CD Projekt Red has responded to concerns from fans that The Witcher 3 has seen some significant visual downgrading since the first impressive screenshots of the game surfaced.
The discussion was sparked off by several screenshots released at the recent Igromir 2014 expo in Russia.
One shot in particular of hero Geralt squaring off against some wolves seems to lack the advanced fur technology CD Projekt has claimed would be included in The Witcher 3; check that out in the video above, and compare it to the screenshot at the bottom of the page.
Fueling these fur-inspired fires was a comment from NeoGAF user Anaxymenes, who claimed inside knowledge, and suggested that CD Projekt’s PR ”is creating an overblown vision of a game that doesn’t exist”. His insider status was ”vetted and cleared” by a NeoGAF admin - make of that what you will.
CD Projekt community manager Marcin Momot subsequently dismissed the fears in an interview with Worldsfactory; ”The final version of the game will look better than what can be seen in the latest screenshots – no matter the platform. As you probably know, when publishing screenshots, some of them can be subjectively less appealing than others (depending on one’s opinion), that’s perfectly normal. The most important thing here is that the game will come out looking gorgeous when we are done working on it. There will be no downgrade.”
Worried fans are probably thinking of Watch Dogs’ well documented graphical downgrade, as well as, at the more extreme end of the spectrum, the ongoing hoohah regarding Colonial Marines. Upon first glance those latest screenshots looked rather good to me, but studying them closer I can see why some people have concerns.
Interesting. It would certainly be nice to hear which settings and hardware CD Projekt used for the latest shots, but of course that’s unlikely to happen. Momot’s rather definitive statement will have to do. What do you think, a reasonable cause for concern, or a lot of fuss about nothing?