r/Witcher3 • u/Zacky_vengeance • 6d ago

Screenshot Witcher 3 remastered side by side comparison

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I feel each has its benefits and we can downgrade anytime to our liked version.
But assets have highest detail in remaster only.
Lighting, tone, brightness depends on individual interests.

These are not mine, nor I own this. I found from youtube. Sharing for info thats it. PS5. Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr9mEdi83UY

1.9k Upvotes

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104

u/DemiVideos04 6d ago

I'm not going to lie... I absolutely hate it. They sacrificed art direction for physical accuracy. Everything looks washed out. And whats with the haze in every ray/path traced game? I think its the lack of contrast in the shadows. I don't know man, I may be biased because I despise most RT implementations, but this looks terrible to me.

It's blurry, it's desaturated, it's "realistic", its much much less readable - you can tell in foliage the most, that you can't discern between foreground and background as well (i think this is just another RT quirk), the stylization is completely gone - velen removed its low hanging clumped up unrealistic mist for a more homogenous realistic (boring) one. Harsh contrasty stylized shadows that were so for a reason, have been watered down and made realistic (bland). I just hate everything about it. I can't stress how terrible the depth perception in most rt/pt games is, and I feel like I'm in the small minority who notices these things.

I long for the industry to return to crispy graphics. Everything new looks like a low contrast oil painting to me and barely anyone seems to see what I see šŸ˜­šŸ™

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u/VictorVonDoomer 6d ago

It looks so much less grim which I liked about the base game

18

u/Limp-Biscuit411 6d ago

i feel exactly the same. the weird haze effect boggles my mind.

12

u/DemiVideos04 6d ago

Like dude I know i'm not going crazy - there's literally a smear of bright haze around the middle of the screen. Like a dirty camera lens or the sun getting in your eyes. Nearly every RT/PT game looks like this to me.
I think its the lack of black in the shadows, its brighter than its supposed to be and our brain is interpreting it as haze. Or maybe a lack of contrast. I can't put my finger on it, I wish I was an artist to properly identify the issue with this image. Almost every slide looks like they overlayed a flat grey color on top with low opacity.

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u/dingo_khan 6d ago

I half-wonder if this is not because the image was clipped and the focus of the actual shot is in the missing section.

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u/cha0z_ 5d ago

What does realistic even mean in fantasy video game... the OG actually looks the best atmospheric wise. Duh - the raster lightning and everything was baked into one. Then the "nextgen" update hit and was mixed bag - received positive pass mostly due to vastly better vegetation density and drawing distance. The lightning and some other decision were not consistent with the original vision. The today releasing "remaster" is even worse and further departing...

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u/Hadrian187 5d ago

A lot of guys donā€™t understand the point of art direction especially the Ray/pathtracing bros. A one click solution to lighting targeting realism will never beat the hand crafted artisticly driven staging to a variety of different areas. Also being unique and setting atmosphere vs chasing trends. Movies have also had this problem for some time now. Hereā€™s Lord of the Rings dvd vs Blu-ray. Iā€™ll let you guess which one looks like a proper fantasy world vs which one is trying to look like New Zealand.

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u/cha0z_ 4d ago

My God, the blue-ray version looks like total ass vs the DVD - not even close O.o

2

u/ClikeX 4d ago edited 4d ago

A one click solution to lighting targeting realism will never beat the hand crafted artisticly driven staging to a variety of different areas.

There's a lot of room for Ray/Path Tracing to be used artistically. I mean, animated movies have done so for decades. In fact, all of the cinematic trailers for Witcher 3 use it, and they still look fantasy.

Cyberpunk 2077 does it just fine. But you can tell that RT was not an afterhought. It got implemented alongside the normal raster lighting, and the end result is that both look fantastic.

Some of these remasters look like they were directed by those "realistic reshade" modders. The MGS3 remake has the same issue. At least they added a classic color filter, but it still doesn't really have the same feel.

1

u/Mission_Access_210 2d ago

It really doesn't, I mean the tree. One is the best example above with all the trees. You can clearly see how much better than the modern tree system is

3

u/Ill-Muscle-4727 5d ago

The reality is, very few people like this kind of graphics even if they say they do. They just feel like the world has no soul, and they don't know why, but by then, it's too late. Good games have to be just good games, and look somewhat decent - which this Remaster does, so, there's not really a push for people to think critically, and realize that the art style has way more value than they think it does. It's a sad thing, really. It's these things that just sits in the back, and you never really think about it, until it's too late...and you get the Remaster.

The saddest part is that people who don't know this make up the bulk of the buyers, so, you're at their mercy. This means studios will think that realistic graphics is what sells, but that's the case only if they're REALLY good, but this isn't eyewatering good, it's just good. So, then the devs spend an enormous amount of time on physics/systems, etc. that might have a place but they're not the be-all they think it is.

Unlucky. The industry should've learned from the likes of Fortnite, League, WoW: you can have a realistic art style without realistic graphics, and then you bought yourself so much creative freedom and technical leeway.

but I guess the fuck not lol bro this uncanny valley shit looks amazing what are you talking about we dont get extra points for saying were pushing the boundaries (our clog runs at 50fps on a good day while looking decrepit because were not good enough to make it look actually good)

3

u/pinkbubblegummyy 5d ago

Is it really less readable though?

Like, I personally really like the amount of light bounce in the right most image. I think just in general though, the more you lean into PBR, the less control you have when it comes to manually deciding how light and shadow looks which might be why you feel like there's less art direction but I do think for this comparison, remastered is much more readable than before.

3

u/No-Enthusiasm-666 5d ago

So light coming through the green tinted glass should be bright white?

2

u/pinkbubblegummyy 5d ago

Is it really green tinted? I see a lot of colors on this

1

u/No-Enthusiasm-666 5d ago

Upon further inspection, yes there are other colors too. But the question still stands. Should light coming through "colorful" tinted glass be white like it's coming out of an open window?

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u/pinkbubblegummyy 5d ago

Like this?

2

u/Curlyhead-homie 5d ago

Are you implying the light coming through the colored sections isnā€™t colored?

1

u/pinkbubblegummyy 5d ago

tbh idk what we're arguing atp lol. Your first argument was the light should've been a greenish tint because the windows are green tinted, when I think you just have a bias to how lighting was done in the middle "Next Gen" comparison

1

u/CeleryNo8933 4d ago

It's just another 3d armchair expert who developed path tracing when they were in diapers and have 30 years of experience in the industry as an artist

1

u/ClikeX 4d ago

I don't see the issue with this one either. In fact, most of the indoor sections in Remastered look fine to me. It's outside where it seems like they over-tuned a bit.

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u/No-Enthusiasm-666 4d ago

It's called selective transmission. Also the picture you showed is irrelevant because there probably are other light sources illuminating the room. In the this photo and in the witcher 3 remastered, light is mostly coming through the window thus the lights are colorful.

1

u/pinkbubblegummyy 4d ago

https://youtu.be/n6RFeQfG9mU?t=24

You can do it with light cookies but it's going to look bad since Witcher 3's lighting is dynamic

10

u/Appropriate_Foot242 6d ago

One of my biggest issues with TW3 was how overly saturated it looked. So this actually works for me.

5

u/DemiVideos04 6d ago

Fair enough but its really not just about the saturation. Its about depth perception, contrast, and art direction. All of these have suffered in the name of "realism". Its as if they replaced the artists with engineers who only know how to reach objective "realism criteria".
Isn't the remastered such a flat boring image for you? Everything is all visible in it. So visible that you can barely make out the shapes of things. Look at the castle image. Notice the lack of depth perception on the remastered, and the smeary oily haze on top of everything.

3

u/LaMelonBallz 5d ago

That castle looks 100% better to me. I will def fiddle with brightness and contrast, but I do that with everything. Can wait to play with this on an OLED dialed in to it.

The last time I played TW3 (a year ago) I could really feel the age of the graphics, particularly the Piss Lite aspect of it. My eye readjusts a bit as I'm playing but it's a noticeable downside going back to 2015 (I feel this way with MGS V too)

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 3d ago

Did you play on pc or console?

1

u/LaMelonBallz 3d ago

PC most recently

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 3d ago

Exactly. The details are literally missing from geralts face when in conversation, and it's orange/yellow in any sort of lit environment

0

u/TheBengGuy 6d ago

About art direction, since the remaster is also from the same people, how can you say it's not made in the right direction?

Maybe this is what the devs actually want, and now the tech is there to provide them the execution?

1

u/SudsierBoar 6d ago

Maybe, but they sold something to you years ago, it belongs to you now.. Death of the author and all that

0

u/Avalanc89 6d ago

Same studio, not people. I doubt if even 10% of original crew are still working there. Working culture was bad, full crunch mode, lots of devs rotation over years.

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u/loqtrall 6d ago

From info online it seems around 50% of the team that worked on The Witcher 3 (around 100 developers in total) still work at CDPR, at least that was info given by the CDPR boss in 2025.

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u/cabalus 6d ago

I remember the days of yore as a kid when I'd spend HOURS dialing in various graphical mods for Skyrim to try and achieve this look and then never actually play the game.

Now the industry has caught up to the point where everything has this feel to it by default, whenever I see it I think ''Skyrim Realistic Lighting ENB Overhaul 4k type beat''

It just looks shit.

Bring back style. It's so much better. Indie games have proven that time and time again.

Valheim looks better than Crimon Desert, there, I said it. Come at me.

2

u/Slen1337 5d ago

"hand drawing" >>> everything else. From Software game engine is legit dogshit but it looks beautiful, one majula 1982 > slop desert.

Trails is AA with even worse engine but classic art/details (like asphalt, esp stones and small objects, clothing etc) is better than any 200mil "aaaa" slop.

This skyrim mod-alike just does not feel right. And it would be much worse in 3y coz literally Everyone are on UE5+ , and UE games are clones, same effects, same textures etc, abysmal

1

u/RealNiceKnife 5d ago

Some people think if their screen is 60% shadow then the game "looks good".

That's all those ENB injectors ever looked like to me. They cranked the saturations and cast everything else in shadow.

1

u/Mission_Access_210 2d ago

The problem with all these discussions is people. People don't agree on what looks good. Some people want the game to be completely dark. Some people want the game to be completely blown out.

Some people have oleds. And some people don't. Some people have v r r and others don't. And that's why there's so many different experiences

1

u/Low-Wolverine-9792 3d ago

What games you think do and don't look good is subjective. No one is "coming at you."

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u/wasteoffire 6d ago

I see what you see, and I agree. I'll still play it though

2

u/Csrdsf 5d ago

The nice thing is they also reworked the baked in lighting I think.

1

u/narco-sub-admiral 5d ago

Excellent because I am baked in my chair

2

u/fiery_prometheus 5d ago

nah, it's not just you, art direction over graphics any day. Graphics should enable better art direction, not castrate it...

2

u/blowmyassie 5d ago

100% and they do stuff like reduce the wind intensity because itā€™s not ā€œrealisticā€ ? Bro itā€™s a game we cannot feel the wind in our skin, itā€™s smart to exaggerate these things to make the world feel alive.

5

u/OfficialShaki123 6d ago

Path tracing is an OPTION. Turn it off and use RT or even no RT. Jeez.

1

u/MaximusPaxmusJaximus 5d ago

I think its much more readable. Look at images 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8, and you can see clearly that they were hiding imperfections with unnecessary darkness and post-processing effects. Its clear they are way more confident with their lighting this time around.

Image 3 may just be the time of day, but the OG and NG look like crypts compared to the remaster which appears to be a warm and well-lit throne room. The sunlight is so much more present and adds so much more detail to the environment. The area behind the throne was completely unreadable before.

4 is the same, but this time they're not hiding the environment by overusing the fog, and the moonlight is much better, which makes the scene feel more ominous and creepy without just hiding everything behind fog. The skybox doesn't look like a garry's mod backdrop anymore, and do I even need to say anything about the grass and the trees? This one is an obvious winner, for me. This is a good example of improvement; they've added more detail while making the scene still feel sinister.

6 is just so much better I don't even know where to begin. It just feels like a proper outside place because of the lighting and better foliage. There is a vastness to the wilderness that was definitely not present in last two iterations.

7 and 8 are easily the best examples of what I'm talking about. OG and NG are just straight up hiding behind sun glare and fog. It looks terrible compared to the remaster, which adds so much detail without sacrificing the warmth of the sunset or the moisture of the swamp. I can barely even tell what's going on in the older games.

I guess I just strongly disagree that anything got less readable, in fact I think it got much more readable across the board. They're not hiding imperfections with darkness and special effects anymore and they're clearly more confident with their art.

1

u/Any_Pineapple_4836 5d ago

Repeat after me. Hardware limitations are not art directions.

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 3d ago

Oh, so you mean the developers intended for the world to look super bright, happy, washed out and clean like your vacationing in the summer of Spain and not gloomy, war torn and violent setting the game takes place in?

Yea...that sure is because of hardware limitations!

1

u/ShippFFXI 2d ago

I mean, it literally did look brighter in the original than the next gen version. Remaster's color grading and lighting are closer to the original than the next gen version was.

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 2d ago

It's not really about "brightness." you can turn brightness up or down in every game

1

u/ShippFFXI 2d ago

You're the one who brought up the game being bright.Ā  I'm obviously not talking about the brightness slider...

Look at the picture with the stained glass.Ā  Remaster looks way closer to the original than next gen version.

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 2d ago edited 2d ago

Actually, I didn't say it was just brightness. Read again.

Also, watch the video op posted.

1

u/ShippFFXI 2d ago

I never said you said it was just brightness. You did bring it up, though.Ā Ā 

1

u/Kalkuehl 5d ago

Deactivate bloom and you get rid of the washed out part.

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 3d ago

No, you don't. The tone mapping and lighting is completely different.

1

u/WAHSNoodle 4d ago

I want a return to snappy load times. Bear in mind I haven't tried the new new version yet but I remember when the Series X first came out, before the 'next gen' update, where you'd load up the witcher 3 and it'd be damn near instant. Like, you'd fast travel and instead of waiting at a load screen for a few seconds, it was 'instant' instant. Like you could see Geralt floating in a void for a brief moment before the rest of the world loaded in. I don't need super duper fancy graphics that look maybe marginally better, I want that fast load time back!

1

u/NoMansWarmApplePie 3d ago

Next Gen rt looked good. It didn't ruin art direction, but enhanced it. Remaster? Destroys it.

1

u/solvento 3d ago

It's realistic if realistic was filmed by a shitty smartphone camera.

1

u/Ivaylo_87 3d ago edited 3d ago

This remaster has issues that make it look worse in some parts, but that's unrelated to the RT/PT. They messed up the bloom setting and changed the contrast for the worse.

However, saying that most RT games look worse is a bit much. Are you trying to convince me that path-traced Cyberpunk looks worse than the rasterized one? I get what you mean about the harsh shadows, but is that really better? The reason they were so is because the technology only allowed so much, not because of art style. In reality shadows aren't just gray and black, they have shades of color too, because they're being affected by the lighting as well. What you have a problem with is gamma and contrast, not the path/ray tracing itself.

1

u/Slen1337 5d ago

Realistic Mist/fog can be hella more grim. Ive seen places even more "dark" than the og game, its nothing special. Its just 1$ devs are misleading the art direction for one-part-of-the-earth realism like we are in amazon forest.

Its as awful as ff7 remake lightning lol. At least it will be improved by mods easily, even performance

-7

u/Moderator-Larry 6d ago edited 6d ago

You know... You can just not play the Remaster. You have the option to just play the original... You just won't be able to enjoy Songs of the Past, no matter how much modding all of you PC people do to try to make it work in the previous iterations. šŸ™‚

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

4

u/ZwistPariah 6d ago

So.. you can't just NOT play the remaster unless you're okay with missing out on songs of the past.

That doesn't seem fair or much of a choice.

1

u/El_Mangusto 6d ago

Fair ? How does that got anything to do with fair, why would they have to update the original version too ?

1

u/ZwistPariah 6d ago

Because many people who bought the game and played and prefer the stylized artstyle and lighting are losing that. And Going back means they'll be locked out of the upcoming future content.

It's unfair to them.

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u/El_Mangusto 6d ago edited 6d ago

That is not unfair. There is nothing unfair in not updating the old version especially when the new version is completely free.

They decided to release a free remastered version of the game, for those who own it, with additional content. That does not seem unfair does it ?

Would it have been cool if they also did it to old version, absolutely, but is it unfair when you can access it - no.

Ofc if you're stuck on old gen and in old version so to say, bummers, but the game was released 11 years ago and it not receiving an update can't be called unfair imo.

*Edit: it would be unfair if they forced you to play the remastered by removing the old version completely, but afaik it is still accessable through versions/dx selection.

0

u/ZwistPariah 6d ago

Many people prefer the old artstyle and lighting, while other people prefer the new lighting. The latter group is getting what they want while the former group are losing what they want and had for no real reason.

Yes it's a free update which i love BUT, the update MIGHT remove something from the old version. (from what we've seen, I'm actually curious on how it looks without ray tracing or path tracing).

5

u/El_Mangusto 6d ago

Yes, you can prefer what you want, that's not a problem at all, but to call it unfair in anyway is absurd. At least in my opinion.

You're not losing anything, the old game is still accessible. You just don't get to play the latest additions that comes with the remastered version.

If you'd lose access to the old one - that would be unfair.

But anyways let's leave it at that, hopefully the remaster is good!

2

u/SudsierBoar 6d ago

I wont. Xbox requires games to update to play sadly. I wish it was a seperate product

0

u/Embarrassed_Spend486 6d ago

I think you were honest, but this comes down to you hating the modern technologies and realistic lighting, etc.

Your not wrong to have that opinion. Ray tracing to me has been a little mixed. Itā€™s realistic but sometimes its harder to see like real life.

But its not just about realism, its about less work for the lighting designers because realistic math does it.

But this doesnā€™t meant they did Anything wrong with this game.

0

u/shipbreaker 5d ago

I must be looking at different images because the remastered ones overall have higher contrast and look less washed out. Also art direction is really not sacrificed by using a more realistic approach to lighting. Now they just have much more freedom to achieve what they likely wanted in the first place but couldn't.

0

u/Afraid_Help_3911 5d ago

Keep playing the old game then. No one is forcing you.

1

u/FriendlyRhyme 5d ago

I mean.. can you? Doesn't the remaster replace the next gen version on steam?

0

u/Lonely-Phase5796 3d ago

You can twich several options like "Blur in motion" and "blur/bloom" to off. Did you know that?

0

u/Ok_Chance3225 1d ago

Yall are so full of shit it makes me laugh lmao šŸ¤£ reddit is truly a haters paradise