Man, Horizon Zero Dawn may be technically better but there's something about the look of The Witcher 3 that I like more.
Perhaps you prefer the art or the world, but as far as detail, it's not even close...
Also, Witcher 3 has so many low res textures littered throughout the world, you don't even have to go behind cabins or rocks or places where most devs would try to cut corners as it relates to detail, there are many flat textures of every variety in the foreground where you traverse and play...You take any pic of Witcher 3 and inspect it's composition, apart from some nice details on the main characters, building textures, ground textures are very flat, items like thatch, grain on the floor too..., it's right there when you play. Reference this
video someone just linked me to see what I'm talking about. Also, this
video which is a more advanced version and better put together video of the improvements.
If i remember correctly game was eating 1,2-1,5gb vram on 1080p with ultra textures so these are really fantastic textures for what it takes.
Some pics from my game (only STLM active)
Any better game sample without any textures mod while eating 1,2-1,5gb vram?
Yeah, it didn't use much vram, but look at the composition of that shot, as I mentioned above, the background and ground textures are not impressive at all.
Now look at some closeups foreground and background composition of HZD for e.g.
From the console screenshot thread....