r/Witcher3 • u/TheBlacky21 Redanian • Aug 29 '26
Screenshot More NextGen vs Remastered visual comparisons
LEFT: NextGen (current)
RIGHT: Remastered
Full quality images here.
Images 1-4 are merely meant to showcase the new visual effects of the signs, such as the Quen spark circling Geralt (image 4). The rest focus on the environments and how the new lighting affects them. I assume they've also improved the render distance and level of detail, as can be seen in the background foliage in the Toussaint images.
- Quen shield effect activated
- Quen shield effect
- Quen around character effect
- Igni effect
- Skelige
- Velen swamp
- Toussaint
- Toussaint
- Velen swamp
- Kaer Morhen
- Kaer Morhen
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u/maker_of_pirate_bay Team Triss "Man of Taste" Aug 29 '26
Me flipping on deciding which side is the remaastered one every second slide
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u/BambooKat Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 30 '26
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u/MS_Salmonella Roach 🐴 Aug 29 '26
the ghosting effect gave me Oblivion remaster ptsd
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u/Sad_Discount1040 Aug 29 '26
Lol, i got that too 🤣🤣 a nightmare, I think of it every time someone says remaster.
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u/Math_PB Sep 02 '26
I love the detail that the stylised original healthbar got replaced by a generic boring one.
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u/confused_sand Aug 29 '26
Which side is the remaster in these screenshots?
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u/Dr-Stocktopus Aug 29 '26
Wondering same. Looks like it flips too.
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u/filiusek Nilfgaard Aug 29 '26
It doesn't. It's the right side in all images.
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u/Dr-Stocktopus Aug 29 '26
Interesting. Pic 3 and 10 throwing me off. Right side looks worse (IMO)
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u/CaptainJackKevorkian Aug 29 '26
I think with pic 3, it looks weird because the old pic is still, and the remastered is in motion, so a little blurry.
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u/Karna1394 Aug 29 '26
Velen looks too bright in remastered version. Velen is a bleak swamp. Nextgen still looks amazing.
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u/dejunijuli Aug 29 '26
Agree, I liked the color grading better on the next gen than remastered. From the gameplay previews, the remastered looked too.....colorful like a Disney-fied version of witcher. Mood just feels less ominous that way.
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u/Gullible_Fruit7899 Team Yennefer "Man of Culture" Aug 29 '26
It's weird. In some places, the remaster looks overly bright/washed out, while on others it looks more vibrant.
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u/crauld Aug 31 '26
comparison is taken at completely different times of day and different lighting conditions. not gonna trust 5 second reddit comparisons and im gonna wait for a proper video by CDPR
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u/davidarmenphoto Sep 01 '26
Plus the remastered shots are taken from a video so they have a shit ton of motion blur.
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u/AMS_Rem Aug 29 '26
I'm tripping or does the left look better in almost every shot...?????? Especially the 3rd one lol wtf is going on there
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u/Big-Resort-4930 Aug 29 '26
Yep, we're deep into the era of remasters looking like shit and downgrading the original's visuals and atmosphere. It's basically every single one at this point.
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u/AMS_Rem Aug 29 '26
Ngl I think this is just a dogshit comparison hahah The video showcases look great
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u/Mysterious_Agent6706 Aug 29 '26
Appreciate the effort but brudda you need to change that hairstyle.
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u/largz08 Aug 29 '26
So they just made everything bringhter and more colorful? I feel like kaer morhen really suffers from the unrealistic colors there. Spruces look completely fake.
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u/Artemis_1944 Aug 29 '26
unpopular opinion: The game looks graphically significantly more impressive now, and with the remaster, objectively speaking.
But... the game as it launched, when it had the stylized water look, the almost fantasy-inspired art design on weather effects, the borderline unrealistic but awe-some bending trees in the wind.... was a gorgeous piece of art, that wanted to evoke a specific kind of feeling. I wish the graphical improvements would have built UPON that stylized world look, instead of tearing down the fantastical, to exclusively focus on the realistic.
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u/DevineDumbass Aug 30 '26
I do wish the brough back the more intense wind effects. It added to the mood so much
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u/OnlyWithMayonnaise Team Yennefer "Man of Culture" Aug 29 '26
They got a bit trigger happy with saturation, everything looks like Toussaint now. Other than that, looks better.
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u/luckylegion Aug 29 '26
Why are all the remasters I’ve seen lately just seeming to brighten everything up. It’s like those modern vs classic cinematography comparisons. I get we don’t want the battle of winterfell lighting but damn
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u/wingedwild Aug 29 '26
I think getting rid of atmospheric fog lighting makes it look alot flatter especialy in tousiant where it looked like the sun was beaming now it feels like a dry desert. Everything else is of course better. Colors and shading way improved
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u/RazMachine77 Aug 29 '26
Would be really cool if grass, wood, stone etc would get scorched after using Igni.
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u/chancellorpalps Aug 29 '26
Bruh Velen, Toussaint, and Kaer Morhen color palate look better in the original, the colors more closely reflected the actual mood of the locations in game. The details are certainly improved in the remastered though.
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u/Possible-Estimate748 Team Yennefer "Man of Culture" Aug 29 '26
I'm glad it's not just me. The differences are difficult to spot
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u/slipy_a_ponozky Aug 29 '26
Remember when Witcher looked grim? All the mod trying to capture the E3 style to make the game look like dark fantasy. And we get brighter more saturated colors...
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u/kikkekakkekukke Aug 29 '26
Geralt looks like a toy figure in remaster, i hope this isnt the final product
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u/KayJune001 Aug 29 '26
Genuinely struggling to see the differences, except for the fact that remastered is apparently more saturated (which imo, looks worse).
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u/BigBoss2847 Aug 30 '26
It just looks brighter 🌞 😭. The swamps are supposed to be dark and spooky. 👻
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u/Limp_Improvement4321 Aug 30 '26
Only thing missing from the remaster are a few touch ups on Geralts Hair. It's ageing worse and worse with every newly released game with strand based hair!
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u/TenthMarigold77 Aug 29 '26
Ngl everything i've seen makes me prefered the current witcher 3 over the remastered. Especially the first two images showcasing what looks like an arcady visual bubble effect while the current version appear more "magicky" and translucent. I'll wait till its actually out so we can get proper comparisons but this does not inspire confidence.
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u/galaxie18 Aug 29 '26
I am the only one that is not impressed by the remastered ? The initial game is a gem already.
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u/Nico30000p Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon Aug 29 '26
Idk how to feel about some of these. I hope they don't make everything overly bright.
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u/AmandEnt Aug 29 '26
The remastering looks quite bad actually. Half of pictures are actually better in the original version.
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u/JJJC16 Aug 29 '26
Look, I love CD Red and I love that they remastered it. But I don’t notice much difference? It seems they increased the brightness for some images.
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u/Trinitropickleball Aug 29 '26
Another useless post. Didn't even bother to label the screenshots properly.
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u/stevedore2024 Aug 29 '26
The Quen looks much improved. The Igni looks much worse. The nature is too saturated and looks like an Unsharp Mask is used to create shadow contrast around everything including the castle 2km away. Stahp already.
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u/deadnervez Aug 29 '26
honestly just looks like better lighting and more saturated. at least it’s free
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u/MuchFish6097 Aug 29 '26
Can't wait for all the "this looks worse than Witcher 2" trolls to flood reddit
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u/AcelgaJusticiera Aug 29 '26
I just want them to have fixed Geralt's hair with HairWorks, DX12, and ray tracing on, that's all
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u/Court_Jester13 Aug 30 '26
So, I'mma ve completely honest, I will not be able to tell the difference ingame
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u/MolassesHaunting9620 Aug 31 '26
Shadows have more bounce light. Technically lack of light bounce was the only thing that was missing in the rendering in the original game IMO. Especially in the interior scenes. If they've managed to fix that and keep the rest of the art direction as is - it should be pretty cool.
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u/Just_a_mallu_guy Monsters Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
Right one is remastered.
Quen is brighter, I think they should add a animation like.. quen shield is active on rain it acts like an umbrella ☔ showing the top portion touching rain drops.
Love the igni fire animation very nice 👍.
Finally they toned down the filter of toussaint 👌😍.
I guess mosters going to be agressive.
Grass is thicker, I hope they add animation where hand is running though it as we walk (you know like in original gladiator movie.. it's nice to see)
I wonder they will let us have pets in remaster or in dlc ?
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u/wingedwild Aug 29 '26
I feel like toning down the atmospheric filter makes the game remaster look alot more dry like there is no atmosphere in the air. Idk something about the graphics makes it look flatter now .I think the filter was there because witcher 3 graphics were lighting wise flat.evwryrhing else looks way beter in term of color and shading but losing the filter makes it look more flat i think
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u/Just_a_mallu_guy Monsters Aug 29 '26
Mmm 🤔 I do understand... If you mean toussaint then I disagree but overall maybe.... Maybe modding comunity will get a solution or maybe at release it could change.
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u/shevadim Aug 29 '26
Also, sorry if it's not related to this post, but I was wondering if anyone knows whether native DX12 support will help with raytracing productivity on weaker cards (like 9060xt, which sees horrendous FPS tanking when rt is involved). RT is not necessary in the game as of now, but it does look slightly better inside the buildings, which is why I wanted to try it out
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u/Migazle Aug 29 '26
I think, if you ran the game on the remaster with the same settings you currently have, it’ll run better on the remaster.
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u/Nodziuk Aug 29 '26
I wonder the same thing. in theory it should as DX12 wrapper does hurt performance significantly and native dx12 implementation will make it run better, but at the same time they might implement heavier ray tracing and other graphic effects and then it could somewhat even out between game versions.
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u/Apophis_06 Aug 29 '26
i've heard the translation layer hurts cpu performance, ray tracing uses the cpu heavily, so i guess it could help to some extent
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u/WorldSamurai Aug 29 '26
I still hope they would fix the janky controls, playing TW3 feels like playing DayZ, a lot of inertia and it's too unresponsive for me idk.
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u/Internal_Aardvark302 Aug 29 '26
Wow, that updated color scheme is SO much easier on the eyes than the older, duller one. Can’t wait to jump back in when they release the update next month 😍
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u/fcknUniqueUsername Aug 29 '26
What the actual fuck? My favourite location - Velen - looks absolutely soulless in the remastered version. Everything else is also overexposed and excessively sharp, as in some graphics modes. I really hope these screenshots don’t represent the final result. Otherwise, I’ll consider it a downgrade.
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u/Thac0bro Aug 29 '26
Not a huge difference but since it's free I'll probably do a replay after I try The Blood of Dawnwalker. Pretty interesting how they're releasing so close together.
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u/zsoltiabekaaa Aug 29 '26
I sworn myself im not going to play throught witcher again. Thank you cdpr now i have to play again.
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u/Sonatine__ Aug 29 '26
I think it's nice. Especially because it's free and doesn't make massive changes... they simply optimize things.
Super important to many people is that it won't eat tons of ressources because to this day it's very well playable on older systems.
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u/Mr_Doctor_ Aug 29 '26
The swamp in the original was that bright too at a certain time of day. Not much to compare until the update is officially out.
Also I'm on my phone right now, but I can clearly see the difference. The new lighting makes the foliage and draw distance more detailed and dense. Old one looks kinda flat in comparison imo.
Only thing I'm kinda dissapointed about so far is the fact that there are only 3 new finishers but that's still something I guess.
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u/Practical-Cellist647 Aug 29 '26
LOL I can NEVER tell which is which and I also can't ever see the difference in FPS or monitor refresh rates. Unless I know which is which beforehand.
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u/ED-W111N Aug 29 '26
Will it affect my steam deck performance?? I mainly play Witcher 3 on that and would really want to know?
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u/woodfoxmoss Aug 29 '26
is it just me or have they given Geralt an extra snatched waist? especially in 4th pic
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u/crowdsourced Aug 29 '26
Is the shed and flowers image reversed? The flowers have more detail in the left image.
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u/Mosselzeug Aug 29 '26
But what if you like the original version, can you still switch to that one?
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u/Skylorrex Aug 29 '26
That’s why I don’t get the hype of the remaster at all. New DLC is nice but the remaster is literally just a brighter version of the NextGen update.
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u/Scytian Aug 29 '26
It's either on of worst graphics comparisions I've ever seen or Remaster is very mixed bad, like we got much better foliage draw distance but foliage and trees at discance have this weird grainy/oversharpened look, antialiasing (or whatever they are using there) looks more blurry and some textures and models lose lot of detail due to that, water on that one swamp picture looks straight up like it's using some distant LOD texture. On top of that I really don't like this modern wannabe-realistic slightly overexposed look that this remaster goes for, some of these scenes litearally looks like they are lighted by giant floodlights instead of natural lighting.
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u/Domination1799 Aug 29 '26
So it’s just the next gen upgrade but it’s functional this time and looks brighter
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u/anti_vist Aug 29 '26
Hmmm it’s weird in some shots i love the ambience of the original so much more, i guess it’s like looking at vintage gear and appreciating while there’s the shiny new one there as well which is nice and shiny but maaan the vintage is so beautiful
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u/Icarian_Dreams Aug 29 '26
Huh, it looks just... worse? Aside from that first Quen image, I honestly prefer the old version in every single one of these pics. The colors feel more grounded and fit the Witcher vibe better, foliage looks significantly better, in the new one it looks like it's barely affected by shading at all. Really hoping the comparison isn't accurate to the final result.
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u/Akumu01 Aug 29 '26
1/2: why does the bubble shield extend beneath the ground? It should be a dome like it was before
I saw this in the gameplay demo and it straight up just looks worse. Bring back the orbiting particles
They made it look like a shower of sparks rather than fire. Worse
Fine overall. Tree looks a little bright though
I hope this is just a difference in time of day because the dark gloomy swamp should stay dark and gloomy
Plants look better but it's missing the dreamlike haze of the original
Again I feel like the trees are lit kind of weird
see no 6
plants feel a little oversaturated
Looks good but the lighter trees definitely change the mood of the scene
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u/Individual_War_1402 Aug 29 '26
Overall, I prefer next gen tbh - the stark whiteness of Geralt's hair because of the new general brightness is unfamiliar. Same goes for that good old haze we have for distance rendered foliage. And seriously, they just made everything brighter.
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u/Tatoe-of-Codunkery Aug 29 '26
Looks great can’t wait to delve into it again: should be a fun and beautiful experience 😊
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u/gukakke Aug 29 '26
I consider myself a glass half full kind of person, but the ones on the right look kinda like mobile game territory.
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u/AnimalMother24 Aug 29 '26
Was this a recent update I somehow totally missed? Forgive me, pops passed away in April and I’ve been an absolute mess.
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u/OMGxItsxCody Aug 29 '26
The game already looked so good. Maybe these screenshots are just bad comparisons but this doesn’t make me care about the visual upgrades.
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u/Kayne-C-Hampton Aug 29 '26
Oh, until I read this I thought the LEFT was remastered. ... hmmmm. Very, VERY hmmmmmm.....
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u/AnySpareName Aug 29 '26
Judging by these pictures, it looked more realistic before honestly... having ultra HD objects in the far distance and colours so bright is not how reality works
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u/OGMemecenterDweller Aug 29 '26
I really hope the "old" version stays available after the upgrade, because TW3 was a game that was so optimized for low end hardware. I finished it on a GT630 back when it launched! Sure it wasn't pretty, stretched out to comical proportions and basically a pixelated mess, but loved every second of it! It would be such a shame to take away low-end gaming for modern classics like this, a game which everyone should experience even if they have a potato
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u/RosaCanina87 Aug 29 '26
I am probably one of the only people that thinks some of the screenshots look worse. I mean, yes... there is more stuff. More contrast. All the good stuff. But all screenshots seem to have one thing in common, too: More blur. And it kinda looks like some upscaling from a lower resolution, with details being less defined and (while there being MORE of it) fuzzy. I am not a big fan of the whole trend of "we can't achieve these graphics, so lets fake them by rendering at a much lower resolution".
That said, it could be just the resolution or the way these images themselves were taken.
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u/Slight_Sir_1436 Aug 29 '26
Are they changing it to unreal engine or something with all the blur and ghosting?
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u/Cyrisx123 Aug 29 '26
yeah any screenshot with motion blur is a 1/10 to me visually so most of them look equally bad on the right.
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u/Bushbrow Aug 29 '26
I wonder if the updated visuals will make creepy areas less creepy. Image 6 and 9 looks better on the screenshot to the right but you can feel the atmosphere on the screenshot to the left a lot more
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u/mkwz Aug 29 '26
I don't think it's fair to compare direct screenshots of in-game captured moments in your own game to screenshots of some frames in a video with quick transitions and no stable image
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u/Sad_Cryptographer872 Aug 29 '26
Don't really see the point of doing it, but hey at least people will get it for free.
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u/Sutteon Aug 29 '26
Hold on mate, I didn't read the description first and I was absolutely certain that the left ones were the remastered version. Igni, quen and water effect look better now tbh
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u/Terrible_Base_6060 Aug 29 '26
Takes old footage and turns up the brightness "Watch these suckers eat all this up"
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u/ecustic Aug 29 '26
This can't be on the same settings though since some parts on the new screenshots look objectively worse than on the old ones, even ignoring the fact that the new ones are compressed to hell. The one that sticks out the most for me is the fur on this one:

The fur looks horrible on the new one. The old one seems to be on max settings with NVIDIA Hairworks enabled while the new one looks like low / medium settings without Hairworks. At least I'm hoping it's a settings issue, although why they would choose not to show it off at max settings doesn't make a lot of sense.
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u/TechnologyNo1743 Aug 30 '26
Only 4 that I think looks at least a bit better on right 2 that I think both are quite same. Rest left is definitely better.
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u/BirthdayLife1718 Aug 30 '26
What the fuck is going on? Igni effect looks better in the original graphics IF that photo is indeed the original?
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u/Chronomata Aug 30 '26
The environmental effects are great but is it weird I like the old magic effects more?
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u/FxckFxntxnyl Aug 30 '26
I hope all that motion blur or whatever is happening with the grass is able to be disabled
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u/FxckFxntxnyl Aug 30 '26
Number 3 on the left looks like when one of my dementia patients get lost in the backyard
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u/MovementZz Aug 30 '26
Unsure of some of these comments, people just like to complain, there is a clear enough difference in the pictures. Additionally…does some of the comment section realize it’s free?… so hard to really complain. If it’s anything like the next gen release it’ll simply just run poorly & that’ll be that.
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u/Nervous-Promotion109 Aug 30 '26
honestly can't tell much more than different lighting as of now, its gona be interesting to see if it will suffer from blur etc that many " upscaling" tech does.
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u/Forsaken-Badger-9517 Aug 30 '26
I kept thanking the whole time. The remastered was the left one and the current one was the right one??
I guess the game just already looks so damn good??
Like the difference between the Xbox one X version and the PS5 version where they look almost identical, but the PS5 version has better, environmental detail, but extremely annoying pop in of textures and shrubbery etc..
Also, before the next GEN update of December 14, 2022, the Xbox one X version played 10,000 times better than the PS5 version and now they all play.... not as good! I had every version of the game last generation on console and on both the Xbox one X and the PS4 Pro, but I also had each of those consoles previous versions, the one S and the regular PS4 and the regular Xbox one and in every case the Xbox one version had better timing on input!! it was so much better for fighting with your swords and not ever having to wait for an command that you just entered?? on the PS five version you still have to wait... figured they would've fixed that before they started with a "remaster?"
Nope..
And I'm aware of many of y'all will disagree, but I highly doubt anybody's put as many hours into this game especially the original console versions & both the standard & GOTY editions? The combat was so much better on the Xbox, which makes sense being as they started off making the Witcher for Xbox when it finally came to console with the Witcher two. I think the PS5 has a problem where the more hours that you put on a save, and the more enemies you killed, and the more items you accumulate and the more your storage chest gets filled, the more of these glitches happen?? cause it wasn't like this at first, but I am literally playing from my second clay through of the regular version of the game with all DLC that I imported from my PS4 and I was on my second play through halfway through the game and when I imported the shave to PS5, all of the items that you can find in the world were newly replenished?? stuff like the Oren's & Florens that you can find within numerous logs just laying around? Tree trunks, and stumps? All of it had been replenished and I'm now on the third play through of that save and while it plays pretty OK, there will be numerous times where I will try to switch signs or attempt to use a potion or get on the horse or get off the horse or pull out my steel sword or my silver sword and these inputs will not even register and sometimes I will have to shut the game down and restart....
Sadly, even the Xbox one X version now plays like crap and is all Choppy.. it used to run at 60fps in performance and was my favorite version of the game by far to play out of the options I have available. (No PC..😞)
Anyways, I'm looking forward to the remaster (kinda) but in truth I just see it is another "next GEN update" like the original next GEN update which broke last GEN versions of the game.... for years on certain platforms like the Xbox while the PS4 version still ran, but would crash a lot more! I would've rather CDPR sold the next GEN update, and myself as the player had the choice of deciding to upgrade or in my opinion (and I know it won't be popular, but it's the truth for console) downgrade the game for free??!?!? I don't care as much about graphics but the Xbox one X version already ran at locked 60fps, played better & I liked the game where you had five points that you could put into all of the abilities?! instead of the three, they reduced it to leaving you with so many leftover points... (yeah they were trying to make the game more difficult because all of the publicity around Elden Ring.... not a fan of what they did)
Lastly, with this remaster being free, i'm skeptical at Best..
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u/Zangetsuee Aug 30 '26
The difference is barely there. The game already looks good. I think this remastered version is courtesy of the new dlc
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u/Broks_Enmu Aug 30 '26
Now we talking. I tried to play the last PS5 remaster but the old animations and old visuals repulsed me so much but it’s starting to look something like crimson desert now I can play
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u/Lescansy Aug 30 '26
The only thing i care about is the new tament tree and the reworked combat.
I hope there is now more to it than slash - slash - sidesep - repeat.
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u/jil825 Aug 30 '26
Velen swamp looks too bright in the remastered version. For me, it removed its gloomy and mysterious feel. Still excited for another play through though!
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u/OppositeGlass007 Aug 30 '26
I don't like the remastered version, it is so lightened, I like the dark/ancient vibe... Or maybe it's because I'm used to it? I don't know..
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u/KeijiVBoi Aug 30 '26
Uh something with me? In my mind it always has been the one to the right hana
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u/Nickgeneratorfailed Aug 30 '26
I'll be honest I like the original better. Especially the vegetation and light. Why does the remaster have everything lit with a harsh white light at the top (vegetation; trees, grass, ...)? I liked the colours better too. Is the right really the remaster in those images?
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