Quote Originally Posted by The_Imp_ZA View Post
I'm probably the most hyped out of everyone here, and I agree with most of this. There's obvious differences between the 2014 35-minute footage and the final build, in terms of global lighting, water and vegetation. There's an interview which I can't find, where the lead technical designer says they had to cut global illumination, and replaced it with a system they built in house which mimics it. Really sucks because I don't think we'll be getting proper global illumination on a multi-platform title, this gen. The tech looks so good!

On the flip side, this has cost them at least 30 million USD to make, after all the delays. They need the money from the console versions, so they can't come out and say that it's their fault that these things were scrapped. I don't think it's as bad a situation as Watch Dogs, and I don't think they aimed to mislead people. Ironically, TW2 actually got better looking as they developed it. I think they were just over ambitious.

Regardless, the game still looks gorgeous. In comparison to earlier footage though, it does look worse. I think once they've finished all the expansions and released the Enhanced Edition, that the game will actually look better than it does now. If DX12 is even half as good as people are saying it's going to be, there's a chance they might be able to add some of the cut features back in, on PC anyway. That, or the mods will do it.

Honestly though, I'm not going to be giving two shits about this when I'm playing the game. It's getting almost unanimous praise, which makes me very happy.
I'm not sure if you're more hyped than me man.

I, for one, couldn't care less about any "downgrades". Graphics are the last thing I look for in any game. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a good looking game, but it really is at the bottom of the list of what I want in a game. This game especially is all about Geralt and the story for me with the exploration and other RPG elements coming in at a close second. It could have run on the same engine as the first Witcher and I would have been just as hyped to play it.