I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard the recent reports of Dark Souls 2’s ‘downgradeation’. Well, it appears that those reports were legit after all. YouTube’s member ‘HyperBitHero’ has posted a video that compares the final build with the April 2013 build. As we can clearly see, the final build feels flat and washed out compared to the earlier build. Moreover, the use of specular maps has been decreased for no apparent reason. The PC version of Dark Souls 2 is planned for an April release, so it will be interesting to see whether that version will be able to match the April 2013 build. Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Excuse me, but WHY THE F*CK would you need to visually downgrade a game which was not a technical & graphical masterpiece in the first place?
F*CK LOGIC!
cuz optimization
This year it seems more and more companies are lying to their customers. Watch Dogs looks worse than it did two years ago, Dark Souls the same and even Infamous Second Son looks worse than last year. Should we expect this to happen more and more from now on ?
In the case of Watch Dogs, they were guessing at the performance levels of the next gen consoles by coding it for PC gaming. Eventually, when the next gen consoles came in, Xbox One was far more pathetic than it should have been, especially given the price. PS4 itself isn’t really cutting edge, though it at least can hit 1080p30 more often.
Given that, I don’t think it’s really so surprising that they had to scale it back. You could argue they shouldn’t have showed it off then, but… eh, what would we have had to look forward to and then get disappointed at a delay if we hadn’t had Watch Dogs, right? 😉
It’s going to be pathetic if they downgrade the PC release just so console players don’t get mad. Then watch…a year from now we’ll see “Dark Souls II Definitive Edition – Exclusively on Xbox One and Playstation 4” with all the cut graphics re-added and they won’t bother to patch them into the PC version.
That would be a bummer, though I’m somewhat doubtful those so called next generation consoles would even be able to run that build.
Well, we’ll see in about a month if they gimped the PC version to appease console players or not.
So far I don’t see why people would think that. The devs said that PC was the lead platform and definitive version. Back in my day different platforms had vastly different looking versions of the same title that were essentially different games, remolded after the original but made to fit the graphical limitations of each system.
There’s like a dozen different Double Dragon games out there. NES, Amiga, Mastersystem, etc all looked different than the arcade original. I think it would be great if devs would go back to this method. If console players care so much about next gen graphics they should think about buying a PC.
Wow seriously , consoles now are starting to get me real mad! ARRRRGH!!!
If they do that i will kill someone , really. One more reason not to ever buy a damn filthy console…
If only those people would listen to reason , and buy a PC to game instead of those potatoes for almost the same amount of cash, with better quality and overall control.. Gaming universe would be a whole different thing. So pretty…. lol
Well, if GTA V on the Xbox360 running at 16fps and below 30fps a lot is good enough for console users I don’t know what isn’t.
Problem is , they are deluded that human eye don’t see more than 30 fps and 720p lol so they don’t need for better
I just hope the early presentations were made with the PC version and the old consoles cannot handle it, so they had to downgrade it. But why not publicly acknowledge this and reassure that the PC version will look at least as good as during early presentations?
I word: “Consolization”.
Apparently, there are changes even between builds shown 1-2 months ago in the network beta on PS3 to retail. Many of the sections that would have made use of the engines realistic darkness to force the player to use a torch were scaled back, leaving dim, featureless rooms and an entire gameplay mechanic all but wasted. The question now seems to be whether the game as a whole ever truly resembled these demo builds, or if they were put together seperately to build hype.
It’s a puzzling situation because nothing in the trailers seemed impossible to implement in a game in 2014, even with the chosen hardware. Loaded with unique encounters and neat immersive features fans of the series would appreciate, but nothing extremely demanding. By all reports the “mirror knight” segment and the network beta ran well enough on consoles.
HBH’s video is great (love that guy) but some more investigation would be nice.
There’s now a lot of anxiety surrounding the april 25th PC release. It might just be the same mess at 60 frames.
well, what the hell did you expect? that demo was running on a PC, and the retail vids are from the “last gen” consoles.. of course they look like garbage almost like a ps2 game.
But why does this version looks like PS2 game instead of PS3 .? The demo they showed last year , can easily be handled by PS3 and Xbox 360 , it wasn’t something jaw dropping but just a decent looking game . May be with those visuals they couldn’t hit 30fps on consoles , so they decided to scale back the visuals , after all From Software is not known for optimizing the games well for consoles . That’s why Dark Souls frame rates dropped below 15 on consoles and now with Dark Souls 2 (specially Xbox version) it mostly stays at 30+ fps and barely drops below .
With that said , I’m not holding my breath for PC version to look any better , until they suddenly announce that the game is also coming to Xbox One and PS4 , and PC version is based on next gen version . I don’t expect much from these console focused developers . I think that once again PC have been held back by consoles .
Hope the PC version is not a total Garbage… anyway i just made a free icons for this game : http://the-arch-dev.blogspot.com/2014/03/dark-souls-ii-icons-pack.html
Not again…
Its the PS3 & Xbox 360 version -_-
Sure, and PC version will be a straight port from console version.
The PC version was delayed for graphical enhancements. Haven’t you been paying attention??? If there are XB1 & PS4 versions, they will be direct ports of the PC version.
We’ll see.
anyone that thought that 360 and ps3 was going to be playing the game they were demoing was kidding themselves
Uh, the PC version of Dark Souls 2 is downgraded too.
Hahaha shafted again.
there is 2 thing to say
1: developers are lazy and don’t tell the truth to their fans seriously it fell like ps2 game even for 2013 trailers
2:they still living in stone age
Downgrade is the new future.
Downgrade is the true next-gen.
Downgrade, brought you by, NEXTGEN.
seriously, lol , what happened ?
Battlefield 4: lets turn off the cloth physics.
Watchdogs: lets make a game that any PS2 can run.
Splintercell Blacklist: let us remove some key feature of the game (killing in motion)
InFamous SS: lets turn off Shadows.
Dark Souls 2: lets turn off anything that was a little bit better than PS2 to lower than that.
Glad i’m on indie diet right now, i can enjoy my 16bit Starbound BETA more than anything and they can’t downgrade that even if they want, lol. god Bless Steam/GOG
Let’s give the game 50gb… lol
40 of which are uncompressed sound (:
Looks like PC players will have to wait for mods again.
¿is this a new fad?
Those were amazing graphics back in 2003.
Half Life 2 was revealed in 2003 and Max Payne 2 was released . These visuals look worse than 2003 in my opinion .
its amazing how good half life 2 and max payne 3 in this day.
I was going by console standards, obviously if you take doom 3 as 2004 graphics it beats any console game on ps2/xbox.
Its riddiculus how much console hold graphics back.
Compared medal of honor on psx and perfect dark on n64.
Now compare them to half life. Those 2 games came out in 2000 while half life in 1998.
Hell no game on ps3/x360 has the texture detail and lighting of crysis from 2007, then consoletards seem to think ps4 is gonna magically able to have amazing graphics in the future.
wooooo. man. looks like a different game. really.
if they downgrade the PC version im gonna get the alternative version of dark souls 2, aka, the free version.
same mistake as Watch_Dogs ¿how is this a downgrade? they showed pc footage on a -probably- high end pc ¿and you spect 9 years old consoles to look the same? console gamers are sometimes just plain retarded ,is like Watch_Dogs ¿how did you fools get to think that the E3 2012 was ps4 footage? omg ,they just want awesome graphics with that shitty hardware and when the moment where the devs cant make miracles they say its a downgrade.
right now there seems to be a different lighting engine then it was shown in april, i too hope the pc version looks better because between witcher 3 being delayed and this it looks like my gaming spring just got a lot less interesting
The witcher 3 will be able to match with star citizen ,both will look better than crysis 3.
Nah, The Witcher 3 will be consolized like all other multiplat games that are ported to PC.
Well witcher 2 was on Xbox 360 as well and they didn’t hold back to not make consoles look that bad.
i trust Cd-Project red but now you have made me doubt.
Witcher 2 wasn’t developed in conjunction between both platforms. The 360 version of Witcher 2 came out a year and a half later after the PC version. There’s a difference.
are you trying to scare me? because you suceded ,don’t play with my feelings bro.
Watch Dogs on PC was severely downgraded too. It’s nothing like the E3 reveal.
how could you know?there is only one gameplay….
Look at the last few Ubisoft reveal trailers, and then look at the retail PC game on Max settings. Far Cry 3 had a downgrade on all versions including PC. The reveal trailers have way higher assets than the actual retail games. Ubisoft should be sued for false advertisement. Watch in full screen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqnAbRpyqfI
“…and you spect 9 years old consoles to look the same?”
Um, no. The newest trailer that shows the downgrade is on a 4 month old console PS4, not 9 year old consoles. Fool.
I didn’t know that Dark souls 2 was released on ps4 too ,FOOL.
What a disaster…if the PC version is nothing like the April 2013 demo…they can say bye bye to a customer. Tired of the fake advertising in the gaming industry.
All these speculations by various unknowns. Come on.
On a side note, I played the PS3 version at a friend’s house and I must say the game is more refined and improved. The artstyle is amazing and I can’t wait to see how the PC version makes it stand more out. Animations are better this time around and the game is very non-linear.
For fuck’s sake, the original gameplay in the comparison was from the gameplay in the IGN reveal which the director CONFIRMED was from the PC version. Jesus, seriously?
This comparison is the actual PC version vs the reveal trailer. It’s a major visual downgrade.
No, that is console footage. The PC version was from the reveal.
god dammit…. im still watching this trailer… god… cant believe it is the same game….
Thank you consoles 🙂
So…wait for modders to do their thing, then?
They said at the start that the PC was the lead platform. So i’m crossing my fingers 🙂
yeah…except for Assassins Creed IV Black Flag and Splinter Cell Blacklist ,they got slightly better than their reveal trailer ,Nvidia helped a lot with the pc versions ,also ,PC is the lead platform for Watch_Dogs and if you go to the nvidia website and Watch the footage you’ll see the true graphics of the pc version.
Can you give me a link to the video of Watch Dogs on Nvidia’s page? I just went to Nvidia’s website and couldn’t find the video you’re referring to. Thank you.
My bad ,is the GEFORCE page ,not nvidia ,sorry
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games/watch-dogs/videos
there you have ,watch them on HD ,of course it is the pc version.
This is not the same quality that was shown at the E3 2012 stage demo. Remember, Aiden in the club, and then killing DeMarco after changing the traffic lights to crash his car? Remember the gas station explosion? Yeah, I’m talking about THAT build, not these downgraded videos you’re linking me to.
WTF? DID YOU EVEN CHECKED THE LINKS? Watch the videos again on HD in case you haven’t ,in one video Aiden walks around the Demarco club on night and it looks EVEN BETTER ,it has more and better post-process and DOF
wtf bro are you jalous?
Excuse me, but can you please tell me which video in the link you provided actually shows the same nightclub scene as the E3 2012 reveal? Because I have a life and I’m not going to sit and watch 2 hours worth of Watch Dogs videos trying to find one scene. Thank you.
OMG OMG OMG here is some pics and pls ,stop commenting ,my face hurts because of facepalms:
Demarco club E3 2012:
http://i.imgur.com/4CWynES.png
http://i.imgur.com/SE6mbbG.png
Demarco club current pc build:
http://i.imgur.com/d2weRqU.png
http://i.imgur.com/EN9pk2A.png
Quit now that you still have some dignity.