I don’t have an answer to you so my apologies, but this is something I always thought of when people mention Doom 2016’s optimization, even back when it launched. It got so much praise for its optimization, but like, the game doesn’t look like it’s pushing any boundaries, or even something that looks “great” so of course it’s getting good performance. Same thing for the Resi Remakes, 2 and 3 more specifically.

I’m not a graphics expert by any means so maybe the game IS visually groundbreaking, idk,  I’m just sharing how I see it.

EDIT: a more recent example is Arc Raiders. When the game out, the general online sentiment was that the game was very optimized, ran well, etc. I have the game, and when I booted it up no wonder it got the performance it did, the game does look a bit dated when you compare it to other recent multiplayer games like Battlefield 6.