I just don’t get it - let’s spend so much money, development and hardware to render the most clean game possible, avoid aliasing and increase detail… And then let’s enable color distortion as if we were vieweing the game through a 1930’s cinema projector. Add in some film grain too! This saves me the effort of covering my monitor with dirt!
Make sure to make those options enabled by default on every game you release too!
But my point is precisely that games are adding these effects where they do not belong, which includes first person games where there’s no “camera”.
The counterpoint given is artistic expression. If a designer wants the game to feel like an interactive film, then they’re going to use the tropes found in films.
If chromatic abberation enhances the mood or feel or themes of a title, I think it’s fine to use as long as there’s an optional toggle to remove it for folks that don’t like it.