a real sense of taste and refinement in how they approach designing for these games. In the same way that "pixel art" has evolved from a necessity driven by the limits of early hardware, through early attempts to recreate a "retro" look, to the point where it is a well-developed aesthetic that is used as an informed choice.<p>It might sound a bit pretentious, but it really feels like the video games have begun to reach a point of maturity akin to older forms of art, where people are no longer fumbling around in the dark so much, or chasing the technological zeitgeist. Instead creators are consciously embracing and exploring different limitations and aesthetics, in the same way a painter might use different types of paint, with all these diverse styles and scenes, which are at once independent yet also informed by each other.