Rahdulan
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They also put a more direct response elsewhere.
http://www.worldsfactory.net/2014/10/06/cd-projekt-no-downgrade-the-witcher-3
http://www.worldsfactory.net/2014/10/06/cd-projekt-no-downgrade-the-witcher-3
CD Projekt: There Will Be No Downgrade For The Witcher 3
06 October 2014
Even though CD Projekt enjoyed a full fledged honeymoon with both the press and the community so far, the last few days have sparked somewhat of a commotion in the community, particularly on the official forums and on Neogaf board. This was directly related to last week’s release of the latest The Witcher 3 screenshots batch, with the following screenshot (click to view it at full size) under specific scrutiny:
Quite a few fans have criticized the apparent graphics downgrade, mainly pointing out that the wolves’ hair appears much less detailed and realistic than what was previously showcased; CD Projekt had, in fact, announced to be using NVIDIA‘s HairWorks technology to render better looking wolves. You can find the original demonstration here on YouTube, while below we’ve embedded one of the few screengrabs available so far.
Some even went as far as speculating that this could be a screenshot from the console version. Obviously, this was set ablaze when a Neogaf member, whose credentials as an insider have been apparently verified by a board administrator, said that PR is creating “an overblown vision of a game that doesn’t exist”. We reached out to CD Projekt for comment, and Community Manager Marcin Momot has been kind enough to release the following statement:
Please keep in mind that the game is still in production phase. Certain things are still being worked on. The final version of the game will look better than what can be seen in the latest screenshots – no matter the platform. As you probably know, when publishing screenshots, some of them can be subjectively less appealing than others (depending on one’s opinion), that’s perfectly normal. The most important thing here is that the game will come out looking gorgeous when we are done working on it. There will be no downgrade.
Now, while it is understandable that this is a sensitive topic for gamers after what happened with Watch_Dogs and Dark Souls II, there is no evidence that The Witcher 3 will suffer from similar issues. I have seen a live gameplay demonstration less than two months ago and the game looked fantastic and ran smoothly, with Visual Effects Artist Jose Teixeira telling us afterwards that you won’t even need a beastly PC to play it at max settings. Moreover, the studio has demonstrated its technical prowess with the previous games; there’s no reason to believe that the final version will be in any way inferior to what we’ve already seen (in fact, according to them, it will receive further improvements).
There’s a lot of hype surrounding The Witcher 3, that’s for sure. We’ve awarded the game many of our Gamescom 2014 Awards, including Best of the Show, and so did many other publications; the final release is only four months and a half away now, which means that fairly soon we will know if it will turn out to be everything that was promised or not.