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Horizon: Forbidden West |OT| Red Head Redemption - II -

AGRacing

Member
I have an LG C9.

Played through the intro. About a half hour past your first skill point.

Using Fidelity mode as advised by DF.

It is SHARP. The moss looks incredible.
My wife even commented on it passing by... which is usually an indication of "wow" impact. My sharpness setting is equivalent 0... but that does NOT mean the setting is 0. I looked this up before for my specific TV.

I encountered no bugs. Game is also doing a great job re-introducing me to the controls. The camera cuts in the initial cinematic are jarring.. simply because there are so many of them and there may be a duplicate frame on each cut. It's during a conversation. That being said - there is zero asset pop in ... like the cuts in an unreal engine game.

Very very VERY densely detailed open world. It's so much denser than any open world I've played that there's an adjustment. You're unsure that you are noticing everything you should notice initially. That alone makes it feel "next gen". I'd call anyone saying it is "cross gen" feeling in fidelity mode a bit hyperbolic.

Looking forward to more!!

I'm not going to play with performance mode for now... I'm happy with the initial decision of switching to fidelity before starting.
 

Kenneth Haight

Gold Member
Soooo I have played this a bit now. Have not finished the intro section but I am a bit surprised.

Surprised at how unpolished it feels? I know the reviews talked about bugs, and I did install some kind of patch that was available, but come on. It's riddled with weird issues all in the first hour, and some of it is surely going to last the duration of the game, because I feel like there are some weird rendering issues happening.

-First off, performance mode looks bad IMO. There is no way I can play in that mode. It's incredibly soft and looks like an old gen game in this mode. Ok back to resolution mode.
-There is a ton of noise in the image at times. Someone, somewhere, also mentioned edge enhancement being done, and how you can clearly see it happening because the screen "darkens" as the camera moves and brightens up again when you stop, because all of the edges have a white haze. This person was exactly right and this does happen. It's incredibly distracting. I've seen some flickering of the screen as well when just standing there.
-The intro-intro that first plays has a ton of frame hitches in it when the camera changes, with things popping into view while it's playing etc. I gave Forza Horizon 5 crap for this, and its right here too. Not a good look at all IMO.
-When I first got the pull caster every step I was taking was shooting up massive clouds of dust (even when I was on grass) and the dust wasn't even coming from where Aloy's feet were hitting the ground. It looked positively ridiculous ...
-I just don't see anything that screams "next gen" to me so far. The screen captures and stuff we've seen on this board look way better than actually playing the game, and I'm on a new 85" Sony 4k tv with complete surround. Oh yeah, the surround audio seems well done. Did like that so far.
-When cutscenes come on, the visual quality takes a noticeable leap. The game does look great here, and the character animation and voice acting seem much improved over part 1.

It's early still, and art wise it looks fantastic, yes. But rendering quality and tech wise ... uh I hate to say it but it DOES feel like a "cross gen" game to me, more than anything I've played on my PS5 so far. I was able to play Demon's Souls in performance mode and that game still looked razor sharp and felt rock solid visually in that mode. It was amazing looking and still is. Ratchet at 4k/30 also still trounces the presentation of this game. No one is going to mistake this thing for anything other than a video game, unlike Ratchet at times.

Melee combat felt improved. I like the robot Dino theme still. It seems like they are poking fun at Elon Musk in the intro and not really hiding it. Not sure what that's about. But yeah, I'm a little disappointed. Outside of nice art production I see nothing new or that impressive to me here. I still rank Demon's Souls and Ratchet higher. Hell, even Returnal didn't have the issues this one does. We will see if it improves as I get farther, but again, I don't see how the rendering tech is going to get any better. I'm seriously wondering about the reviews when it comes to the graphics personally.

Edit: See, I hate when people do this stupid "laugh" emoji when it's clear they are laughing at the content of the post and not with you on a joke you made. @Classicrockfan if you got something to respond with, do it. I want to hear how you disagree, because I am honestly scratching my head while playing this. I am on a top of the line setup and it just doesn't look that great to me in the ways I was expecting it to. I have played other PS5 games that were awesome to look at, and I just don't count this game as one of them so far. Again I'm still in the intro but this is how the game looks as far as I can see. I can see other posters above agree with me in some ways, saying how the CBR looks awful. It does (in performance mode). It's freaking obvious. In resolution mode, it looks pretty good when standing still but as soon as you start moving it's just not great. And then if you go to performance mode, it looks ok while you're moving, and then looks terrible when you're standing still. It sorta feels to me like you just can't win visually. Now it could still be a great game. That has nothing to do with graphics. After everything I've seen and read though I was expecting more. I mean I even saw uncompressed video reviews where I was like ...whoa that looks great! But directly on my Sony 85" ... not so much. Not sure what else to say, I always just call it like I see it.
Holy shit man, you better give that PS5 back, that is some critique right there.
 

Aaron Olive

Member
Soooo I have played this a bit now. Have not finished the intro section but I am a bit surprised.

Surprised at how unpolished it feels? I know the reviews talked about bugs, and I did install some kind of patch that was available, but come on. It's riddled with weird issues all in the first hour, and some of it is surely going to last the duration of the game, because I feel like there are some weird rendering issues happening.

-First off, performance mode looks bad IMO. There is no way I can play in that mode. It's incredibly soft and looks like an old gen game in this mode. Ok back to resolution mode.
-There is a ton of noise in the image at times. Someone, somewhere, also mentioned edge enhancement being done, and how you can clearly see it happening because the screen "darkens" as the camera moves and brightens up again when you stop, because all of the edges have a white haze. This person was exactly right and this does happen. It's incredibly distracting. I've seen some flickering of the screen as well when just standing there.
-The intro-intro that first plays has a ton of frame hitches in it when the camera changes, with things popping into view while it's playing etc. I gave Forza Horizon 5 crap for this, and its right here too. Not a good look at all IMO.
-When I first got the pull caster every step I was taking was shooting up massive clouds of dust (even when I was on grass) and the dust wasn't even coming from where Aloy's feet were hitting the ground. It looked positively ridiculous ...
-I just don't see anything that screams "next gen" to me so far. The screen captures and stuff we've seen on this board look way better than actually playing the game, and I'm on a new 85" Sony 4k tv with complete surround. Oh yeah, the surround audio seems well done. Did like that so far.
-When cutscenes come on, the visual quality takes a noticeable leap. The game does look great here, and the character animation and voice acting seem much improved over part 1.

It's early still, and art wise it looks fantastic, yes. But rendering quality and tech wise ... uh I hate to say it but it DOES feel like a "cross gen" game to me, more than anything I've played on my PS5 so far. I was able to play Demon's Souls in performance mode and that game still looked razor sharp and felt rock solid visually in that mode. It was amazing looking and still is. Ratchet at 4k/30 also still trounces the presentation of this game. No one is going to mistake this thing for anything other than a video game, unlike Ratchet at times.

Melee combat felt improved. I like the robot Dino theme still. It seems like they are poking fun at Elon Musk in the intro and not really hiding it. Not sure what that's about. But yeah, I'm a little disappointed. Outside of nice art production I see nothing new or that impressive to me here. I still rank Demon's Souls and Ratchet higher. Hell, even Returnal didn't have the issues this one does. We will see if it improves as I get farther, but again, I don't see how the rendering tech is going to get any better. I'm seriously wondering about the reviews when it comes to the graphics personally.

Edit: See, I hate when people do this stupid "laugh" emoji when it's clear they are laughing at the content of the post and not with you on a joke you made. @Classicrockfan if you got something to respond with, do it. I want to hear how you disagree, because I am honestly scratching my head while playing this. I am on a top of the line setup and it just doesn't look that great to me in the ways I was expecting it to. I have played other PS5 games that were awesome to look at, and I just don't count this game as one of them so far. Again I'm still in the intro but this is how the game looks as far as I can see. I can see other posters above agree with me in some ways, saying how the CBR looks awful. It does (in performance mode). It's freaking obvious. In resolution mode, it looks pretty good when standing still but as soon as you start moving it's just not great. And then if you go to performance mode, it looks ok while you're moving, and then looks terrible when you're standing still. It sorta feels to me like you just can't win visually. Now it could still be a great game. That has nothing to do with graphics. After everything I've seen and read though I was expecting more. I mean I even saw uncompressed video reviews where I was like ...whoa that looks great! But directly on my Sony 85" ... not so much. Not sure what else to say, I always just call it like I see it.
There is a HDR handshake issue with the game, which can make it look awkward, there are bugs but woah at least it isn’t 2042.
 
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N1tr0sOx1d3

Given another chance
Found my first bug… zoom in phone users. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
JUQBczP.jpg
Hairier than a hog 😱
Her ears look like bacon.
 
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Tahj

Member
Finally it's here! Got to play about 1.5hrs, but as I've been up 22hrs now (no nap this eve, despite trying), I need to set the controller down & get a little sleep. Boo! Boo I say!

Anyway, been reading a lot of issues with both modes. That sucks, & hopefully some fixes are pushed quick-like by Guerrilla, or work-arounds found for the meantime. My TV (55" Samsung 8 series) is doing great so far in performance mode, & looks absolutely damn incredible. Don't play too many games on console, but I've usually had to turn off HDR due to shit looking wonky in some way, but so far so good in H: FW. I did fiddle w/ the HDR in-game settings just a bit, & turned motion blur to low.

Really happy to be back in this series! Have fun everyone!
 
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01011001

Banned
I don’t know if there’s anything geurilla can do this late in the game, but I hope they can go back and look at the rendering choice for the 60fps mode. It looks really terrible. Games like demons souls and ratchet prove you can have a super clean image at 1440p with good AA.

I think it will have to be wait for the PC version if not because there’s no way we should be going back to 30fps. Devs just need to be more intelligent with their choices.

yeah I just think checkerboard rendering was a really bad choice here. the vegetation simply doesn't work well with cbr and the Antialiasing is not up for the task of cleaning up the image.

technically speaking running in native 1440p should be less taxing than running 1800cb... so maybe there is hope they will implement that as an option.

it just really never looks remotely like 1800p (there have been 1800cb games on PS4 Pro that looked super sharp like Deus Ex so it's not like it can't be a great looking solution) and I bet 1440p would look way cleaner and even sharper.

I will not switch to the graphics mode either way tho, because fuck 30 fps, and the gyro aiming feels like ass in 30fps
 

Dr Bass

Member
Holy shit man, you better give that PS5 back, that is some critique right there.
Just calling it as I see it. Like I said I’m going to keep going and we will see how it plays out. I’m honestly a bit disappointed and I didn’t want to be. Who wants to be disappointed by a game they were looking forward to?

If you look at this thread though I’m not the only one seeing this stuff. It just doesn’t stand up to the image quality of true PS5 exclusives. Could still be a great game though. :messenger_beaming:
 
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Dr Bass

Member
yeah I just think checkerboard rendering was a really bad choice here. the vegetation simply doesn't work well with cbr and the Antialiasing is not up for the task of cleaning up the image.

technically speaking running in native 1440p should be less taxing than running 1800cb... so maybe there is hope they will implement that as an option.

it just really never looks remotely like 1800p (there have been 1800cb games on PS4 Pro that looked super sharp like Deus Ex so it's not like it can't be a great looking solution) and I bet 1440p would look way cleaner and even sharper.

I will not switch to the graphics mode either way tho, because fuck 30 fps, and the gyro aiming feels like ass in 30fps
Did you by chance play demons souls in performance mode? If so, didn’t you think the IQ of that 1440p mode blew the 1800cbr mode of HFW out of the water? And if you didn’t play it, do you just have no idea what I’m talking about now?
 

Sygma

Member
Zero dawn was my favorite ps4 game and so far the sequel really isn't clicking with me be it graphically or in terms of gameplay. Feels like everything has been turned into something more / different for the sake of it and even worse, combat lacks the punch. Also all the technical issues aren't really helping not gonna lie. Getting a pretty heavy amount of artifacts / bad pop in and the ghosting around npcs faces / aloy is more than just a little bit distracting, also the takedown animations are just not working properly (camera even struggle to shiow them)

Thought there was a day 1 patch ironong things out?
 
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Gotta call it a night but so far I've liked it a lot. Good points are the way the story picks up effortlessly from where it left, it's like putting in a pair of well worn slippers. IQ is good in resolution mode with a lot of foliage density. Traversal is so much more fun with the hookshot, and gyro aiming is super fun too. Audio is great (pulse headset here) with positional details all over.

Things I didn't like much were that panning the camera shows some weird change in color vibrancy or contrast or something like that. It's not the same in all areas but it's quite jarring. Combat doesn't look like it has changed much but I guess it's early to say that. Also the IQ jump between cutscenes and gameplay is off-putting. I keep thinking cutscene IQ is what the game should look like.
 

shubik

Member
I played way too long yesterday and finally left the first area. Man what a game. The visuals are simply stunning. Water rendering, lighting, texture quality, animations, facial animations are all top tier and even rival Naughty Dogs work at times.

I also like the story so far and I have to agree with the reviewers the side quest quality improved a lot! This is Witcher 3 level of detail. You can clearly see how much work went into realizing this world fully.
 

Kenneth Haight

Gold Member
Just calling it as I see it. Like I said I’m going to keep going and we will see how it plays out. I’m honestly a bit disappointed and I didn’t want to be. Who wants to be disappointed by a game they were looking forward to?

If you look at this thread though I’m not the only one seeing this stuff. It just doesn’t stand up to the image quality of true PS5 exclusives. Could still be a great game though. :messenger_beaming:

Fair play, I have not had a chance to play yet as I had to download PS4 version overnight then do upgrade to PS5 version. 94GB twice, what a silly way to do this Sony, I reserve my right to be a cheapskate and not give you the extra £10 but it was quite annoying.

I am hoping this issue is patched for you, or it is a particular setting for your TV with HDR or something, some of the screenshots and Digital Foundry videos I seen I was blown away by.
 
What size is the upgrade from PS4 to Ps5? I am assuming that if you buy the PS4 game on Ps5 it downloads the proper version, but what about upgrade if you own the disc version?

Did it actually make you download the game TWICE? That is absurdly bad design.
 
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Peterthumpa

Member
Soooo I have played this a bit now. Have not finished the intro section but I am a bit surprised.

Surprised at how unpolished it feels? I know the reviews talked about bugs, and I did install some kind of patch that was available, but come on. It's riddled with weird issues all in the first hour, and some of it is surely going to last the duration of the game, because I feel like there are some weird rendering issues happening.

-First off, performance mode looks bad IMO. There is no way I can play in that mode. It's incredibly soft and looks like an old gen game in this mode. Ok back to resolution mode.
-There is a ton of noise in the image at times. Someone, somewhere, also mentioned edge enhancement being done, and how you can clearly see it happening because the screen "darkens" as the camera moves and brightens up again when you stop, because all of the edges have a white haze. This person was exactly right and this does happen. It's incredibly distracting. I've seen some flickering of the screen as well when just standing there.
-The intro-intro that first plays has a ton of frame hitches in it when the camera changes, with things popping into view while it's playing etc. I gave Forza Horizon 5 crap for this, and its right here too. Not a good look at all IMO.
-When I first got the pull caster every step I was taking was shooting up massive clouds of dust (even when I was on grass) and the dust wasn't even coming from where Aloy's feet were hitting the ground. It looked positively ridiculous ...
-I just don't see anything that screams "next gen" to me so far. The screen captures and stuff we've seen on this board look way better than actually playing the game, and I'm on a new 85" Sony 4k tv with complete surround. Oh yeah, the surround audio seems well done. Did like that so far.
-When cutscenes come on, the visual quality takes a noticeable leap. The game does look great here, and the character animation and voice acting seem much improved over part 1.

It's early still, and art wise it looks fantastic, yes. But rendering quality and tech wise ... uh I hate to say it but it DOES feel like a "cross gen" game to me, more than anything I've played on my PS5 so far. I was able to play Demon's Souls in performance mode and that game still looked razor sharp and felt rock solid visually in that mode. It was amazing looking and still is. Ratchet at 4k/30 also still trounces the presentation of this game. No one is going to mistake this thing for anything other than a video game, unlike Ratchet at times.

Melee combat felt improved. I like the robot Dino theme still. It seems like they are poking fun at Elon Musk in the intro and not really hiding it. Not sure what that's about. But yeah, I'm a little disappointed. Outside of nice art production I see nothing new or that impressive to me here. I still rank Demon's Souls and Ratchet higher. Hell, even Returnal didn't have the issues this one does. We will see if it improves as I get farther, but again, I don't see how the rendering tech is going to get any better. I'm seriously wondering about the reviews when it comes to the graphics personally.

Edit: See, I hate when people do this stupid "laugh" emoji when it's clear they are laughing at the content of the post and not with you on a joke you made. @Classicrockfan if you got something to respond with, do it. I want to hear how you disagree, because I am honestly scratching my head while playing this. I am on a top of the line setup and it just doesn't look that great to me in the ways I was expecting it to. I have played other PS5 games that were awesome to look at, and I just don't count this game as one of them so far. Again I'm still in the intro but this is how the game looks as far as I can see. I can see other posters above agree with me in some ways, saying how the CBR looks awful. It does (in performance mode). It's freaking obvious. In resolution mode, it looks pretty good when standing still but as soon as you start moving it's just not great. And then if you go to performance mode, it looks ok while you're moving, and then looks terrible when you're standing still. It sorta feels to me like you just can't win visually. Now it could still be a great game. That has nothing to do with graphics. After everything I've seen and read though I was expecting more. I mean I even saw uncompressed video reviews where I was like ...whoa that looks great! But directly on my Sony 85" ... not so much. Not sure what else to say, I always just call it like I see it.
Agree with pretty much every single point here.

After watching these gorgeous GIFs and looking at photo mode pics, my initial impression is... average. It is absolutely a cross-gen game and it shows. Rift Apart is extremely more detailed, runs better, looks better overall - from a technical standpoint. From an artistic point of view, I can't comment since it's so subjective but yeah.
 

DelireMan7

Member
Loved the first game.

Seeing this OT really makes me want to go for this one now but... Elden Ring is coming in a week !

And I'll probably replay the first one before playing Forbidden West. See you next year I guess ^^
 

kyliethicc

Member
thoughts so far
played for a bit over 3 hours
says I'm like 2.5% total completion
playing on Hard, on PS4 Pro

this is a far better game than HZD already. Its obvious

love the world so far, map looks huge
fun opening fights so far
the new machines are fun
interesting to see where the story is going
I love Aloy's default armor now, looks cool
the credits sequence is fire

the RPG systems feels familiar but better
skill trees are dope, big, lotta variety to build towards
weapon & gear customization is much improved
resources got reworked & expanded
elements got reworked & expanded
machine notebook is much better
map even looks better

bunch of quality of life improvements all over
better settings & controls can be remapped (I'm using the defaults)
much cleaner, simpler UI & HUD

focus is significantly improved
quick pulse scan is a really good way to hide UI when unneeded
the dedicated machine focus scan is far more detailed
some parts have to removed from machines, before killing them, to get
can now tag parts, via focus scan, to help

feels weird to be so weak again tho lol (coming from max level in HZD)
miss all the old weapons, can't wait to get them back

better level design already, tighter yet still vast, adds focus to the levels
thank fuck they added vaulting
pullcaster is cool, like the subtle UI for its points
the climbing is fun
can pry open vehicles and chests for loot

gorgeous visually on PS4 Pro in 4K HDR
obviously it looks like a PS4 game, but it might be the best looking one ever

very dense, probably the visually densest game ever seen
so much detail, foliage everywhere
very saturated, vibrant, and very sharp look
less aggressive TAA, unlike RDR2 (which looks far softer)

a lot of foliage has physics and collision (even on PS4)
even the water looks great

incredibly smooth for 30 Hz
great HDR, better lighting than HZD
noticed a lot of improved animations
much much better facial animation & acting
they fixed the camera, can lock to left shoulder
really nice audio mix
some good new music too

very stable, very polished so far
no bugs so far

died once in a fight, fast lil fucker surprised me
reload upon death was super fast
(idk if its cuz my PS4 Pro has a SATA SSD in it)

even photo mode is improved, great faces to select lol

gonna go play more now
love this game
 
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tassletine

Member
Not for me. I've never actually disliked any character design until now. I was willing to give the game a shot, but the Eurogamer review called her out as being very irritating so I'm not biting.

This is a new version of the uncanny valley for me. It's not about the character being realistic (the graphics are great and I have no problem there) or the fact that she looks like the ruddy faced drunk who accosted me in Glasgow a few years ago -- It's more about how they've adopted the Burning Man aesthetic.

I associate that aesthetic with upper class drop outs who want to show the world how desperately they don't care about money - And she looks like a performer, someone who would be twirling fire sticks on stage. It's a rebellious look in contrast to OUR age, not a rebellious look in context to the people around her. So whilst the realism is being pushed in one direction superficially, with the skin shaders etc. It's being pulled in the other direction by lack of context in the art direction. It's all so blingy.

I'll play it one day, but the presentation of her character sucks on every level as far as I'm concerned.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Going radio silence in 2/3 hours...can't wait for my collectors edition. Only posting some screenshots later in the official screenshot thread.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
Played it until the first campfire on PS4 Pro (Very Hard) for lack of options, it’s about 3.5 hours into the game for me.

Graphics have taken a leap forward even in the same platform and there’s so much visual density in every scene it can be hard to keep focussed.

There’s some unfortunate graphical loading issues and I’ve had to reload a save twice because of glitches but at least the loading is quick.

Story wise it literally doesn’t skip a beat from the previous game which is nice since I replayed a New Game+ immediately prior. However this may make it a little harder to get used to if this is the first entry or if it’s been awhile since people have played the predecessor.
 

GymWolf

Member
I have a little question to the people who played it already.
Is it now possible to sleep / pass the time somehow? This is what bothered me the most in the first game, you couldn't pass the time or sleep at camps, and the day night cycle was pretty quick, so it always felt like playing at night, it was really annoying and I really wish they allowed you to use campfire to sleep until morning, since some story missions actually did that...
I always felt in a rush to explore a new area during daylight before it was dark.
Yes you can, you can chose 3 times of the day.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
WARNING !!! LG C1 owners there might be a HDMI HDR handshake issue with the PS5 which will washout contrast, to fix disable hdmi deep color and re-enable and re-enable HDR in PS5 settings. do not mess with RGB levels on tv or console.

HDR
HGIG

Black Level
Auto/Auto

Smooth gradation OFF, blurs image quality when on.
Smooth gradation does not do anything when you are using game optimizer mode.
It is available in hdmi or console label but it does NOTHING.

If you see it doing anything, it means you are not using game optimizer mode. Ideally, if using pc and game optimizer mode, the option is greyed out
 

Aaron Olive

Member
Smooth gradation does not do anything when you are using game optimizer mode.
It is available in hdmi or console label but it does NOTHING.

If you see it doing anything, it means you are not using game optimizer mode. Ideally, if using pc and game optimizer mode, the option is greyed out
Yes i use game mode we on the same track.
 

GymWolf

Member
What is up with RESOLUTION mode? This is definitely NOT running at 30FPS. I'm not sure if it is 60 but it clearly isn't 30. Maybe once you get out of the tutorial (but why not have it locked 30 from the start).
I heard people saying that input lag on 30 red mode is extremely low, a dev on reeee was in awe at how guerrilla achieved that.

So maybe 30 fps with wizardry low input lag feels better than regular 30 fps.

First horizon already had pretty good 30 fps.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Had Covid for week (I actually tested negative after 2 days but had to isolate for 5) and obviously I return to work on day of release 🙄
Anyway my Special Edition should be waiting for me when I get home
 

Aaron Olive

Member
So i have to disable both deep color and hdr and the

An american redhead in london sequel looking good.
Just deep color it will turn off HDR automatically therefore you have to switch it back on. yeah the peach fuzz shader just looks weird here which highlights how much there really is on Aloy’s face.
 
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Vlodril

Member
There is something definitely wrong with the sharpness in this game. Loooks way too sharp it is very distracting. Can't seem to find any setting that alleviates the issue.
 

GooseMan69

Member
I can already tell this game is gonna be special after playing for about 3 hours. It has that special “something”. The secret sauce if you will. Can’t wait to play more this weekend.
 

Pedro Motta

Member
Yea it’s extremely distracting. There’s something off with the contrast and lighting that can’t be properly adjusted in the settings. HDR looks borked

Playing at 60fps until this gets patched, can’t believe this made it to the finale day 1 release
This doesn’t happen on an LG C1.
 
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