// KOTAKU — GAMING
Witcher 3 Fans Are Divided Over Whether The Remaster Graphics Are Peak Or Lifeless
CD Projekt RedGraphicsThe Witcher 3The Witcher 3 Remastered
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered has been out for over 24 hours now and there’s a small but loud contingent of players who aren’t sold on the game’s updated graphics. Tons of new visual detail sparkles underneath Improved ray tracing and overhauled lighting, but not everyone is on board with the brighter, less moody vibe the grim open-world RPG now sometimes evokes. As one player put it in a recent negative review on Steam, “the dark fantasy vibe is missing somewhere its like a Disney game.” Another post on the Steam Discussion page was less civil: “Dear CDPR remastered graphics look AWFUL.”
Those a growing split between these takes and those of returning players who are stunned by just how impressive the remaster look in some places. For every screenshot comparison showing greater visual fidelity at the expense of vibrancy, there’s one that shows The Witcher 3 looking better than it ever has. The whole debate is also muddied by the range of specs and platforms involved. New HDR effects might make the game look better on high-end displays but worse on screens that don’t support those effects. PC players with more powerful machines and deeper customization options might get a better result than players on a base PS5 where settings options are more limited.
You can start to get a very clear sense of the differences from a set of comparison screenshots shared by user itagouki on the Witcher subreddit (via Eurogamer). Things are much darker in the base version. There’s less detail. The contrast between light and shadow is starker. The remastered version is brighter, much crisper looking, and full of additional detail. But it definitely has a different vibe. Things are more evenly illuminated, and with bloom turned on, the game’s default setting, the visuals are bright to the point of appearing a bit washed out. Many players are blaming the path tracing, which appears to be sapping some of the boldness out of The Witcher 3‘s original aesthetic.
“I prefer the old look. It has better contrast, with stronger highlights and a more pronounced overall image,” itagouki wrote. “The Remastered color grading looks off to me. The contrast seems to have been flattened somewhat, and to compensate, the Remaster appears to use much stronger bloom, which brightens and softens the overall scene.” Other comparisons have shown a similar disparity. A clip of Geralt standing by the water in Novigrad looks flatter and more subdued in the Remastered version. “I was gonna say Remastered looks beautiful but then I realised it was on the left,” one fan wrote in response.
The beauty of Skellige in the remaster byu/BeforeSunset11 inwitcher
That’s something I’ve been experiencing a lot over the last day: seeing comparison shots and thinking the remaster looks pretty good, only to realize my eyes were drawn to footage from the base version. No doubt part of the issue is how snippets of captured gameplay and scenery ricocheting across social media, compressed and stripped out of the natural flow of the game, don’t do these comparisons any favors. There’s how the look of the game feels in a still image or brief clip, compared to how it feels when you’re actually playing it. So far, I definitely think some of the old art direction and magic is lost in the remastered version, but it’s not as obvious in the moment when I’m playing. And there are certainly places and moments in the new version, like foliage-filled fields in Skellige, that look truly impressive from the point of view of pure graphical fidelity, realism, and immersion.
“The game still looks good but for me it’s a straight downgrade from RT + max settings on Next Gen 4.04,” argued one player in a subreddit thread discussing the backlash to the game and general day-one negativity from some fans. “There seems to be some serious inconsistencies and issues with the lighting and tone mapper they opted for in the remaster.” Another player