Remasters and remakes have been a mainstay of the gaming industry for almost a decade now, allowing teams new and old to refresh classics for new audiences. These drops are some of the most anticipated in the space, and while higher fidelity and quality-of-life changes on paper sound like absolute wins, sometimes the pursuit of frictionless, genre-pushing advancements leaves behind small gems.
The Witcher 3 Remaster is out tomorrow, packaged with an all-new DLC and increased graphical fidelity. These improved graphics have put an end to a fan-favorite Witcher community bit: the awfully modeled pigeons that populate various towns.\
In the original release, these pigeons looked like something out of Morrowind, adorably out of place. The community is already lamenting their disappearance.
Back when it originally released, The Witcher 3 was already a looker, with genuinely solid models for the time. Amidst this sea of stellar designs, players quickly found the pigeons to be hilariously out of place, with a kind of ugly Pug cuteness that betrayed the rest of the game's visual quality.
Individual graphic hiccups like the pigeon have been lambasted by fans more and more, leading devs to stomp these silly little imperfections out, even if longtime fans love them. The push for life-like realism through in-engine graphical pushes and tools like DLSS 5 means fewer and fewer teams are shooting for stylization that helps a game stand out, rather than competing for realism.
These graphical leaps have forced more and more players to try and upgrade their setups, adding to the ever-rising cost of GPUs alongside AI's heavy need for the hardware. The desire for realism has truly become a double-edged sword, curbing both the visual identity of many different releases, as well as the number of players who can come out to enjoy them.
Small quirky bits like Witcher 3's pigeons are lost in the ever-flowing tide, forcing the entire work to conform to industry standards while losing small parts of what made it feel unique.
The push for eternal realism has already caused plenty of development issues, but it's also bred a type of fan that will tear apart any game that they see as a slight issue.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.dualshockers.com/the-witcher-3-remaster-has-killed-the-games-most-important-model/
