All the landscape looks like you're playing in an oil painting. Trees, grass, flowers, bushes, water. It's really off-puting.

agree

Haven't thought of that, but it's one possible way to see it. WTF? Next you're saying waffles or fries are icky!

Totally disagree... love it. but that's just my opinion.

i dont like the midget bear but in this case i agree w him, a game that looks like an oil painting sounds great to me..

agree

I dig on waffles and fries as much of the next guy. just that in a world where AAA developers are in a race for the most realistic graphics this looks more like personal artistic expression or graphical short-cutting than a realistic living breathing world. The character and buildings and animals look realistic, but the landscape looks like a painting. It's just...wrong.

Especially compared to the realistic environments in Witcher 2.

I see.
What if... just for a second... this was intentional? To produce a specific atmosphere?

Hang on to that thought, somebody might even make cell-shaded games for the comic-book feels!
-

Any choice of style may find people disagreeing with it; it's a matter of taste (and art). So YMMV.


Seeing your edit: This is different from Witcher 2, I agree. And the inconsistency is something that can be irritating.
Maybe in an interview or article we'll get to know what the reasons for this choice were.

agree

I am an artist who does a lot of oil painting and that was exactly what I thought when I first started playing the game. It's pretty in a way, but being an immersion freak, and liking realistic textures in my games ( like my Skyrim with a lot of texture mods), I was a bit disappointed. I'm getting used to it now. I have to say in my game, on my monitor, the colours are very saturated as well. Still, I am enjoying the game so far.

Uninstall the game, and quit with the bitching. Holy crap, this is getting out of hand.

IMO, immersion is not about realism. Not at all. Realistic games are very, very rare.*
It is about letting you dive into a shared dream, with little or nothing to make you wake from it until you want to.

Crashes, bad controls, strange inventory and HUD systems can be immersion breakers - but never the graphic style.
The style is for something else: the atmosphere. Is it lighthearted, serious, gritty, dreamlike, weird, fairytale, military, horror...

The part of Witcher 3 we're talking about here reminds me of the Witcher 1 quest, "The Heat of the Day". You recall those fields? The way everything looked set the mood for appearance of the noonwraiths and... everything else.

So, IMHO the real question is: which feeling does this style evoke in you? Does it fit your idea of the Witcher world?


* Operation Flashpoint maybe or Arma.

I agree. With the looks, not that it bot hers me much. I actually think the graphics in the forest level (First zone) of Witcher 2 was light years ahead of this in the way that it looks in regards to realism. (stuck in the middle of a dense claustrophobic forest). Of course you could not free roam in that one though, so that needs to be considered. Anyway, I would have preferred realistic textures on the trees/grass/water vs. what they picked, but that is just personal preference.

There are only two tweaks I'd love to see. Slower boating option, like walking or running speeds, and a good many trees stop swaying so wildly. I can appreciate a gale blowing through, when Geralt specifically mentions its really blowing, but not every moment. Sometimes, its just a gentle breeze.