So WhatCulture did a video on the
10 Worst Video Game Downgrades That Pissed Off EVERYONE, and I was surprised to see
The Witcher 3 on the thumbnail and listed there at number 6.
Now, I admit to being a huge fan of the game and perhaps a little biased, but was the downgrade really a big issue for people? I'll admit that the graphics were downgraded from what we were shown in
The Sword of Destiny trailer. For comparison:
Despite that, I was still blown away by the visuals that we got in the final game. And I've never really been much of a graphics whore so a downgrade never really bothered me. The graphics are just one part of the whole game and at the time I thought
The Witcher 3's visuals were way ahead of other open world games until
Red Dead Redemption 2. And I admire the fact that CDProjektRed
acknowledge the controversy head on.
But what say you GAF? Was there every any real controversy here?
I followed the matter rather closely.
Here are the facts:
Fact #1:
The hype surrounding TW3 gained momentum when the VGX promo trailer was shown in December 2013, at the VGX Awards hosted by Geoff Keighley. Over a blank black screen, the very first thing the trailer has to say is that the following will be "in-game footage".
Fact #2:
Subsequent promo material suggested the possibility of a downgrade, something which was on everyone's mind after the Watchdogs' fiasco. When asked about it, then community Manager Marcin Momot denied it in the most explicit terms. He categorially stated the visual fidelity shown in the VGX trailer would be there in the final game.
Fact #3:
Another CDPR community manager called forum members who kept mentioning the downgrade, quote, "tools". His derision went on for quite a while.
Fact #4:
The topic was forbidden on CDPR official forums. Bans were issued left and right to anyone who discussed it. Moderators not only deleted posts, but actively took part in the discussions claiming the downgrade wasn't real. Some went so far as editing member posts. Sardukhar, for example, who's still a mod there, ridiculed members by inserting clip art ponies in posts he disagreed with. He even edited a few to say the opposite of what the poster meant.
Fact #5:
Around the time when the Elder Blood trailer came out, a year later, in December 2014, CDPR claimed the perceived differences were due to YouTube compression/encoding problems. Several forum members who were also youtubers or simply knowledgeable called bullshit on the claim. To this day, Elder Blood footage is still representative of what the vanilla game looks like. CDPR never replaced the original video with another where the alleged encoding/compression problems had been corrected.
Fact #6:
After the controversy blew up, a dev commented saying the VGX trailer was merely aspirational and that the game wasn't even playable at the time. He didn't address the "in-game footage" CDPR desired to stamp on it, though.
Fact #7:
There was never a formal candid acknowledgement of the downgrade by CDPR, including by Marcin Moot, who has since been promoted. Fans got some vague allusions but nothing forthright. They never came clean.
Fact #8:
Digital Foundry published a number of videos on the matter. Here are three:
Fact #9:
Even today. with the panoply of mods available, it's still very difficult to achieve the kind of visual fidelity showcased in the VGX trailer. Not only were the draw distances, textures, asset quality and lighting depreciated, but the art direction also underwent some changes, which is a sepratae subject altogether.
Conclusion: The downgrade was real and repeatedly denied by CDPR.
The game still managed to look gorgeous at launch. You're more than welcome to think that's enough. You may think it's a great AAA RPG whose overall quality more than makes up for any downgrade. In the grand scheme of things the downgrade doesn't really matter or bother you.
What you can't reasonably do is deny it existed and that CDPR did go though an acute censorious denial phase. It is no coincidence their official forums haven't recovered since and for the most part remain a deserted and uneventful place to this day.
