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5 Worst Graphics Downgrades From Trailer To Release

Sevenfold

Member
Perfect example of something that bugs me. Posts a video on Youtube that's part 2. No link to Part 1 anywhere. Anyhoo glad my 2077 has never looked like that lol

Edit: So of course this is addressed immediately in the video. Ignore me I've not reached my caffeine delta yet.
 
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Blue Spring

Read my tears about xbox here --->
It's amazing how the likes of Motorstorm and Killzone 2 get a free pass. Even to this day games have trouble matching SONY bullcrap E3 2006 trailers
Free pass? You serious? People have been calling out Sony for those trailer constantly for the last decade.

Its the whole reason why every game from them gets a dedicated "downgrade?" thread even if they have been careful not to overpromise too much since then.
 
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Rikkori

Member
The game is explicitly shown on high-end PCs (starting with 1080 ti for first reveal)
"OMG IT DOESN'T RUN LIKE THAT ON BASE CONSOLES THEY LIED TO US"
cue infinite eye-rolling on my part

dean winchester facepalm GIF
 
Free pass? You serious? People have been calling out Sony for those trailer constantly for the last decade.

Its the whole reason why every game from them gets a dedicated "downgrade?" thread even if they have been careful not to overpromise too much since then.
Its always seemed to be Ubisoft and now Cyberpunk, even though Cyber really hasn't been downgraded.
Contrast that the SONY who tried to pass off CGI as real-time gameplay and the power of the PS3.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
The game is explicitly shown on high-end PCs (starting with 1080 ti for first reveal)
"OMG IT DOESN'T RUN LIKE THAT ON BASE CONSOLES THEY LIED TO US"
cue infinite eye-rolling on my part

dean winchester facepalm GIF

Makes it easy to spot who is still playing on a 2013 console with a Jaguar CPU though.
 

Blue Spring

Read my tears about xbox here --->
Its always seemed to be Ubisoft and now Cyberpunk, even though Cyber really hasn't been downgraded.
Contrast that the SONY who tried to pass off CGI as real-time gameplay and the power of the PS3.
Those trailers still did not get a free pass like you stated.
If you are looking for downgrades that got a free pass, look for the Witcher 3 and BOTW.

 

Umbasaborne

Banned
Cant stand it when publishers lie about a games visual quality. Aliens colonial marines comes to mind, so does no mans sky, but thats more on sean murray
 

Blue Spring

Read my tears about xbox here --->
I remember huge discussions over the Witcher 3 downgrade.
Zelda got a free pass though.
There was some discussion but CDPR ultimately still had the "we are the good guys" card back then and their fanboys blamed consoles for the downgrade so CDPR did not get much flack. Looking at the trailer again it was obviously a CGI render.
 

regawdless

Banned
There was some discussion but CDPR ultimately still had the "we are the good guys" card back then and their fanboys blamed consoles for the downgrade so CDPR did not get much flack. Looking at the trailer again it was obviously a CGI render.

Agree. I pre-ordered it on PS4 and was taken aback by how it looked and ran. Then bought a new GPU and it came with a code for Witcher. It looked so much better on a strong PC - but still not as good as the reveals.
 

Andodalf

Banned


Uncharted 4 announcement trailer was pretty disingenuous. Naughty Dog gaslighted hard for a long time that the game would run at 60 fps.


Yep, even when they started showing 30 FPS gameplay they said it wasn't the final framerate and that 60 FPS was still a possibility. Bold faced lie.
 

spyshagg

Should not be allowed to breed
Motorstorm trailer misled about the graphic fidelity, yet it perfectly captured the game essence. Monument Valley was brilliant, but Pacific Rift was simply bananas and it also had one of the best trailers ever.
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
Not sure if Siege got a graphics downgrade, but the graphics and lighting at launch (and still after the lighting change) was much different than shown in the 2014 E3 Gameplay Demo.

^ Beat me to it.
 
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Ballthyrm

Member
I'm more interested in games that improved, was there many of them?

By definition almost all games got an upgrade because it's the difference between the game running on Dev beefed up PC to the game running on actual consoles.
Between a game you can play and a flashy marketing demo.

If you are talking about better graphics, then it's usually not the case unless you talk about games that have improved a lot after they have been released.
Example WoW look nothing like the announcement trailer anymore :)
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Cyberpunk is a weird one, the game looks fine on PC. Some small downgrades here and there. Next gen versions look ok as well. But the current gen versions look like Doom 1996. So blurry its bizarre. I think it qualifies as the worst downgrade of all time on the base consoles.

Second worst this gen has to be Witcher 3. Typically games that get downgraded still manage to look great. TLOU2, GoT, Uncharted all got downgraded, but at the end of the day they still looked great. The foliage in Witcher 3 looked absolutely disgusting. Trees looked awful. Lighting was completely thrown away. Entire game looked different. Simply unacceptable.

Rainbow Six Siege is another game that completely redid the lighting, character models and destruction. It was clearly a fake demo that is probably not even possible on next gen/current gen consoles. Fuck ubisoft.

Watch Dogs. Any other gen this would be at the top of the list but thanks to the liars and schemers over at CD Project, this is 4th on my list.

Uncharted 4 is on here simply because ND lied and made us think that it was gonna be 1080p 60 fps. Final game comes very close to the trailer at least in cutscenes.

(Dis)Honorable mentions:
Bloodborne's nighttime lighting downgrade. GoT's foliage and lighting downgrade. TLOU2's character models and destruction. Anthem's complete downgrade in everything from environments to lighting and animal eco system. Zelda BoTW's foliage and draw distance.
 
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OnionSnake

Banned
The game is explicitly shown on high-end PCs (starting with 1080 ti for first reveal)
"OMG IT DOESN'T RUN LIKE THAT ON BASE CONSOLES THEY LIED TO US"
cue infinite eye-rolling on my part

dean winchester facepalm GIF
You mean like this video explicitly showing "console footage"?
 

Fbh

Member
Dark Souls 2, no contest
Yep.
The downgrade was so bad it even forced to cut the whole "darkness" game mechanic which was supposed to be a big focus
The game is explicitly shown on high-end PCs (starting with 1080 ti for first reveal)
"OMG IT DOESN'T RUN LIKE THAT ON BASE CONSOLES THEY LIED TO US"
cue infinite eye-rolling on my part

dean winchester facepalm GIF

Eh, I think when you release a trailer on the oficial playstation youtube channel called
"Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay Trailer / Ps4" that looks like this:



With no disclaimer whatsoever I think it's fair to complain.
There's "it doesn't look quite as good as the trailer" and then there's "it looks absolutely nothing like the trailer"
 

MiguelItUp

Member
All I can think of are all the Ubisoft ones. They're all pretty substantial. I know Witcher 3 was pretty obvious as well.
 

Zephir

Member
This looks good, did it ever released?

Well, the game exists...with a PSP spin-off and a PS3 direct sequel that, funny enough, had a remaster of the first game bundled for free
As for the actual gameplay of the first game, well...

 

AJUMP23

Gold Member
The Alien Colonial Marines downgrade was a pretty big one. Gearbox showed one thing and delivered a completely different experience.
 
Its gotten better, I remember a time when you could get away with a CGI movie and everyone was hyped.

Personal preference: under-promise over-deliver.
 
Maybe it's time to let it go and move on.
No. SONY did worse than a downgrade, much like how 3DO tried to pass off CGI as M2 demo's or having Barry Fox saying he was playing a game with no disc in the system!. Yes, Barry, that's because the joypad was plugged into an Apple Mac
Its not even like Cyber seen a downgrade if you have a Super High PC
 

Stuart360

Member
It's amazing how the likes of Motorstorm and Killzone 2 get a free pass. Even to this day games have trouble matching SONY bullcrap E3 2006 trailers
For sure, BUT the first Motorstorm looked fantastic i thought, for the time. And also Killzone 2, although still way behind the cgi trailer.
We know now that cgi reveals mean nothing, and dont expect anything after watching cgi, but yeah it was a bit different back then.
 
For sure, BUT the first Motorstorm looked fantastic i thought, for the time. And also Killzone 2, although still way behind the cgi trailer.
We know now that cgi reveals mean nothing, and dont expect anything after watching cgi, but yeah it was a bit different back then.
That's like saying most of the games with a downgrade don't look fantastic either (when most still look stunning). There's a hell of a difference from showing off super High-end PC footage and then downgrading it for normal systems, to trying to pass off CGI as gameplay
 

Stuart360

Member
That's like saying most of the games with a downgrade don't look fantastic either (when most still look stunning). There's a hell of a difference from showing off super High-end PC footage and then downgrading it for normal systems, to trying to pass off CGI as gameplay
To be fair they did get a lot of shit for it back then, for a long time as well.
 

vkbest

Member
The game is explicitly shown on high-end PCs (starting with 1080 ti for first reveal)
"OMG IT DOESN'T RUN LIKE THAT ON BASE CONSOLES THEY LIED TO US"
cue infinite eye-rolling on my part

The most games trailers are from highest end card you can buy at the moment, and even if you have lower resolution, framerate (30), lower settings, the most games are decent on PS4/Pro and XB consoles, but this game is crap on those consoles.
 

Stuart360

Member
All I remember was PS fans saying SONY won E3 and how its Ubisoft that was the king of Downgrades, well until CD project :p
I remember it well, they got a lot of shit over the cgi reveals, especially when the first versions of Motorstorm and Killzone were first shown looking waaay behind. It also caused the whole 'Xbox 1.5' meme at the time in regards to the 360, as Microsoft showed of actual game demo's.

The Division and WatchDogs get a lot of flack yeah, but thats not totally down to Ubisoft as the consoles were considerably less powerful than what Ubisoft was led to believe at the time.
 

Rikkori

Member
You mean like this video explicitly showing "console footage"?

What are you talking about? That's how the game looks on 1X & SX. There's nothing misleading there.
Yep.
The downgrade was so bad it even forced to cut the whole "darkness" game mechanic which was supposed to be a big focus


Eh, I think when you release a trailer on the oficial playstation youtube channel called
"Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay Trailer / Ps4" that looks like this:



With no disclaimer whatsoever I think it's fair to complain.
There's "it doesn't look quite as good as the trailer" and then there's "it looks absolutely nothing like the trailer"

It doesn't say played on PS4/PS5 anywhere, and it's Sony's channel not CDPR's. Sounds like something to take up with them instead, then again who would want to say 'hey, this ps4 is a real pos in 2020 & getting outdone by handhelds with integrated graphics'.

The most games trailers are from highest end card you can buy at the moment, and even if you have lower resolution, framerate (30), lower settings, the most games are decent on PS4/Pro and XB consoles, but this game is crap on those consoles.
It's fine on base consoles now - and when I say fine I mean as good as it can be given the scope of the game & the shittiness of these consoles. It is what it is.
 
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