It appears that the PC version of Battlefield 1 got visually worse after its latest title update. According to a number of gamers, the latest update has downgraded the game’s visuals. Even though this looks more like a bug than an intentional downgrade, gamers provided some comparison screenshots in order to showcase the visual differences.

Below you can find a comparison between the game’s pre-patch and post-patch versions. These shots were captured by Arrogant_Amigo and as we can see, the post-patch version looks actually worse than the pre-patch version.

The post-patch version lacks tessellation on muddy terrain path, has a lower amount of terrain quality/decoration, as well as lower HBAO+, shadow resolution or shadow-draw distance.

As Arrogant_Amigo claimed:

• clearly lacks tessellation on muddy terrain path — see bottom left highlighted area
• lacks previous (pre-patch) anisotropic filtering/textures — see far right highlight on rock formation textures
• terrain quality/decoration lowered, notice missing foliage and plants — see top left highlight above the muddy path
• HBAO/shadow resolution or shadow-draw distance lowered, notice cluster of plants — see middle highlight above weapon

Squad-navigator has also provided a GIF comparison between the pre-patch and the post-patch versions of Battlefield 1, showing the exact same differences.

What’s really interesting here is that Battlefield 1’s forum moderator, LOLGotYerTags, has acknowledged the visual differences.

As LOLGotYerTags wrote:

“I know it isn’t placebo as it is an issue that has been brought up all over the place and I too can see it so it’s definitely not just you who is seeing it”

LOLGotYerTags concluded:

“There is obviously something causing things to not be rendered correctly in the render pipeline, Once DICE have found the cause though, I don’t think it would take too long for them to push out a patch to resolve it.”