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Opinion : Witcher 3 is the most beautiful open world game on consoles

GTAV also has no PBR. So it definitely isn't aging as well. Characters and materials look so much more convincing in Witcher 3 despite being fantasy.

gta v has awful, awful character models for sure, but they animate much better. even without PBR i find the environment materials mostly better than witcher 3.
 
I must play the wrong xbx. I mean it's beautiful, but there is so much what hurts the eyes:

- character models
- resolution
- Main City hub
- Hyper aggressive pop in of everything
- Bland lighting

Considering it's running on the wiiu it's mighty impressive, but they had to cut a lot of corners obviously.
 
It's one thing to argue which looks better from an artistic perspective, but I for the life of me can't see how someone can say XBX looms better techwise than The Witcher 3. That's not to say XBX looks bad though, I think it looks great, there's just only so much they can do considering the hardware it's on in comparison to the PC, XB1, and PS4.

I always love when people lump the PS4 and XBO in with PC
 
I do love W3's world for the natural beauty, but I really have to give the nod to Xenoblade X. The world had tons of layering (cliffs hanging over valleys, tunnel systems high above pools of water fed by waterfalls) which gives it a very alien appearance.
 
My main faults with the Witcher 3 are that the water was beaten by games in 2008, and that the foliage was also beaten by games in 2008. Rest of the game is pretty beautiful, but I just can't get past those for some reason.
 
I very definitely and easily put TW3 and XCX as the best open-world games of the year (and for me personally in a long ass time in general, my two games of the year probably).

They provide me with different things (as well as very different takes on story, lore, and setting), though. I cannot fly in a giant robot in TW3, for one, which gives XCX a much larger sense of scale/scope by the simple act of giving me wings to go anywhere. But XCX cannot hope to compare with TW3 on a graphical level.
 
My main faults with the Witcher 3 are that the water was beaten by games in 2008, and that the foliage was also beaten by games in 2008. Rest of the game is pretty beautiful, but I just can't get past those for some reason.

Water I can understand but which open world games on console from 2008 have that volume of foliage and looks as great?
 
I would agree, easily. I can't think of anything else that's even close. GTA5 has its moments, but overall I think TW3 is much better and more immersive. MGS5 has pretty graphics, but there is next to nothing noteworthy on the maps. Just big open spaces devoid of any form of life.
 
Cuz the thread is about that

I'm not talking about a game on console from 2008 that looks better than the Witcher 3, I'm saying the Witcher 3 is the best looking open world game on console, but it gets beaten by older games in both foliage and water, which is why I think the game could look a lot better.
 
My main faults with the Witcher 3 are that the water was beaten by games in 2008, and that the foliage was also beaten by games in 2008. Rest of the game is pretty beautiful, but I just can't get past those for some reason.

Though you can find individual examples that are better done, there is no way that you can find an example that beats the foliage density.
 
My main faults with the Witcher 3 are that the water was beaten by games in 2008, and that the foliage was also beaten by games in 2008. Rest of the game is pretty beautiful, but I just can't get past those for some reason.

Water I'll give ya, but the foliage is absolutely astonishing. I hope that in the inevitable Enhanced Edition they revise the water effects and add things like whitecaps, convincing shore waves and 3d ship wakes. It's the only noticeable blemish on the game's visuals.
 
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of course X looks better, but the character models and shaders look very dated, and remind of something from that era.

Sorry, but no. If you think the game even remotely resembles a gen 6 title then you are simply wrong. The PS2 couldn't do programmable shaders the way we think of them period. There were work arounds created by several talented devs but they couldn't actually replicate what a system like the Xbox was able to do even.

There is no gen 6 game that even remotely approaches Xenoblade visually. It's literally a generation ahead because it's on hardware that is a generation ahead.There is really no debate to be had here.

Back on topic. The Witcher 3 is definitely up there, but I do think that AC at least gives it a run for it's money in terms of raw visuals. I would say what The Witcher is doing is far more impressive though.
 
would you take somebody's opinion seriously if they thought gta vice city in hd looked better then gta4, because they prefer's the way miami looks.

Actually, yeah. I could see why someone would prefer the look of Vice City. Vanilla GTA IV is an ugly game.
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I mean, it's a lot more likely than someone thinking GTA IV looks better than GTAV.
 
I can switch back and forth between The Witcher 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles X and they each feel really impressive to me because of different reasons. The Witcher 3 is such a high production value game with a focus on story and characters and has more variation in foliage, higher resolution textures and better lighting on characters, way better animation and of course great weather effects. On the other hand XBX with its focus on world exploration holds its own with the geometric detail of the world, draw distance, scale and world design (the characters and New Los Angeles look quite bad to be honest).

The Witcher 3 is technically the more polished experience. XBX's world is more immersive though.
 
Absolutely agree. It's a gorgeous game

I'm not talking about a game on console from 2008 that looks better than the Witcher 3, I'm saying the Witcher 3 is the best looking open world game on console, but it gets beaten by older games in both foliage and water, which is why I think the game could look a lot better.

Crysis?
 
I'm loving XCX as much as everyone else but to say that game is more beautiful than W3 is really odd to me. Nothing about XCX screams out beauty to me. Sure it has an incredibly huge world with great draw distance but when close to most objects, it still looks pretty average. Textures simply aren't nearly as impressive to me.

It's definitely a good looking game on WiiU but I don't think it even comes close to what W3 looks like on my X1 let alone the screenshots I've seen for PC.

I'm more impressed by the paint on the canvas than the quality of the brush. Games like Witcher, Fallout, Assassins Creed, they all impress technically but are visually boring to me. Vagrant Story on PS1 looks better to me, I'd also give votes to Shadow of the Colossus and ICO, the Sly Cooper and Ratched and Clank games (picking out PS games since there are some who like to dismiss opinions with the trite accusation of "console bias"). The choices of color, the art style, the settings and atmosphere gain my attention, not the technical achievements.
 
I'm more impressed by the paint on the canvas than the quality of the brush. Games like Witcher, Fallout, Assassins Creed, they all impress technically but are visually boring to me. Vagrant Story on PS1 looks better to me, I'd also give votes to Shadow of the Colossus and ICO, the Sly Cooper and Ratched and Clank games (picking out PS games since there are some who like to dismiss opinions with the trite accusation of "console bias"). The choices of color, the art style, the settings and atmosphere gain my attention, not the technical achievements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3YTaLg0mTc

yeah that clearly looks better
 
Technically Witcher 3 is very impressive, but outside of Skellige I hardly notice it, because it all looks incredibly bland to me. Doesn't help that Velen looks like it's modeled after my country.
 
The game suffers from all open world games unevenness. You can find yourself in a place, at a certain angle where it looks amazing. But most environments look terrible with bad textures, low polly models, abysmal water effects and bad arrangement. When it looks good, it sure looks good but no better than gta V on PC.
 
The game suffers from all open world games unevenness. You can find yourself in a place, at a certain angle where it looks amazing. But most environments look terrible with bad textures, low polly models, abysmal water effects and bad arrangement. When it looks good, it sure looks good but no better than gta V on PC.

I absolutely agree and would go as far to say as I prefer it on console as well.

There are just some parts of the map or times of the day where the game just looks a little weird. The time of day in which everything is a weird red just makes the game look a little weird.

Bet it would look a lot better on PC though.
 
The game sure is pretty, but it suffered too much from the Modern MMO trope - constantly looking at your minimap.

For what it's worth I played the ENTIRE game with the minimap off. Learned to navigate by landmarks and had no trouble doing any of the quests - in fact I enjoyed them more when I was not beholden to the minimap.
 
I was more immediately impressed by Batman AK, though that's not saying I think it's better than Witcher 3. They're so different that's it's almost an apples/oranges kind of comparison unless you want to break it down to a few very specific techniques and/or effects. Like, either game might have some effect that the other doesn't or can't do because of their respective environment or art design.

The best thing about Batman AK is the rain. I love the rain in Batman and how it reflects light.

And because it's perpetually raining in Gotham right from the get-go, it makes an incredible first impression when you step into the city for the first time and everything is wet, and the pavement reflects a smattering of neon signs and street lamps.

But then in Witcher 3 you get incredible swaying trees and grass (especially during storms!), which Batman AK doesn't have do to the lack of meaningful foliage in Gotham.
 
This thread makes want to buy this game. Especially knowing it's going on a nice sale at Bestbuy.

I own PS4 and Xbox One. From what I've read, the Xbone version runs smoother with more consistent frame rate, but the PS4 version runs 1080p (vs 900p) and is slightly sharper as a result. From watching vids on YouTube, they seem pretty similar but oddly the Xbone seems to have a slight edge in performance.

Has that changed with recent updates?
 
This thread makes want to buy this game. Especially knowing it's going on a nice sale at Bestbuy.

I own PS4 and Xbox One. From what I've read, the Xbone version runs smoother with more consistent frame rate, but the PS4 version runs 1080p (vs 900p) and is slightly sharper as a result. From watching vids on YouTube, they seem pretty similar but oddly the Xbone seems to have a slight edge in performance.

Has that changed with recent updates?

Get the PS4 version. It is the better one now.
 
For what it's worth I played the ENTIRE game with the minimap off. Learned to navigate by landmarks and had no trouble doing any of the quests - in fact I enjoyed them more when I was not beholden to the minimap.

Yeah, I probably should have done the same. But I just lack the strength to impose such a harsh handicap.

I particulary found it funny when navigation the cities. I barely remember anything from the bigger ones, because my eyes were usually glued to the minimap icons.
 
The density and graphic quality of TW3's world is really something unpreceded in open world games.Very often i just found myself to simply walk and take in the atmosphere of the environments.

What is even more amazing is that this was CDPR's first open world game,so i can't even imagine what they will do with the next one.


Xenoblade Chronicles X world is also amazing especially when you consider the limitations of WiiU's hardware when compared to the other consoles.I can't even imagine what Monolith could do if they had the power of PS4.
 
It really is best in class, especially when you get to Skellige. I played it on PC but I can't imagine the technical limitations of the consoles diluted the experience too much. One open world game that I did play on console and did wow me was Assassin's Creed Unity on PS4. I know the game had well documented technical issues at launch (and months after) but I played it post-patch and I thought the recreation of 18th century Paris was stunning.
 
White orchard? No. It's the least dense out of all of the game's areas.

That doesn't mean it's still not pretty dense.

Actually I played FF XV Episode Duscae right after Witcher 3 a few days ago and didn't realize how empty FF was in comparison.
 
id argue that gta v on next gen is a bigger technical achievement as a whole over witcher 3.

You would argue? Cool, so why don't you ?

The density and graphic quality of TW3's world is really something unpreceded in open world games.Very often i just found myself to simply walk and take in the atmosphere of the environments.

What is even more amazing is that this was CDPR's first open world game,so i can't even imagine what they will do with the next one.


Xenoblade Chronicles X world is also amazing especially when you consider the limitations of WiiU's hardware when compared to the other consoles.I can't even imagine what Monolith could do if they had the power of PC.

Now this is a post I can get behind. With tiny minor modification there.
 
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