The Witcher 3's lost art style 

I feel like the W3 is one of the few games that is maintaining some semblance of what fantasy use to be in the 80's and 90's, but also manages to be emotionally much more mature.

Something i love about the art style, it's rhe fact that the game actually applies filter to the different areas of the game. Being Toussaint the one that gets the most distinctive tones.

It's nice to see someone who actually played the Witcher series making content. Most of the creators were introduced to the Wild Hunt.

I really like Eridan’s original armour, it was more intimidating, alien looking, and I think more inspired. I like what we got in game, but I prefer what they had

A lot of people sleep on TW2. That game was one of a kind, way ahead of its time. I still hold TW2 above TW3 (yes u read that right) because of its artstyle, quest writing and mature storytelling. TW3 is a generational masterpiece but TW2 is a hidden gem you can only find in the most secluded shrine deep beneath, if u have the eyes for it.

The shift was a great idea imo. It just fits the setting much better and also allows for Toussaint and some other areas to be much more colourful in contrast. Besides, the art style definitely remained very recognizable.

I've played all the Witcher games, Witcher 3 however is a special game to me. I've done 12 playthroughs, clocking 2000~ hours of playtime. The game has so much potential with the addition of mods, it kept me coming back over and over again. My archived install has 200+ mods. I'm a photographic artist, and I used the game as a composition/photography trainer in the winter months when taking photos outside is harder to practice. I have an obscene 50gb of screenshots from all my playthroughs. A beautiful game that means a lot to me, the art style, atmosphere and depth of choice available in Witcher 3 is enough to get lost for weeks on end.

I like both. Witcher 2 has a fantastic story and witcher 3 really leans into the fact its an rpg and lets you BECOME a witcher. Pretty sure i ditched the main story to be a paid monster slayer full time at least twice every playtrough. Man i love these games so much.

Good stuff 👍 Personally I find Withcer 3’s soundtrack to be another vital crucial pillar of its success. So enthralling. It’s just fantastic, even to this day.

I actually really liked E3 2014 art style of the game. Novigrad had these cool oversaturated green colors everywhere, and just overall was a very colorful game, loved how it looked

It's refreshing to see a video like this that isn't just 30 minutes of padding. You provide clear explanations, and you don't waste everyone's times. I appreciate that.

Without Dandelion's writing and Geralt and Ciri taking the time to share stories with him, none of this would exist. I feel like one message of the game is how important writing and talking to each other is.

For me The Witcher 1 carries the closest spirit and atmosphere of the books, especially the short stories. Fits so good also the music, main menu and the intro.

Amazing video mate. Not short, not long, no filler and with great narration and interesting content. Hope to see what you make in the future.

For me personally i think that the style of the killing monsters trailer fits the world of witcher very well, its a dark depressing and gritty world and the greyness showed that

Subscribed immediately, I just love listening to others who are passionate about this universe, I have been obsessed with the art/graphics in the Witchers games for a few years now, I just absolutely love it!

Love this visual breakdown! Will definitely tune in if you decide to do any further videos in similar vein!

First time i got to skeliga i was taken in by its visuals,instead of completing the quest i was like"fuck it i will go scale that mountain and see this magnificant land"one of my best experiences ever

I like the fact that you interpret visual stylistic choices with the players/viewers perspective because it's often the intention from the creators with specific stylistic choices or specific framing and staging, also in video games and people tend to overlook it.

Because of it's art style I know I will play the Witcher 3 again, and then probably again. The Witcher 3 moves me in a way few art styles do, it has a je ne sais quoi feel to it, that's truly lightning caught in a bottle. It's an aesthetic masterpiece, I don't use the word 'masterpiece' lightly, but in relation to the Witcher 3's art style, it's deserved. :)

I've always noticed the stylistic differences between the trailers and the full game, and I'm glad someone finally made a video about it!

Very well put together. Good stuff Red Cloud!

Great video! All in all, The Witcher's 2 and The Witcher's 3 art style each is special in its own way, and i personally enjoy both

Enjoyed hearing your discussion on this- I've always been surprised people dont pay enough attention to the art direction in games. But I feel like the game still retains the flavor you talk about, because in areas like Novigrad streets and the surrounding forests and more importantly touissant are really vibrant ! Especially with the new lighting system, the sunsets on clear days in novigrad straight up look like paintings!

This was a great video to stumble upon from a small creator. Keep it up!

Nice video and narration. I can easily see your channel growing. Keep up the good work.

There are mods consisting of Reshade presets and other lighting engines that can get you close to that atmosphere.

bro, Flotsam is one of my favorite game design locations in all of the open world rpg's of early 2010's + the music = perfection, i fell in love in the world of the Witcher right there

Investing early in this one, great hook at the start followed by consistent pacing & a well structured format. Top stuff!

I really love the Witcher 2’s graphic and I am saddened that they did not used the graphics from the early Witcher 3 trailers…

The single long sentence from 01:31 was next level. Would love to see you post more!🔥

I loved the Witcher 2s color palette. As you pointed out, it sets the vibe for the dark fantasy world perfectly

10/10 video. Honestly, my only critique is I wish it were longer. Keep it up!

incredibly great topic that I never thought to appreciate. I always thought to my self that I love the graphics, but truly the art direction got to me the most. lots of appreciation towards what you highlighted

I have high hopes for this channel, keep the good work man

Interesting stuff, I think the change after vgx was even more noticable.. the famous downgrade that some pretended didn't happen, but the devs basically admitted in a roundabout way (as if we didn't have eyes to see).

I'm glad I ain't the only one, who noticed The Witcher 2 unique artstyle, and how the very first trailers of The Witcher 3 followed it. I too really like The Witcher 2 uniqueness, with its gritty and satured colors. The Witcher 1 lacked this color palette, but it looked dark and gloomy too. The Witcher 3 looks brighter and more natural, which is fitting in its way and offers more vibrant and lively landscapes in Skellige for example (which I think has the best looking scenery of the whole game). Now it reminds me, in The Witcher 2, if you go Roche path, and you decide to help that courtier woman out of the city in Act III, you play through a heavy forest map that blew my mind the first time I played it (2019 or something) because it looked so full and enormous, and the lights and colours made it vivid. Shout out to you for such an incredibly detailed video for a short duration of 5 minutes ! You exposed everything relevant in my eye about the subject, with a swift and comprehensive conclusion.

Thanks for talking about this. I was one of those who loved the sword of destiny trailer and style at e3 2014. That High fantasy look was awesome. While I love the W3 we got. If consoles we out of the equation we would of gotten this. Probably. This tech in the trailers even existed in the game at one point, CDPR’s trailers were real time despite others saying otherwise. Why they even scrapped it while it was working I have no idea. It’s more than just “technical reasons”. But, it’s fine.

What a breath of fresh air, both your text and video! Bro! I wish you the world in the time to come - subscribers and fame. Remember where you started!

this is a great video! Great to see someone else liking the Witcher 2 a lot. us small youtubers gotta stick together! subbed

your ability to clearly distinct between this is objectively good/bad vs it's a reasonable change vs to me personaly is mighty impresive my dude. that's a sub.

You just got a sub! what a banger of a video

Omfg you gonna be a GREAT one. It’s a shame that this video is not monetized. Thanks for the content bro.

What I missed in TW3 was the extent to which decisions matter... It‘s still more than most games though.

There are mods that attempt to bring the aesthetics of earlier witcher builds (vgx, e3). Concept lighting by Majime really stands out as it does a very good job is making the game look like in VGX trailer while Took Lighting Mod NG mostly succeeds at replecating Novigrad and Velen from E3 Demo.

It would've been awful to spend 200+ hours in a witcher open world with witcher 2 artstyle. It worked for witcher 2 because it is not really an open world and it also had pupose with Geralt's amnesia it fit the theme. Witcher 3 has a wide range of terrain which won't suite the artstyle of 2. My personal favorite it terms of the environment is Witcher 1 which captures the environment in such a true and compelling way that even 2 and 3 don't hit the same for me environment wise, Toussaint definitely comes very close though.

Instant sub my man, your channel is going to blow

Damn I thought this guy would have atleast 60-100K subs, but I'm shocked to see he only has like 1.23K subs, you're truly underrated, keep making videos.

Witcher 3 is incredible but I always felt detached from the world compared to Witcher 2. In Witcher 2, I felt that Geralt was far more immersed and less "outside looking in". And I recognize that Geralt being an outsider is a theme in the books and games, so it makes sense that they might seek to create distance in game design. But I really enjoyed the overall feeling of immersion in Witcher 2 more

Amazing video, timeless it is indeed!

117 subs now. Good luck with your fine work man.

This is a really good video!

Great video. Nice to see morr W3. Subbed.

bro u have to keep on making contents like this. Its 🔥🔥🔥

Great video my guy

Using a HD texture pack with a photorealistic reshade makes this game look absolutely astounding. Some of the wild area's were straight up indiscernible from real life

I agree with your points about TW2's style giving it a more unique and probably more interesting look and you have to wonder what a version of it could have looked like in TW3. That said I've been playing TW3 recently with the ray tracing enabled and while there are some definite anomalies and you can tell it wasn't built for RT from the ground up, my god there have been so many moments I've been in awe of how good the game looks and I can't stop taking screenshots

I know exactly what you are talking about, I get you! That feel when you roam though Flotsam for the first time in W2... Just beautiful.

Very interesting topic and great video

I love the final quote of this video

Nice video, feels nice to see that someone felt the same way I did about witcher 2 art

Superb video 🎉

While I do like The Witcher 2, its colors and general art style are some of the things I don't like about it. The vibrant, over-saturation, while at the same time having a lot of vignette on the screen felt like a very weird combination. I'm glad they switched it up.

When I played Witcher 2 for the first time, my PC really wasn't up to the task, so I had to turn all of the graphics options to the lowest values...and the game still looked amazing. I really loved the artstyle in that game.

I love when games change and evolve their styles it really makes each game more unique and memorable

Honestly I personally can't prefer one over the other as I love what both games brought to the story and scenary

Great analysis - would love to hear your take on the artistic changes between regions (I.e velen vs toussaint)

Subscribing! Good content my friend!

very nice idea for a video, concise and informative! just one thing: the audio ducking you have on your voice adds a really strained effect to the sound and can make it hard to follow what youre saying. but aside from that, very cool and ill be back to check out your new vids when theyre out xoxo :D

Great video! As I checked your channel, I guess you are surprised how viral that video went. :D

Great video. Thanks

I'd also like to add that the art style is one of the few that incorporates some of the more fantastical elements that are still actually based in reality. We have a tendency to believe that dark fantasy must be "dark" with few or muted colors, but we know historically that color was celebrated and used lavishly where possible by people of rank or wealth. It's the same in the game; you do see muted colors in places like the battlefield or the slums, but if you make it to the markets or to an officers tent, you see color aplenty to show off status and success. It used color and fashion to communicate a character in a smart way so that you often knew something of them before they spoke based on the function, fashion, context, and color of their clothes. Additionally Witcher 3 did something I haven't seen many other games do by featuring relatively realistic armor and mounting systems; especially cloth armor. Zoltan for example doesn't wear that jacket just because its warm, it's a padded gambeson, and the cute little ties at the shoulders and hips are harness mounting points to hold the system together and to allow the mounting of plate armor.

You can get close to that art style from 2014 trailer with Lighing Mods. It's many of those but still could be better to get that from the beginning ofc.

Not only did the artstyle changed. But the game itself got severely downgraded, with lower distance and less varied LODs, less usage of what appeared to be tesselation (or parallax mapping), lower resolution textures, a vastly simplified skybox, less varied grass. There is a really good video from “Overlord Gaming” that goes in detail of the probable causes of the downgrade.

Agreed. This is not just about colors and lighting to me. Thinking about W3, one thing I missed are those more fantastical landscapes. They are stunningly beautiful. But in a way of beautiful realism, not like the less-realistic, kinda magical W2 places, giant forest, the amazing town design of Vergen and so on. REcalling the whole experience I would have liked some more magic to inspire, vitalize the world. I believe this was more than a change of rendering system. A huge open world might work better with realistic landscapes and a realistic look seems coherent for that. Whatever... Nontheless one hell of a game.

i recently start replaying it... max settings 4k native... Kae Morhen at the start at the game.. and the surroundings look like the game came out in 2023 ... absolute stunning.

i love the evolution of the art style. its getting more mature over time which makes sense

Reminds me of how No Man's Sky lost it's art style. It went from a cool 60's scif-fi book cover art, to an arcady art style.

I LOVE the art style of The Witcher 2, the colors and lighting are superb. Still haven't played The Witcher 3 yet because I spent forever playing the first two games and clearing the endless backlog.

The art style from the last trailers is really what got me into the game, as it embraces the latest trend of the 3D rendering theme and looks more, as you said it, objective.

Ser you just define how I think about w2 artstyle but cannot put into words! most impressive!

the game its just so beautiful the world, story, characters I finished it like 5 times and still discovering new things dialogues

i do kinda like that they didn't have the sharpness filter/ outline shader. it was a really cool effect, but i thought it got kinda rough in the end of witcher 2

I’ve literally played the whole trilogy since the last Joseph Anderson video (iykyk) and Witcher 2 is definitely my favourite in terms of art style and vibe

I hope they return to this style on the upcoming witcher, it needs to be grim and dark!

The algorithm is working omg. My friends and I were talking about this the other day. How some games have staying power because of the art style chosen regardless of when it was released. However we were talking about the Batman games. I never knew TW3 had a different art style initially. It looks incredible. The environments look much more livelier.

The witcher 2 had an excellent style. A shame they didn’t carry it over onto 3. Luckily some mods help

I really loved the art style of Witcher 2, it would be cool to see the world of the Witcher 3 in a similar style to Witcher 2.

Next gen update with RTX on actually make the game look a lot more like the VGX trailer than what we ended up getting. I'm not sure why, the RTX lighting, when enabled, returns it to a much more realistic looking tone. It's especially noticeable in places where interior and exterior light sources play off of each other, like in Vizima and in open door shops in Novigrad. There's some great comparison videos on here that you can look up to see what I mean.

Part of me wonders if a big part of blood & wine's popularity is due to them going someway back to a more colorful palette.

In about 2-3 years, my memory of playing W3 will be faint enough to do another playthrough. I've been putting this off for years, but I want to forget as much as possible before I go again.

I have to say I much prefer the overall art style of the witcher 3 compared to 2. I played 3 before 2 not sure if that makes a difference, but CD projekt really knew what they were doing with these games and absolutely blew me away when I first played them, and still do today. One thing I always wanted was the super bleak, dark and foggy look of the "killing monsters" cinematic, shown at 1:10, where the trees look so wintery and real. There are a few lighting scenarios in tw3 that achieve this but the cinematic is just a cinematic I guess and couldn't have been implemented. I've also spent lots of time looking at tw3's art book (which is actually in the game files as a PDF I recommend anyone checks it out), and the concept art in that sticks to an incredibly gritty but still fantastical dark world which they brought to life in the game very well. cool to see someone making a video on this topic!

Funny, back when I played witcher 2 I spet a good hour trying to figure out if that black outline was a bug or not.

i like the colorfull w3, it feels rly good exploring in bright colors... i don't think it would have been as much fun and pleasure to do with the dark tapestry

The Witcher 3 is the only game I repeated a game campaign including 2 DLC, let alone 4 times between 2018 and 2019. I didn't even think about doing a 2nd run on RDR2 when it's my best game of all time. Although I always ended up with the same ending, the dialogue is so diverse. It feels different every time. I don't touch the game anymore, even after they scaled up, but Witcher 3 will always live in my heart rent free.

I'm happy that the franchise from being an AA typified Jank of 1 and 2, to Witcher 3 being a culmination

Brilliant video! You just made me download Witcher 3 for the 50th time xD

I was wondering what you meant by a "subtle outline shader", but after some observation, I guess that could just be the the excess sharpening in the gameplay that could make it seem like there is something like that.

I much prefer what we actually got over what we saw in 2014 E3 trailer. The game would look much more dated today if not for these changes.

It's funny how I thought that the Witcher 3 had the best story until Letho jumped out of the window