As far as I see and read, the downgrade claims aren't well backed. The holy grail trailers everyone seems to love have scenes that look terribly worse than the scenes praised over and over.
I even heard that the animations from VGX were better than anything we've seen before, and then they show the extended combat section in the "dev diaries" and its hilariously bad compared to the current showings of the game.
I think people worried about the graphics should try to understand that "quality" isnt some kind of precise number or amount you can count and compare, inside what makes a game's looks are many things separate from the technical aspects, such as pure art design, which unlike in the real world also tweaks the lightning and how it affects objects, the camera, the colours, naturally the time of the day, what specific clouds were blocking and/or allowing light in the scene, and post processing effects which get changed a lot.
I see many posts trying to argue the quality is inferior now, and when someone shows them its not, they start picking on what was saturation like before, contrast, etc. The overall look of the game, whether its now worse or better or the same, can change but not ALWAYS because of a downgrade, the devs tweak the game, just like I tweak my paintings for dozens of hours, and we end up with different results that we dont necessarily consider inferior, what the artists want and think is appropriate changes as the project goes on, especially during years, and in addition to this of course, a game is something extremely dynamic, you likely will never see the same exact scene again but in different versions or playthroughs.
If I have to talk about the village for example, what makes it look great is very very clear at least to me:
- The wind effects and the things flying, which differ according to the wind simulation the game has, and what place are you seeing.
- Everything moves, again, because of the wind, but also many animals and the windmills and the child all combined.
- The sharpening filter, it makes everything look so detailed you cannot properly tell whats the detail of the actual textures without the filter, additionally, that filter makes things "vibrate", which also creates more movement, and allows you to see detail from the textures you would only notice from up close without the filter.
- The shadow from the tree to the left covers half the image and naturally, because of the wind, it moves and makes everything have more depth and volume by blocking direct flat sunlight, otherwise the kid and the house and cart would look just as flat as the woman to the right, or the house to the right, or anything else to the right actually. Pay attention of course to the fact that the leaves flying are illuminated against that same shadow, which makes an excellent contrast you wouldn't see otherwise.
My personal opinion is that while some previous footage of the game looks better to me than most of what we get these days, thats because of very special characteristics of the scenes, not because of the graphics quality, I cannot possibly ignore some things missing from new footage that would make a comparison more apt, like the wind in the village and the dusk light in the swamps of VGX which we never saw ever again in any footage. For example people liked to compared that to the swamps from johnny but they are not even the same, because the one from the demo has a blue/gray mist that blocks light not allowing strong contrast to be made, and that was recorded during noon or afternoon, where sunlight has less colour.
Point is im not saying its downgraded or not, but im saying the footage we were given has key differences that make it impossible to judge somewhat accurately how the graphics have changed. I've said it already, to me the game now looks worse than before, but why? because we didnt see the same things, thats why, not because the same things as before are now of lower quality or downgraded, and if you are worried about the graphics, as you should be because its an important aspect, at least admit we cannot make a truly fair comparison, its pure logic. Exaggerations like saying a downgrade is confirmed, or its obvious, or its clear, or that you have evidence are just useless rage and attempts to create conflict.
I prefer to deal with what makes sense and seems rational, and in this case that means to realize that too much from the previous footage is entirely missing in the new footage, and thus any comparison is a major stretch. The only thing we can do, is hope CDPR releases footage that showcase the game's graphics better, and that some of that is actually comparable to the previous footage, as things are right now its way too different.
. Allow me to give my opinion on the situation.
