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[horkrux]

Don't get me wrong. I know what you mean. The pre release footage shows a bridge tiled with more natural stones, rather than the processed, cleaner cut stone tiles in the release footage.
However, the original footage still looks objectively worse. Those "natural" stone formations don't really look natural to me at all. Those looks like random stone textures.
Also, in what universe are sharper, more high resolution textures inferior to a pixelated version, even when they use different styles? In my opinion this comes down to a stylistic choice.
The release footage also shows a little more environmental detail with the stone slab that I've marked. Not to mention the fire, which clearly looks better in the final build.



I know I'm cherry picking here but you brought up the bridge so I thought I'd chime in. At one point there was a spider web in the pre release footage and that web was missing in the release version so there are definitely instances where the old footage had more details.
In the end, I don't really care either way. I didn't even know about this "controversy" before this thread. I've only played the PS4 remaster of DS2 and that looked OK to me.

You do see the extra shadows and lit areas on the texture though, right? The choice of stone texture might have been inferior, but it's clear as day going from the bridge alone, that the graphics were better.

I don't know why you're cherry-picking. when all it takes is to look at the pit down below and notice the superior lighting and effects work.

Edit: Oh wait, you actually prefer the fire too. Well...ok

 

[Moz]

For my first playthrough I installed a reshade thing which made the dark areas very very very dark. It struck me how the game was clearly built with this in mind, a crawl from one bonfire with the next with areas becoming increasingly dangerous as they got darker. I'm sure I wasn't imagining it.

 

[hooijdonk17]

The prerelease footage has heavy tesselation and realtime lighting. The release version has flat textures and baked lighting. The former is objectively more photorealistic and atmospheric. The concessions made are obviously because of target platform related limitations. They make it a lesser game for sure but the real hypocrisy is that at the point they could demo this on apparently pc hardware they should have know the ps360 could not handle it. This is deception on purpose even blatant lies on From's part. If someone made a video on this 10 years later they would still be justified.

 

[Sande]

The point of the lighting system wasn't that you'd need a torch all the time. It's to have a beautiful atmospheric game instead of the bland grayness that we ended up getting with the finished product.

 

[Red Liquorice]

Even with the original lighting it still would've had that horrible player movement/control engine.

 

[Shari]

God damn.

Console optimizations TM.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Man, having to account for 360 and PS3 really did a number on that game. BB and Dark Souls 3 actually look how Dark Souls 2 was supposed to, Dark 2 came out too early. Maybe if they had just waited and made it on ps4 and XB1 exclusively, they could have avoided all that downgradathon

 

[Creamium]

Yeah this is weird timing for sure, who still cares about this 3 years deep.

Nevertheless, on the topic at hand: this was definitely a disappointing aspect of the game. Not exactly for the graphical splendor, but how it would impact gameplay: I was really looking forward to lighting dark areas and going through some areas with a torch in hand. They even marketed it up: "sometimes you'll have to choose between fighting in the dark and one-handed with a torch in the other." That didn't really pan out. I was expecting some Tomb of the Giants-ish areas in this game.

I played through Salt & Sanctuary recently and that game even uses this mechanic more. There are some fully dark areas there where a torch is required. It's a 2D game that doesn't have a complex engine, but still. It's like Ska was hungry for that mechanic too and decided to add some areas like that.

 

[Gormenghast]

I don't know why it's hard to accept what happened.

It's obvious that they were very close to release and they figured that they couldn't have the dynamic lighting active and performing well on all levels.

So they had to export all the assets and rebuild them to support a whole different render, and to do it that close to release they could only do a rush job (and so you miss all that attention to detail in the original assets).

And of course they couldn't make it all over again for PC too, as they might have considered that to be too much work. At least a number of months of more work, and they didn't want the console version to be looked as subpar, either.

It's like a substantial fork of the whole game close to release. They very likely didn't have the dynamic light pre-downgrade game in a close to finished state. So they forked the thing and the other part was abandoned because they couldn't maintain two forks at the same time.

 

[Revolutionary]

Timely.

 

[nOoblet16]

I mean, correct us if wrong, but didn't AAA PS360 games mostly used pre-baked lighting for the environments?

Nope. Last gen was the first time real time lighting for environments became common.

Yes there were plenty of games that baked their global lighting, particularly UE3 games (which was the most used engine last gen), or games that had real time global lighting but baked shadowing (like Halo 3). But there were also plenty of games that did real time lighting and shadows both. Even COD did real time lighting and shadows and those games targeted 60FPS on those machines.

 

[fabricated backlash]

Ok at this point it's getting weird. People that genuinely still hold a grudge about a downgrade in a game released a few years back need to seriously start to re-evaluate their life choices... As for this video... Why now? It's not like there's a lack of current BS to be torpedoed.

 

[Gluka]

I remember hearing a streamer or someone in the souls community say they got an early version of the game that went much further than the vertical slice and essentially said the game ran like garbage and had to be completely redesigned. It seemed like it was over half of the game or something crazy like that too if I remember right. I can't remember who it was, but I vividly recall going "wow, it would be amazing if this build were to leak." Does anyone else remember hearing about this? Am I just insane and misremembering?

 

[Oemenia]

Still hurts to see, I don't think even BB and DSIII look that good.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Still hurts to see, I don't think even BB and DSIII look that good.

yeah they look that good.

 

[Pie and Beans]

It felt VERY weird to play the PS3 beta with all the lighting in, and then have to regard the shitshow that was released, even on PC.

DS2 is a black mark on the franchise for multiple reasons, this fake out being one of them. The shite hitboxes remain the absolute worst aspect of it though.

 

[aeolist]

man i remember how they still had the promo bullshots on the steam page when the game launched and the insane defense force was claiming that the downgrade didn't happen at all

i don't think better lighting would have saved the game from mediocrity and the torch mechanic probably would have been more irritating than anything else but the look they ended up with was horrible and the way they handled it all was worse

 

[Killer Queen]

Even without the downgrade the game is still shit.

Get over it, Dark Souls is finished, it's finished when the first game ends, and it will forever be one of the most special game of all time.



Facebook selfie vs. actual person

What is your problem?

 

[Blam]

I mean he does just straight up attack developers.

His Bungie vs 343i video was literally all about how 343i is this awful terrible company and how the people working there are awful while making Bungie out to be this perfect company.

It was cherry picking to the max and wasn't funny. Just incredibly mean spirited.

Yeah seriously it's insane how much he cherry picked the content I wouldn't be surprised if Bungie paid him for that.

I heard he's following that one up with a downgrade comparison between the PC and Console versions of Doom (1993)

Wait a second isn't he doing the Duke Nukem one next?

 

[Brerlappin]

of all the recent downgrade furores, this one hurts me the most. It was obvious the lighting was removed to accomodate PS3/360 limitations. And to anyone saying the torch mechanic would have sucked, well an easy fix for that is just put torches on the walls in areas that are super dark. That way you still could have kept the dramatic lighting without removing it entirely. The game looks so flat and bland without it. It was jsut the icing on the top of the overall Disappointment that was DS2. The lighting wouldnt have made it a better game, but it might have eased the disappointment a bit.

 

[Crankshaft]

To the people complaining that this material is 3 years old, this thread is now 4 pages deep so obviously there is still discussion to be had about what could have been.

That being said, I hope From brings this style back in some capacity in one of their games in the future. I'd like to play a game where darkness is one of your enemies.

 

[Guevara]

The graphics downgrade doesn't really bother me. It happens.

What bothers me is that the torch mechanic, which could have been cool, ended up being worthless.

 

[Sami+]

Imagine Dark Souls 2 tedium with added 0 visibility.

It was a terrible design choice that needed to go away.

And lets not forget that Dark Souls 2 came out PS360. Lighting and particle effects were impossible.

Then they should have delayed the game and explained what their thought process was, because as it was, we had been advertised a specific kind of gameplay gimmick and told that it would be used throughout the entire game only for the game to come out with said gimmick being completely removed and the game itself being far uglier for it.

I can't say whether or not I'd have been into it for sure either way, but it would have at least been a novel experience and it's not like my opinion of Dark Souls II could have been much lower than it is now anyway.

 

[Thrillhou2]

I got into the Dark Souls series a few months after Dark Souls 2 came out. So I was unaware of the graphical downgrade. So watching this video does not bother me at all. I still think the game looks good and plays well.

CrowBCat seems to be running out of ideas.

 

[DJSharpeCheddar]

Things I learned in this thread:

- Games that came out > 1 year ago are not fit for discussion

- A direct comparison between pre-release and release (with no added commentary, expressly for posterity) constitutes a direct, unfair attack on the developer

- CrowbCat videos are a useful Rorschach test

 

[Yudoken]

I wonder if we will ever will see someone getting their hands on the preview builds.

 

[RoadHazard]

Pretty incredible how they basically removed all lighting. The released product is soooo flat.

The pre-downgrade version doesn't look all that amazing either though. Too bloomy and saturated. And the final version does have some geometry upgrades here and there (but also some downgrades).

 

[Velius]

I don't know why he decided to make this video, however...

This still stands as a stark example of how bad things can get in the development process.

Fromsoft is one of my favorite developers. I also want to point out that sometimes people have great ambition, and the technological limitations of hardware compel them to revise.

But that's not the problem- the issue is one of honesty. They were disturbingly silent when the game was reworked. There was no mention of it in the months leading up to release. I honestly don't know what they thought was going to happen. And they DID leave up the old screenshots on the Steam page; I remember being hopeful after the console release that the original lighting would be preserved on PC.

No excuses.

 

[jim2point0]

I don't know why he decided to make this video, however...

I imagine he has a list of older controversies to dig up in case there's no recent gaming topics to make videos on. Jim Sterling probably has a similar list.

 

[Davey Cakes]

Things I learned in this thread:

- Games that came out > 1 year ago are not fit for discussion

I'll never understand this line of thinking. Video games have been in the mainstream for over four decades, and there will always be something interesting to talk about regardless of the era. New and shiny games get our attention because of the improvements in technology that we experience in real time, but when looking back at older games we get to see some intriguing aspects of development.

There's a reason why Digital Foundry Retro is a thing. We get insight into game development of the past, whether it's going back only a few years, or going back a few generations.

I'm currently playing Dark Souls 2: SotFS on my 2012 laptop and the game runs fine but there's always been this look to it that seemed a bit odd or different coming off of DS1. An analysis video might help understand why, so I can appreciate the effort.

 

[Plum]

I feel like this is a better look at the changes because there's actually some explanation as to what they are. It's not just the lightning but the geometry, level of detail, texture work and more that was changed. Frankly it's quite disappointing that SotFS didn't include these graphical updates on current-gen consoles and PC.

 

[CAR105 3]

Truly the dark souls of downgrades.

Is this the post? The post of the Dark Soul?

 

[Inuhanyou]

Things I learned in this thread:

- Games that came out > 1 year ago are not fit for discussion

- A direct comparison between pre-release and release (with no added commentary, expressly for posterity) constitutes a direct, unfair attack on the developer

- CrowbCat videos are a useful Rorschach test

pretty much. people get rabid when it comes to their sacred cows...

 

[Zaventem]

The weird thing is if you played the Dark Souls 2 demo, you would know they had better lighting in that vs the product we received. This is just one of the situations that make it my least loved dark souls game.

 

[CHC]

Things I learned in this thread:

- Games that came out > 1 year ago are not fit for discussion

- A direct comparison between pre-release and release (with no added commentary, expressly for posterity) constitutes a direct, unfair attack on the developer

- CrowbCat videos are a useful Rorschach test

Discussion is fine, but this isn't some kind of meaningful critique. It's just comparing a bunch of old marketing footage to a game that already came out - it's of little use to anyone today (no one is looking at 2013 trailers to decide if they want to buy the game now) and has nothing really original or insightful to say.

But of course actual critique of games, no matter how old, can be worthwhile. SuperBunnyHop, for instance, recently released a video comparing the level design in all the Souls game. Naturally, it had criticisms of Dark Souls II, but it also offered something more weighty than the implication "argh these lying devs really fucked us!"

 

[Nabbis]

I bet half the people whining about this video were also whining about people bringing up the downgrade during release.

 

[angelic]

More people discussing Dark Souls 2 downgrade than playing Lawbreakers.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Discussion is fine, but this isn't some kind of meaningful critique. It's just comparing a bunch of old marketing footage to a game that already came out - it's of little use to anyone today (no one is looking at 2013 trailers to decide if they want to buy the game now) and has nothing really original or insightful to say.

It doesnt really have to say anything besides "hey look at this before and after comparison". Nobody cares if its meaningful or relevant to anyone's current buying interests.

I mean, there's no barometer or timetable for anything like that on video topics. So it seems to me that people are coming up with excuses to be mad that this video exists

 

[RoadHazard]

I mean, correct us if wrong, but didn't AAA PS360 games mostly used pre-baked lighting for the environments?

I'm sure by "impossible" he meant in the context of needing to also have AAA graphics so there may not be enough horsepower left for dynamic lighting.

Souls games have AAA graphics now?

Those games were always technical messes.

 

[Clear]

What always annoys me about people complaining about stuff like this is that the original version was a real thing, as real as the final release, and clearly a result of a lot of work to make it look the way it did. Removing/not using that tech and and those assets is not something anyone on the dev-side would be happy about.

I hate this attitude that if a game has to endure visual downgrades its some sort of "trick" perpetrated on the end-user, when the reality is that what it actually represents is the devs having to do stuff twice (or more) over due to some unforseen technical issue.

Sorry to say but its not just a simple matter of some techniques being too computationally expensive on the cpu or gpu side, oftentimes shit happens due to issues like memory limitations coming into play due to level-design/population issues cropping up late on as the game as a whole is assembled into a coherent whole. Its not as simple as just shifting a few sliders or tweaking variables until the frame-rate improves because every part is connected.

Design changes for gameplay purposes can impact memory usage which in turn impacts visual design, and so forth. Its rarely a case of "sorry, the code team madly overestimated what they could visualize", especially when the pre-"downgrade" stuff physically shows it in operation; albeit without a bunch of systems present in the final build and in isolation from every other area of the game.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Things I learned in this thread:

- CrowbCat videos are a useful Rorschach test

That's what I love about them. He doesn't have to say anything, just presents a lot recorded footage and the mob goes to work for him.

 

[DMiz]

It still hurts. The game was clearly designed with the lighting system in mind and turning it off is like playing Half-Life 2 in fullbright mode.



Also, Scholar of the First Sin should've reimplemented it on consoles and PC users should've had it the whole time if the older gen hardware was the issue.

From a business perspective, it was clear why PC users weren't going to get a lighting fix. It would change a lot of fundamental things about the game and result in several people -- who would purchase the console version later on -- to basically raise their arms and say they were out, because they were clearly getting a crippled version of the game.

As for why they didn't reimplement the system in Dark Souls II, I would imagine that the development effort to actually adjust teh visuals to be able to work with the lighting system were likely too high to warrant what was effectively a "Game of the Year" edition.

 

[Ostinatto]

And VaatiVidya knew everything and he didn't warned us.

 

[SonicXtreme]

n64 woods

 

[Inuhanyou]

Souls games have AAA graphics now?

Those games were always technical messes.

BB and Dark souls 3 definitely have better graphics(not art style) than quite a few AAA games. I dont see how anyone could argue that. Last gen as well, the visuals were appropriate for those systems

 

[Hentailover]

I hate when people use "thing change during development" as an excuse in cases such a this.

When people complain about this stuff, they don't just complain cuz changes and downgrades in development are inherently unacceptable, even if it ends up eventually burried in the white noise of every 12 year old screaming about incredibly reduced and stripped down point.

The reason stuff like this is considered bad, as well as entire shebang with No Man's Sky, is ultimately because the things that "changed during development" were still used to promote the game, Tricking people to buy the game over features that never made it past cutting floor, without properly informing people about it. What's the problem is lack of TRANSPARENCY. You counldn't lkeep the game at 60 fps, you had to lock it at 30 for most stable performance? ok, can't be helped. You had to downgrade some graphic effects? Fine, okay, we all have our limitations! Multiplayer is not working out, you are ditching it? Interesting gameplay gimmick ended up just being frustrated in testing so you took a hacksaw to your vision for better experience? Good on you! Your generation algorythms had to be normalized cuz there just no way you could keep it reasonably compleatable without reigning back the rng? Okay... JUST FUCKING TELL ME ABOUT IT BEFORE THE RELEASE. You don't even need to put down all your cards, you don't need to reveal all the plot redherrings and stuff like that, but at least be transparent about actual features...

 

[Candescence]

I don't think this is a critique, but rather a demonstration - both the video and the description are entirely neutral in presentation, it just shows an accurate comparison between pre-release and final game footage. But the comparison is stark - there's better textures overall, but a mixed bag in terms of geometry changes, and the lighting is undoubtably far inferior. They should've been up-front about the whole thing.

Also, I think needing a torch would've been fine - you only need one hand for a torch, meaning you can still use your weapon, and perhaps there might've been other ways to light an area that are more temporary and consumable, such as flares. The problem with Doom 3 was that you can't use the flashlight and your weapons simultaneously, which isn't a problem in DSII, but you can't use, say, a shield.

 

[RoadHazard]

BB and Dark souls 3 definitely have better graphics(not art style) than quite a few AAA games. I dont see how anyone could argue that. Last gen as well, the visuals were appropriate for those systems

BB and DkS3 maaaaybe (still technical messes though, at least on console), but the PS360 games were not impressive compared to a lot of other stuff on those systems.

 

[iHaunter]

Love me some Crowbcat!

 

[Inuhanyou]

BB and DkS3 maaaaybe (still technical messes though, at least on console), but the PS360 games were not impressive compared to a lot of other stuff on those systems.

dark souls 1 was pretty impressive, demons doesnt hold up so well. even so, that doesnt really disqualify the label "AAA" graphics. there are plenty of AAA games that have worse graphics than either from last gen