Favourite Artstyle?

[Aalda11]

How did TW1 feel more slavic? Unless some evidence is given I'm going to interpret that statement as coming from the grimdark feeling of 1 as being slavic.

But the "grimdark feeling" is a part of the reason! The Central/Eastern Europe isn't as stark, as vibrant, as striking as some other parts of the world. The sun is usually lower, the lighting flatter, colours more subdued. The rolling landscape with small bosks and settlements is beautiful in its own right but it isn't the scenic beauty of mountainous or tropic regions.

TW1 nailed it perfectly. The act with the wheat fields remains to this day the most atmospheric and memorable in the videogame history. My guess is CDPR wanted to create Velen in a similar slavic, "grimdark" vein but then somebody from global marketing or whatever said "this is too boring, let's make it more like a theme park". So with got the tropical, vibrant colours and idiotic, garish sunsets straight from Pirates of Caribbean.

 

[redwood36]

Act IV of TW1 is literally a slavic folk tale in video game form. The closest Witcher 3 comes to that is The Devil By The Well, but that completely misses the point of family and the "village" unit in slavic culture.
>source:
Although genetically Thracian/Slavic/Asian mixture, I was raised in a country with Slavic culture.

Is this topic not about artstyle? Is it instead suddenly about the narrative content? While the stories from act IV may have ties to slavic folk lore, it's visuals do not. At least when looking at screen shots from the wiki or drawing from my memory of it(admittedly some time ago). So again, if you have actual evidence, please present it. I am interested to see.

But the "grimdark feeling" is a part of the reason! The Central/Eastern Europe isn't as stark, as vibrant, as striking as some other parts of the world. The sun is usually lower, the lighting flatter, colours more subdued. The rolling landscape with small bosks and settlements is beautiful in its own right but it isn't the scenic beauty of mountainous or tropic regions.

TW1 nailed it perfectly. The act with the wheat fields remains to this day the most atmospheric and memorable in the videogame history. My guess is CDPR wanted to create Velen in a similar slavic, "grimdark" vein but then somebody from global marketing or whatever said "this is too boring, let's make it more like a theme park". So with got the tropical, vibrant colours and idiotic, garish sunsets straight from Pirates of Caribbean.

sorry what? I could go on.

 

[Amioran]

As a result most White Orchard and Velen ended up half bland, half cartoonish and not very atmospheric.

On the other hand they nailed Skellige BEAUTIFULLY. I really couldn't get enough of the vistas, the landscape design, the textures and so on. Skellige is definitelly a high point of this game, atmosphere-wise.

White Orchard is unquestionably the worst area in the game. It seems like Geralt is outing on a park on sunday, taking the family with him. Velen is not much better (actually the lightning there is even worse) but since the locales are more diversified, there are crowded cities and the quests are wonderful the atmosphere results better in the end.

Skellige, on the other hand, is well done and a great step up in comparison to before. Still also there the damn orange filter and oversaturation remains, albeit less noticeable given the nature of the lightning (and also the fact that at that point you grow accustomed to that filter).

Even if it's just a SweetFX preset when I use my medieval color scheme the game at last has a serious tone, differently from before. There are some scenes in which instead of a Witcher game it seems like you are playing Guild Wars (and not 2 but 1). Even W2 had the same problem but at last there the context was working alongside it; this time around CDPR did go back to the more dark tone in W1 (rightly so, imo) but the execution in the color/lightning department don't backup that tone.

 

[dragonbird]

If this is turning into another discussion about TW3 graphics, and it appears that it is, please continue it over here:
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/36987-Witcher-3-Graphics

 

[backrow12]

I loved the 1 overall art style, although village design and even few of the abandoned keeps in W3 are very slavic and atmospheric imo.
W2 takes the take as far as armour design goes, Witcher's stuff is phenomenal, knights and men at arms look like they stepped out of the history book (although different eras, but still).
W3 tries and merges some of it, but does have a different vibe.