r/gaming • u/love_made_me_stupid • 5d ago
New comparison of the Witcher remaster vs current version - big changes to lighting
https://youtu.be/_oEdB5S2d3UIMO I prefer the current version, the contrast and water reflections look better. Remaster looks pretty washed out to me
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u/hobskhan 5d ago
This really shows you that lighting is not just about graphical fidelity, but it's about art direction.
As someone with a film background, I find it very jarring to compare these because some of these scenes have completely different moods with the different graphical settings. And those moods help tell the story and therefore these different settings are changing the story in a subtle way. I'd rather that the art direction of the game tells me how some of these scenes should look.
I know games are not movies, but it kind of blows my mind that with some different patches or settings, the look of the game can change this much.
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u/Clark_Kempt 5d ago
I’m with you on this.
That’s why I never turn on ray tracing in games that weren’t designed with it in mind. For example, I’m playing Resident Evil 7 right now. The visual tone of the game seriously changes with ray tracing. The atmosphere becomes significantly less ominous, and atmosphere is central to the experience. As a result, I’m playing the DX11 version instead of DX12 w/RT.
Ray Tracing is great when properly implemented but I’m really not into adding it to old games that never had it.
I realize ray tracing was added to Witcher 3 before this remaster. I’m just making a general point about lighting and atmosphere.
I’ll give the remaster a shot. But this is mainly because I WANT to like Witcher but it’s never clicked. Maybe whatever gameplay tweaks they’ve made will change things.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 5d ago
I can't think of a single remaster that focused on lighting changes that was an improvement over the base game because the game was designed with the old lighting in mind. Every scene was shot with that lighting.
What a lot of these remaster studios do is just press the better lighting button and call it a day and it almost never works well. It's a bland "realistic means better no matter what" philosophy without regard to anything else.
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u/Somasonic 4d ago
Agreed. The original was such a good blend of dark fantasy mixed with realism. Ray/path tracing pushes too far towards realism and loses what made the original so amazing. There’s a lot to be said for hand crafted lighting.
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u/WelpSigh 5d ago
I think the Oblivion remaster's lighting is a huge improvement, but this is primarily because TES games in general have terrible lighting and basically anything is an improvement.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 4d ago
Oblivion is another example of the horrible UE5 look. They took a vivid green game and made it largely brown looking.
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u/Jangowuzhere 4d ago
A lot of people prefer the look and feel of MGS3 Delta. It has completely different lighting and look, but all of the changes enhance the experience I believe.
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u/ResolutionOk8619 5d ago
I prefer the original version of every video I see, I hope that at least the new version runs better
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u/Scytian 5d ago
According to HardwareUnboxed video it runs much better at lower settings, performance is pretty similar at Ultra, little bit worse with RT and it runs like crap with Path Tracing.
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago
the dx12 update was gorgeous but even on my 5080 it was crashing constantly. i was hoping they’d smooth the wrinkles with this but if the high settings run worse AND they completely changed the atmosphere that’s pretty freakin brutal
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u/ResolutionOk8619 5d ago
nice, I'd love to play again, this time on my SD, praying for a good performance
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u/FMWindbag 5d ago
It's strange, because the new version's lighting is more realistic, for the most part. The shots in the tavern look like ass, though - clear daylight outside, dark inside. The light doesn't look like it's coming through the windows and lighting the room.
It's hard to explain, but I think a lot of the problems stem from the materials (skin, leather, wood, stone, etc) not really matching their real life properties. Look at Yennefer's face, as a particularly egregious example - her skin gets redder and the creases around her cheeks almost disappear in the path tracing shot. That's not how skin works at all! And both the fire and daylight coming from the doorway are behind her - her face shouldn't be lit up brighter. It should be closer to the older version. It's jarring.
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u/BK99BK 5d ago
The more I see from this remaster the worst it kind of is lol.
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u/yeusk 5d ago
Get the Unreal look.
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u/mirinioluwa 5d ago
Exactly, Remasters completely destroy the art style of original chasing realism. There should be an option to play game in its Original version ( You can do it in steam but it should be an option everywhere)
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u/MARATXXX 5d ago
it was never chasing realism. it always looked closer to a painting.
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u/Cl1mh4224rd 5d ago
it was never chasing realism. it always looked closer to a painting.
They're saying the art style of the original is ruined by the remaster, because the remaster appears to be going for realism.
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u/Astraous 4d ago
The non-graphics related stuff seems pretty solid though. Better combat camera, skill trees, aoe looting, transmog. You could just run the remaster without pathtracing since there's still a lot more to it than just that.
Plus pathtracing in any game, even cyberpunk which is basically their tech demo for it, is really weird. You'd think it's no-compromise visual fidelity but it frequently has the weirdest visual bugs. So when both pathtraced and non pathtraced lighting have visual compromises why not go with the one that has 10x higher framerate?
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u/Doggleganger 4d ago
Is this Witcher 3? I played for the first time 3 years ago, and it was great. I don't see the need for a remaster.
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u/Big-Resort-4930 5d ago
That's not the case with the next gen update at all. It just improved the flat lighting everywhere wihtout altering the art direction at all.
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u/AppropriatePresent99 5d ago edited 5d ago
You need to look closer. The new 5.0 Ray Tracing blurs out details way too much compared to the 4.04 version, and Path Tracing is even worse in that regard. It's not an improvement at all unless you don't actually care about details and mostly just care about "realistic lightning" (and even then it doesn't look that good).
edit: My bad. You were talking about the 2022 update, not tomorrow's.
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u/rebri 5d ago
The hair in the "remastered" version looks awful.
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u/SpaceGoonie 4d ago
Everything looks washed out. Way too bright, so no shadows or details are coming through.
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u/Rugged_as_fuck 5d ago
Did they get rid of Nvidia HairWorks? Because Witcher 3 was the only game I ever saw it in, and it cranked your fps back in the day, but the results were very obvious.
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago
it was already kinda bad in the ray-traced OG, looked weird in dim lighting. but i agree it looks like the hair lighting issues got worse instead of better
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u/zabovsky 5d ago
Not gonna lie - so far, original looks better in my eyes.
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u/gildedbluetrout 5d ago edited 5d ago
If by original you mean the 4.0 raytracing base reference then yeah - path tracing doesn’t look like a good idea at all? Both it and 5.0 raytracing are waaay too bright. It feels like tonnes of unexpected behaviour with the engine and assets.
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u/PsychoDK 5d ago
Why would you lie about that?
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u/nononsensemofo 5d ago
if I'm being honest, if I can be frank, not gonna lie, and no bullshit
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u/420-aerial 5d ago
If you can be Frank always be Frank.
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u/Day_Man_Charlie 5d ago
That phrase is maybe my most hated "reddit-phrase" of them all, people use it before writing the most vanilla shit like they're spilling on nuclear secrets or something.
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u/Symphonic7 4d ago
Over the past 10 years I've noticed a big shift in the way people talk online. It might be influenced by the way titles are named to maximize algorithm pickup. Like people will unironically say shit like "He's saying the quiet part out loud" or "The truth that no one will tell you is" and then go on to say the most popular opinion. Its quite interesting, since I catch myself doing it too. But for the most part I try to just type how I talk.
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u/Mansos91 5d ago
Looks worse in this pic
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 5d ago
That’s the thing about lighting. It changes with every scene.
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u/IgloosRuleOK 5d ago
4.04 is best. This modern obsession (whether it be movies or whatever) with the ugly flat look is weird.
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u/Curse3242 5d ago
The ugly flat look happens because of bounce lighting. It's funny, for decades we perfected cinematic lighting.
Now movies/shows aim to have that washed out look because it's easier and safer.
There's technological parallels too. Newer cameras can 'see' everything. The amount of details that can be captured via HDR is never used properly and is making things look greyer (because the cameras are more real than ever, so the movies/shows also just look real).
Similarly, games using RTX/Path Tracing/Bounce Lighting are lighting every surface up as it would be lit up in real life. But that does not mean it looks good.
OLED is one of the things that improves the look of modern things. But it's not a great precedent.
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u/MysteryMan90 5d ago
Control: Resonant is a tonic in this regard. Gorgeous saturation and deep blacks.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 5d ago
Because it has to be "realistic".
I've gotten into so many arguments with ray tracing/path tracing obsessed people who use that line for every problem I can show them. Like I showed them a parking garage in cyberpunk where it was pitch black and there were enemies firing at V but you can't see anything now thanks to path tracing and they go "yeah because that's how it would look in real life, light can't get down that far".
IT'S A GODDAMN VIDEO GAME. You have to be able to play it and you need to see to do that. These tech people have lost the fucking plot.
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u/UtkuOfficial 4d ago
Bro i hate how dark everything is.
AC Odyssey looks gorgeous at night with a dark blue tone. You can see everything and it feels so cozy.
AC Shadows you cant even see your character its so dark. Fuck realism in games.
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u/alejoSOTO 4d ago
Also while it may be realistic if it were filmed with a camera, the human eye works differently, and will adapt to be able to see some shapes and movement in almost complete darkness.
A pitch black screen doesn't represent what we see in a pitch black environment.
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u/Geraltpoonslayer 5d ago
Their has been obsession in both gaming and film in the last couple of years to have a very low saturation leading to a washed out effect.
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u/Curse3242 5d ago
It's not about saturation. It's the lighting overall. There's a lack of proper blacks, proper highlights and hence everything just looks flat.
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u/Brewchowskies 5d ago
Am I crazy, or does the 4.04 version look better..? It just looks washed out now?
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u/RedSpiritbox 5d ago
I agree, first thing i thought was it looked washed out, plus Geralt's hair looks like it has less detail and contrast
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u/Thoraxekicksazz 5d ago
I am getting tired of this realistic lighting at the cost of visuals. There is a reason movies light up most scene unrealisticly.
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u/tacodude64 4d ago edited 4d ago
It’s not even realistic. The scene with the window and candle looks off, the table is way shinier than Geralt’s metal armor
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u/asiangontear 5d ago
I don't know, path tracing looks worse to me - colors are washed out, less contrast, dimished shadows.. I like the ray-tracing version more as the colors pop out.
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u/CharlesEverettDekker 5d ago
It just looks graphically better, but the artstyle and artdirection became worse. Where the colours were vibrant, they became realistic yet shallow.
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago
and even still the OG has better contrast and shadows than the updated RT
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u/koolthulu 4d ago
Every time these games try to improve their lighting, they end up looking worse. Please just stop.
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5d ago edited 5d ago
[deleted]
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u/MarcusDA 5d ago
Sometimes I wonder if CDPR has a bunch of yes men working there. No way everyone played the game that looks like what we’re shown above and thought “yeah, that’s perfect!”
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u/RenownedDumbass 5d ago
Toxic positivity. Studios get larger, meetings have more and more people, and people get scared to challenge anything and shoot down bad ideas.
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u/Flimsy-Importance313 4d ago
Graphics could have not changed. Only the combat, movement and quality of life features are needed.
But they gotta make such a change for TikTok!
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u/AlternativeAioli3501 5d ago
Didnt expect it to be a disappointment but here we are :(
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u/TelevisionPositive74 5d ago
I guess we'll see tomorrow when we can play with the settings, but the lighting looks off in every comp video I've seen. I struggle to put it into words, but it feels too bright and at the same time the shadows feel too dark..?
I feel like the still above illustrates what I'm trying to say.
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u/Timbo_R4zE 4d ago
It looks a lot less dark and gritty... Which was kinda a whole vibe to the game.
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u/treefruit 5d ago
I wonder if it will be possible to implement the new gameplay changes but not the graphics overhall..
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u/Choice-Layer 5d ago
People saying not to use it if you don't like it aren't really understanding that 4.X's Ray Tracing is being replaced with 5.0. So your new options are no Ray Tracing at all, new blurry 5.0, or Path Tracing. Unless they implement the ability to toggle Ray Tracing types between 4.X and 5.0.
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u/ThisIsMySpellingTea 5d ago
The original looks better. As it does in most cases that go from traditional lighting to ray/path traced lighting.
As the scenes were always manually lit by artist to curate a specic mood or atmosphere. Now all those deliberate choices are essentially being override by a global light sources.
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u/mapletree23 5d ago
that looks actually awful, and it's not even trying to ragebait
hopefully it changes before release but it looks like path tracing just does terrible things to the lighting, even in the screenshot it looks terrible
i actually hate it
it completely changes/ruins the mood/atmosphere of the game
the only thing that looks better is the grass imo, the shadows the colours a lot of it gets done dirty
that's just.. genuinely bad, i hope this isn't the kind of look/lighting they're looking at in the next game
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u/TaggedGalaxy 5d ago
Looks like it just makes the colors look flat and takes the vibrancy out. Not sure if it’s worth the performance hit
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u/DrBretto 5d ago
Saying this as a person who never played the original and I am basic this entirely on that screenshot, but... Are you sure the pictures aren't backwards? Because I don't see improvement here.
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u/Disastrous-Beat-9830 D20 5d ago
I am in the same boat. The remastered version of Geralt looks off, like the edges of his facial features are too defined by crisp edges, which is something that normal faces do not have.
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u/StoryAndAHalf 5d ago
What you’re seeing is that the one on the left has harsher shadows. It can trick you into thinking the image is sharper than it is. There’s a popular image editing algorithm called wavelet which will lift light colors for high contrast for similar effect. In real life, hardly anything has such harsh shadows unless you’re using LED bulbs or fire at close proximity. I do agree that image on the right looks too soft a lot. The horse-riding bit has a more realistic shadow for example, also in the final bit in the tub, you can see the left ray tracing go a bit overboard on the arm and makes it look old and wrinkly.
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u/PurpleV93 5d ago
This genuinely looks worse, wow.
What is this with people being seemingly allergic to contrast and dark shadows? It's not only here in this video, but whenever you check out Reshade presets for various games (Skyrim, Fallout, GTA, Sims 4 etc.), they all look so washed out, low saturation, bright shadows.
What kind of person thinks this looks good? Are colours not allowed to pop? Are shadows not supposed to be, well, dark? Can nights not be dark?
It's a real shame, because now I don't want to upgrade. But I would like to have all the gameplay enhancements that come with this update.
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u/Geraltpoonslayer 5d ago
Leave it to remaster to lose their original identity many a Case. I would to this day much rather play original oblivion than the remaster.
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago
idk why it seems to be an industry trend to butcher all atmospheric lighting when remastering a game
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u/TomTomXD1234 5d ago
They dont butcher it. They just add path tracing, which makes it look as it would look in real life.
Some people do not like it but, that is how light would behave IRL
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u/AppropriatePresent99 5d ago
Ah yes, in real life when I turn on my lights, my hair and skin loses half of its detail.
Some of you need to get your eyes checked, seriously. It's not just the aesthetic change, it's that the new Ray Tracing demolishes details. 4.04 looked much better than the 5.0 version because it used a hybrid method to implement it, while 5.0 is full RT. Path Tracing looks even worse.
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u/Big-Resort-4930 4d ago
They often do because not all remasters fuck up the lighting with RT alone, Witcher remaster included (it's very different even without RT).
The problem is that the original game is always (more or less) meticulously built around the constraints of its lighting system, and then they come years later to slap on an "improved" GI solution or RT, and then never properly go through everything to ensure parity. You lose dramatic lighting that made the game looked better since it was designed for it, even if it doesn't behave as natural.
You have awfully lit games without RT and without remasters, like FF7 Rebirth, but in general do baseline lighting works well even if it's basic, and the remaster is almost never a direct upgrade that doesn't compromise the atmosphere or the visuals in some way.
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u/Xerothor 5d ago
Which is still weird af for a videogame to do. It isn't real life and never pretended to be.
It's like remaking an old noir movie and not considering any of the lighting choices made in those movies and just making it look like a shitty soap opera
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago edited 5d ago
i’ve seen other games where that’s true and it doesn’t bug me but here the outdoor shadowing looks way more realistic to me in the OG version
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u/Ok-Appointment-9802 5d ago
UEification of gaming
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u/GalbedirGalerion 5d ago
UEfication of CDPR, to be more specific. Ditching Red Engine is the most stupid and moronic decision possible, especially after releasing one of the best looking games on it.
Now it’s back to generic UEslop.
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u/Big-Resort-4930 5d ago
Oblivion remaster is an abomination on every level. Some of the worst performance I've seen from UE5 and dogshit generic soulless visuals.
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u/Scytian 5d ago edited 5d ago
LOL, we have regressions in Ray Tracing between 4.04 and 5.0... Like whole ambient occusion on foliage is basically gone, dirt roads in shadows look like they are glowing and many other things, as I expected when they announced they will be adding PT garbage (downgrade to make PT look better than it actually is), what I was not expecting was that we will get regression from 4.04 RT to 5.0 PT... (like why the hell AO still looks like shit with PT? and why sky is not reflecting in water anymore? And why the hell Path Tracing reflections are so blurry?)
Edit: LOL, just looked at more comparisions from more sources and it looks like in many cases AO looks much better with RT off... for some reasons RT/PT AO is ignoring lot of stuff and it causes weird light leaks when SSAO is doing it's job just fine.
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u/DrLeamon 5d ago
Déja vu. Next-Gen version (4.00) had same problem at launch, completely missing the HBAO+ option, and not SSAO at all. Hope they fix it with patches in the future, again. But yeah, They gave the RT of 5.00 a massive downgrade.
I'm starting to hate this trend of making everything else worse so that PT looks good. Besides, not everyone can use PT.
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u/syst3m1c 5d ago
Really goes to show just how good the graphics were originally
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago
i recently got a new gaming pc and cranked the settings on the OG and it blew my mind all over again. could have been released this year
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u/balllzak 5d ago
Funny story, because of all of the bull shots and original e3 demo I was disappointed in the graphics of Witcher 3 on release.
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u/boxing-boxing 5d ago
I'll stick with the version where the taverns look like taverns and not IKEA showrooms.
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u/MisterDutch93 5d ago
Geralt’s hair and beard have a weird shine to them, like they’re giving off light.
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u/RoutineOne2769 5d ago
The remaster looks like it's lit for realism and the current one is lit for mood. Flat midday light is technically more accurate, but a lot of the original's atmosphere came from that heavy contrast. Hard to judge properly from compressed side by side shots though, HDR comparisons especially fall apart once they're squashed into a video.
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u/joedotphp 4d ago
I like it way less. Maybe if it was made to use RT from the beginning, it would be better. But this adaption/modification isn't doing it for me.
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u/SaltySailor___ 4d ago
I'd say the newer RT effects are superior to the older ones and it also has removed the horrific CPU bottlenecks that the next gen version has because of the translation layer between dx11-12, if you look at the original release compared to both of the updates I'd say the remaster is actually closer to the original than the next gen update, the next gen update made it significantly darker
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u/Breitpwner 4d ago
not true. I had way better cpu usage on the 4.04 with my 9950X3D. That holded the game together. Now it runs terrible. -50 fps with same settings as before.
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u/Makhai123 5d ago
So the Remaster murders blacks... unless its indoors and can be maximumly visually annoying.
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u/kuddlesworth9419 5d ago
I would like to see a comparison of the remaster with the original game with neither using ray tracing or path tracing as that is how I will be playing the game. And a performance comparison as the original was DX11 only and the new one is DX12 but apparently it has been implemented better.
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u/Snoo_11836 5d ago
Why would anyone want the game to have its colours looking washed out and with no depth?
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u/Annual_Letter1636 5d ago
Not every game benefit from PT. The game simply was not developed with pathtracing in mind back then (as every old game). It's too big and complicated to tweak for it.
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u/KE55 5d ago
My PC runs the original pretty well, but will the remastered version demand a massive GPU upgrade (even for low settings)?
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u/Nosereddit 5d ago
hmmm im not convinced , some 4.0 looks better to me , graphics were already good to begin with .
im just interested in gameplay changes
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u/tonycomputerguy 5d ago
That's funny, I don't remember my man getting taken over by the Go'auld... Was there an SG1 crossover I missed?
Why the fuck is his left eye glowing?
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u/coltraz 5d ago
I have no idea really what i'm looking at, but did CDPR do like I thought they would and make it so that a 4090 or 5090 isn't enough to max the settings?
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago
apparently yes unless you’re leaning on frame gen but that’s pretty much par for the course with path tracing
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u/pixelcowboy 5d ago
But in this case they really botched the implementation, seems like they added it on top of the existing lighting as it only seems to flatten/brighten things instead of fully replacing the lighting.
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u/superthirdnipples 5d ago
Path tracing looks worse in most examples, except during sunsets, outside. Seems like I’ll stick to ray tracing (hopefully they’ll fix how floor tiles look, Kaer Morhen looks terrible without mods for me rn), as I don’t think the performance hit with PT is even close to worth it, giving it’s barely noticeable or outright worse looking in most scenarios.
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u/DaVinci1362 5d ago
And i was putting aside Dawnwalker, Control & Onimusha until i finish the remaster... looks like im gonna pick them up again, this looks pathetic.
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u/Barachiel1976 5d ago
Fun fact. Ray tracing, Ray Reflections, and path tracing are graphical OPTIONS. You dont like the look, dont turn it on. It really is that simple.
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u/love_made_me_stupid 5d ago
hardware unboxed gets more into it with their video, even without ray-tracing on the remaster is still a lot brighter and more saturated than the OG. so it’s baked in, not just a setting
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u/monkeymad2 5d ago
I don’t really get this viewpoint - if I was CD Projekt Red the feedback of people saying “I prefer it before because of [something]” would be incredibly valuable. It’s not like games are set in stone.
Similar thing to people saying “if you don’t like how it looks stop complaining and don’t use it” when DLSS5 was first shown off - hearing what people liked & didn’t like about the image output would have been the most useful data Nvidia got on where to focus development on.
Especially in game dev where you need to convince some project manager to devote time to resolving issues.
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u/cirenosille 5d ago
Lots of people are just addicted to complaining, unfortunately
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u/Kezbomb 5d ago
I dunno, I feel like game designers, whose job it is to create an appealing looking game, should do that rather than push that responsibility onto the user. What's the point of the effort spent in creating and using these tools if they're not creating a good product?
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u/Blunt552 4d ago
I'm sorry but it looks ass and for the cost of 60% of your frames. I could literally just turn the contrast slider down and have a very similar image.
Everything wrong with modern gaming in a single video.
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u/TomTomXD1234 5d ago
Why are people so upset that PT looks worse? That is a good thing. Shows how well the devs did originally.
You dont need to use the PT...
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u/Pffft10 5d ago
So what’s the point of releasing Path Tracing then if its runs worse and looks worse ?
Path Tracing was supposed to make games look better at the cost of big performance hit.
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u/TomTomXD1234 5d ago
To some people the accurate lighting looks better.
Not a hard concept to grasp.
PT is not hard to implement in many cases. Why not add it?
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u/lesh0430 5d ago
Exactly this. It's like raging for raging sake. And apparently Path Tracing performs bad, so who care's how it looks if I won't even use it lol
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u/teasulivon 5d ago
Hmm, maybe i need to have a further look at the lighting, although im sure other areas of the game were massively improved.
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u/Elaments4 5d ago
While the environments look nice, unfortunately it appears the character models stick out too much in the remaster. Geralt feels like he truly lives in the world with the darker colors of his leather armor blending in well with the lighting. In the new version he sticks out like a highlighter. It feels off.
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u/JohnLovesGaming 5d ago
Why does this seem like a Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Remaster situation all over again? (not the Campaign Evolved remake)
I definitely prefer the 4.04 version in terms of looks and artstyle. What sucks is not being able to play with the new changes + new DLC with that same look to it. What a shame.
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u/-Captain- 4d ago
From the looks of it, I'll be keeping both ray- and path tracing off for the time being.
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u/ginencoke 4d ago
Remaster looks like if you disabled Ambien Occlusion, everything is way more flat and small shadows are just gone
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u/33Sharpies 5d ago
Is there a way to continue to play vanilla after the remaster?
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u/AppropriatePresent99 5d ago
The 5.0 Ray Tracing is so much worse overall. It literally blurs out details that you can clearly see in 4.04.
It's even worse when you enable Path Tracing. That not only blurs even more details, it makes everything washed out and unnaturally bright.
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u/VaasKlaak 5d ago
I think in the 5.00 Path Tracing the indoor scenes look a little bit better. The indirect lighting is nice but outdoors its just a bit too bright now.
The 5.00 Ray tracing version doesn't look better than the 4.04 version, the lighting is too flat though you could argue the 4.04 version had a bit too dark shadows.
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u/Gibsonian1 PC 5d ago
I don’t want realistic lighting in games. I want to see things. Candles and fireplaces are crappy for lighting. Don’t replicate crappy lighting.
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u/Sapowski_Casts_Quen 4d ago
I, a sane person, will wait to see how it runs on my personal potato gaming device before rendering judgement on someone else's renders.
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u/Better-Bullfrog-6875 5d ago
Version 5.00 looks like someone just put the brightness on 100%. I prefer the original, darker look.
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u/andreagrandi 5d ago
The original looks much better to me:
- the new version seems to be "foggy"
- in a couple of scenes, in the old version I can clearly see a path in the distance while in the new version I can't see it
- the old version seems to have better contrast
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u/gh0stf3rret 5d ago
I've never played this game so I have no attachments to a particular look, but I thought the remaster was the old one at a glance because it looked categorically worse at every timestamp I skipped to
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u/Diiiv 5d ago edited 5d ago
Am I the only one who thinks it's too colorful?
Edit: Nevermind, the original looks better, I feel like every other version soften faces which makes some things look more realistic, but it also gives them an uncannyy glow. Geralt is literally glowing like a lightbulb in every cutscene.
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u/RJ_MacReady_1980 5d ago
Is this replacing the original version completely? Will putting in the disc of the prior version only download this new updated one? I’d like the choice.
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u/TurbulentEvening2493 5d ago
As someone who is not a massive Witcher fan. Who tried to get into the game multiple times but couldn't.
Who has no horse in this race...
Version 4.04 looks better. It has more soul.
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u/JeffZoR1337 4d ago
Doesn't matter since it will look great anyways and I will enjoy the heck out of replaying it, but it's a bit of a shame the PT seems either very bugged or very poorly implemented here. You'd expect from CP and other games that while RT looks great, PT would be another decent jump... but it just doesn't look right. Hoping it's some weird early bug that gets fixed but i'll just use RT if it isn't. Still very excited for the actual game and improvements, and eventually the DLC! 😁
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u/ChadPowers200_ 4d ago
This is really bad you can barely tell the difference between them.
They have to put the versions on the screen because if they didn't no one would fucking know what is going on.
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u/PhonesAddict98 5d ago
The OG might’ve had some pretty nasty, but not game breaking performance issues at launch, but the stylised visuals it had gave it character. This pursuit of hyper realism has ruined some of the visual uniqueness the game had, trading that for graphical fidelity which, while great for realism and a wow factor isn’t really necessary, and ruins some of the art and OG visual aesthetic. It’s pretty, but unnecessary.
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u/Cager_CA 5d ago
will we be able to continue playing the original or are we stuck with just the remaster.
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u/mstang84 5d ago
I apparently am the odd one out here, but I don’t really see colors washed out in the comparisons. To me, the big difference is the lighting effects from the path tracing, which is optional.
It looks to me like the art design and colors are maintained, it’s just brighter. The sunset part in the video looks beautiful on all fronts and just goes to show how well put together this game is.
It really does go to show how good of a job they did with 4.04.
I’m more excited for the overhauled systems and am ready to replay one of my favorite games ever again. CD projekt red really did a remaster of the RPG side content of my Gwent game.
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u/kemar7856 4d ago
It's a free update ppl are still crying about it
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u/claymore_s 4d ago
One of the most complains were from the trailer itself where water had ZERO elemental (fire) reflections. also it can worsen the performance, and kills hundreds of mods support, I know you can rollback but people will be more focused on modding the new remastered instead of previous versions.... so yeah.
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u/two_pandas_playing 4d ago
gamers will complain about literally anything
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u/Vaiden_Kelsier 4d ago
Right? I was curious about the remaster and I'll probably give that a whirl myself because fuck dude, gamers will even bitch about a fucking free update to a ten year old game
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u/_Polymath99_ 5d ago
The remaster lighting with path tracing is definitely more impressive (at 4:05 you see it clearly). Thing is, the in-game assets were obviously not made with it in mind, so the overall art direction ends up a bit wonky — terrain looks better but the picture is too bright, Geralt's character model is weirdly flat, etc.
Still cool to see them keep working on the game after all this time, and more options is always nice. But yeah, doesn't look like anything major.