Felt like I was all alone in the other thread, glad there are people who share my view.
How you can look at these GIFs and say the graphics haven't been downgraded will ever be beyond me.
I can offer some explanations.
First GIF:
It has just been raining.
There are wet surfaces everywhere.
The sun is lower.
This helps generate more definition in the normal maps, particularly as they are shiny in that weather condition.
The camera is also mostly pointing directly towards the sun (much like the opening shot in that famous initial reveal), which, combined with the shiny surfaces, generates a big glowy, impressive reflection off the ground. And being fairly low, the sun happens to generate a bit of lens flare too.
Second GIF:
He's mostly not facing the sun.
He's mostly under a massive shadow of something.
It's dry.
The sun is higher in the sky.
All of this lends itself to not showing any of that good stuff, and it can all be explained by these factors. As you can see in the GIF DieH@rd just posted, there is definitely still lens flare in the game. There is also apparently rain. And wind.
I think you are underestimating how much of a difference wet surfaces and times of day make to the overall visual impact.
The question remains of course, why Ubisoft offered a B-roll that only contained footage with no rain, with all the daytime footage showing the sun high in the sky with barely any wind.
