What is the biggest limiting factor for putting 100s and 1000s of 2d pixel art animations on screen at 30fps? Is it Hardware(cpu gpu), software(bad code, not using c++, inefficient game engine), or production(human drawing all those sprites)? With a computer as powerful as a Xbox one can an artist go nuts without performance worries?

The limiting factor definitely involves not using c++, bad moon and forgetting to remove the laundry from the washer.

Alphabet said:

With a computer as powerful as a Xbox one can an artist go nuts without performance worries?

Yes, pretty much.

It has to be horrible, horrible code for stuff not to “just work out”. Is there any specific reason why you're asking - is it a scenario you're facing?

@SuperVGA TLDR: Yes, Im having an analysis paralysis problem. I want to create a game with a ton of animations but i dont know where to start because every 2d game engine's game examples that ive looked at hasnt done highly animated/physics environments. Why?

Example: An explosion will happen on screen and the ground wont dent, chunks of rock and dirt wont fly, the pillar next to it wont crack, shrapnel isn't slicing through the environment and through enemy skin and clothes, clothes arent blowing in the wind, the trees and grass arent burned to a black crisp, the light from the explosion isnt bouncing off the environment. I would go gay for a night to buy a copy of a game like this XD. This is what 2d games would have become if 3d games didnt take over and didnt take the big budgets with them. The older 2d games didnt do these things because of the hardware restrictions of their time, so surely the new tech can push passed that.

So im trying to understand how to achieve this without throwing away countless hour only to find out what 2d devs may have known all along. That i should of used a better faster programming language, or the game engine im using is too limited by design or that one person couldnt accomplish this in one lifetime. Enter the Gungeon is a 2d but secretly 3d top down shooter that has frame stutters on the PS4 even though its not a graphicly intensive game. Why, is it because Unity5 sucks or the c# code they used sucks?

Are developers just cash grabbing off nostalgia?

Are they uninspired?

Are they lazy?

Are the developers not pushing 2d games further because they dont have the expertise?

Is the return on the investment perceived to not be worth it?

3d complexity bumps into hardware limitations so it cant just go crazy with visuals and physics at the same time. This weakness should be exploited by 2d game devs but its not. Why?

Hope this isnt too long!

I'm not sure if your question is technical or if this is more of an open thing discussing existing games. Whether 2D games would have become what you describe if 3D games didn't “take over” is difficult to say. What you've described isn't out of this world, but it's also worth mentioning that this isn't just about 1000 passive animations - it's about sprites and environment responding to something. I really don't see why it wouldn't be possible though.

I bet I don't need to elaborate on why it's easier to do dynamic grass and cloth with 3D models than something that was painted pixel-by-pixel though: computing the result of something is easier than having an artist produce say - reactions to a mild gust of wind coming from NNW on a specific set of clothes paintable in 16 directions.
That's not to say you can't "just" render 3D models in 2D. (Enter the Gungeon and Dungeon of The Endless compromise wrt. their sprites)

Perhaps creating 3D models for everything and then sticking with an orthographic projection would make investors feel like it's losing some potential? Why not use a perspective projection instead - what's there to lose besides the 2D part?