Oh it was definitely beautiful, it just never seemed relevant to what was happening. More like the art team run amok. TP1 at least had an in universe explanation for the shape of the world.

Spoilers…kinda

I guess Athena and crew have invented literal universe manipulation powers? Allowing them to craft whatever beauty they see fit. Yet, their living quarters always seem to be some dingy basement lab with power cables and other miscellaneous garbage strewn about. The wondrous environments seemed fully disconnected from everything else in the world.

If they had the time and the budget, go nuts, but the game would have been perfectly suitable with significantly lower fidelity graphics.