Modern Linux distributions don't just rely on syslog files; in fact, they don't need to rely on syslog at all. Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS all have systemd as an init system, and bundled with systemd is a service called journald (systemd-journald.service).
This service acts as the journaling solution for your system, and utilizes binary logs instead of text-based logs.
While it's possible to ignore syslog entirely, and just use journald, a lot of systems now use both, to make the transition from one format to another easier. If you're using something like Arch or Gentoo, you may decide to dismiss syslog solutions entirely, in favour of journald alone.