YouTube’s ‘Cycu1’ has shared an early graphics video comparison between the 2022 and 2023 demos of Bethesda’s upcoming triple-A title, Starfield. And, as the title implies, there have been some noticeable downgrades.
As you can see, the faces and facial hair of all characters look noticeably worse in the 2023 demo. I really don’t know what’s going on here, but the characters were my main issue with the 2023 demo. All of them now appear flat, and their facial hair looks awful. Their eyes also now lack a lot of detail, making them feel lifeless and… dare to say… even worse than old-gen characters.
Seriously, take a look at these two comparisons. The difference is HUGE. I’m not exaggerating here. The 2022 demo feels like a remaster compared to the 2023 demo.
The good news is that Bethesda was able to maintain the quality of the game’s environments. Not only that, but it has added a few higher-quality environmental assets in some areas. The TOD (time of day) has also changed in some scenes, meaning that we don’t have 1-1 comparisons for its lighting/TOD.
And yes, there are some “artistic” changes. For instance, the main room at 2:00 now has a dust/haze effect and a different TOD. These are fine, and we don’t really mind these changes. However, we can’t overlook the major downgrade of all of the game’s characters.
I also can’t believe that nobody has mentioned these graphical downgrades. Again, these aren’t “artistic” changes. And if the media criticized The Witcher 3 or Watch_Dogs or other games for their downgrades, they should as hell criticize Bethesda for these lackluster characters. Bethesda, Naughty Dog, or your favorite studio should not be getting a free pass. Be objective and treat all studios the same way, as simple as that.
Starfield will release in around three months from now, so I don’t expect Bethesda to suddenly overhaul its characters. This appears to be representative of what we’ll get.
Lastly, and from what we know, there won’t be any RT effects in it. Still, the game would benefit from some RT treatment on PC. We also don’t know whether the game will support DLSS 3. And, to be honest, this is something that needs to happen. Starfield will most likely be a CPU-heavy game. Thus, DLSS 3 would significantly improve its performance.
Stay tuned for more!
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.”
Contact: Email
The faces and lighting updates are objectively better, so im confused??
Very strange, as there are some things that are better, while some are not. Regardless, modders will likely right the ship as par the course for Bethesda products. thankful for them.
Because starfield 2022 didn’t exists. You guys can’t tell a simple video that was made to showcase the game vs video game footage.
Where you found downgrade? Not see any sign of this. They added subsurface scattering on the faces so they now softer.
The faces reflect next to no light. The eyes are as dry as a desert. And everything’s colour got sucked out.
You guys need to see an ophthalmologist.
I see better than most. You have it backwards – only the eyes are reflecting less light, and that may not be due to the surface properties they gave them. In some shots the lighting is more direct (specular) in 2023, and others, less – not to mention different angles and different amplitude (brightness)
I got click-baited and went by the two screenshots, but no taking back; I was wrong. John picked the worst examples from the video. Now that I’ve actually watched the trailer it looks better in every way.
Honestly I have no interest in the game whatsoever.
2023 looks better for me in every scene. 2022 its missing volumetric lighting and GI. Hard shadowing is not realistic. About the npc its a Bethesda game. They are improved but still need work.
“Hard shadowing is not realistic.”
The hard shadows are all in 2023 shots, 2022 had very soft shadows, too soft actually.
Maybe you meant that the shadows are DARK in 2022? That’s also a flaw, but the reflection probes and SSR that fill the darkness in 2023 are questionable.
I’ve seen no evidence of SSR being used in the presentation, only dynamic cubemaps.
You are correct. Dynamic cubemaps were identified by DF as well.
Nah, for example, the facial hair is worse.
Not worth explaining it to them when they’re in the majority. Wasted time. They just can’t see it. John for once did not disappoint. He can actually see for sht.
You both can’t see jack. 2023 shots look so much better. They even lost the weird cross eyed thing the faces were doing. You’re a clown.
Yep it mainly looks like 2022 didn’t have the GI system enabled, and 2023 does. The lighting and colors are much more realistic as a result, though of course it looks “worse” since it results in less saturated colors under certain lighting conditions.
That woman’s eyes are weirdly glowing though, I wonder if they’re actually implants?
Exactly right. Everything from the faces to the lighting to the quality of the textures looks better in 2023. Even the meshes have been improved if you look at the items in the shots. This guy just probably desperately needs clicks and congrats to him for getting him, but the articles an absolute joke.
Whatever, I can just set a lod of -.25 and make it look the same.
Agree on the NPCs eyes looking lifeless. Light reflections give it away.
Also it’s like there’s some greenish filter is in place. Especially evident where the robot/player walks up to the gates and then in the New Atlantis vista shot. The skybox in the latter scene also looks way simplified in the 2023 version.
The interior scene in the library environment also looked more cinematic in the 2022 version.
They changed the lightning system is all. The downgrade lies in the character models.
Is not changed, its improved.
They probably had to make compromises for FPS. That’s a normal part of the process most people refer to as “optimization”.
Exactly ….. Because of Consoles and their fixed hardware you have a set CPU, GPU and memory budget you have to work with. As you add more features and systems you often time exceed one or more of your budgets and must to claw some back for instance downgrade some textures to get back memory or GPU power. Or you have to lower the number of NPCs in a given area to claw back CPU or Memory budgets
Game design is like any other kind of design, you have certain budgets you have to maintain and it’s all about the Art of Compromise. For instance as an Electronics Engineer I have budgets such as cost, board space, system power, microcontroller power and time in almost every design. So you have to prioritize and compromise and it is an art.
People are seething at hating on bethesda, which they kinda set themselves up for, but in this case is unwarranted and just plain hate jerking.
Not being hyped about the game because of all the bad releases is what everybody should be at. But this is silly.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a3b6e0bf1dd8247084e4d412838f647b0d5b2a5d93c1ce6d3453037762bd16b3.jpg
Series S is trash Hardware, and people still worship it
A 30 fps lock has nothing to do with Series S. 30 fps locks are usually a result of CPU bottleneck and the Series S doesn’t have that problem. Its CPU is on par with a PS5, maybe faster actually. The difference between the Xboxes is in the GPU. You can expect a THIRD of Series X level *graphically* on the Series S. It does not in any way mean that games are held back by it. Graphics are inherently scalable!
Nobody ever used this absurd excuse for PC games which have to target hardware with a factor 4+ performance range of GPUs and CPUs each new game needs to target. These days more like factor 8+ since a lot of PC gaming is happening on laptops with integrated graphics and yes, developers on PC do manage to cater to those players while also delivering up to date graphics for the high end.
Suddenly when a consoles-first dev is forced to implement TWO whole graphics presets for TWO platforms they become overwhelmed and make up excuses. These are the same companies that have been shipping every game with serious technical issues for decades, and the same companies that made Xbox 360 and PS3 games look mostly the same despite the stark differences in hardware. It’s pathetic. AAA devs cannot optimize. They ship playable prototypes, then patch out the worst bugs MAYBE. The hardware was never the problem and since it’s only getting better it can never become the problem either.
The 2023 version looks better to me. How is this a downgrade?
Same
Yep. All except the hair.
Is a way to make people click the link to come here.
I suspect John may have blurred vision from analysing too many nude mods!
Why are you all referring to the guy as if you’ve met him?
Because the amount of nude mod articles that are being posted on this site… maybe…
And you explain the first-name basis, how? Drop that from the fan culture, please. No other groups refer to people they haven’t met in that way.
Some models looked better in 2022 but other than that I very much agree. It’s not worse, it’s just different.
Looks like they softened colors and added more ambient lighting. Which is a good choice IMO.
But yes there are a few bad consequences, like faces looking a bit less contrasted, more flat.
This is appalling, and cannot be tolerated! No, really, only cdproject is allowed to get away with downgrading!
While The Witcher 3 was a downgrade, Cyberpunk 2077 was a rare example of a released game looking better than its reveal trailer (when working properly that is).
Think the old Cyberpunk looked better and more artistic
It objectively doesn’t look better, but I agree on the artistic part.
Better artistic to my eyes 😀
Not really a downgrade. 2023 version is more polished. Maybe the models lack detail but i guess it was a decision made cause of performance issues on xbox console
Agree on the NPCs eyes looking lifeless. Light reflections give it away.
Also it’s like there’s some greenish filter is in place. Especially evident where the robot/player walks up to the gates and then in the New Atlantis vista shot. The skybox in the latter scene also looks way simplified in the 2023 version.
The interior scene in the library environment also looked more cinematic in the 2022 version.
The Wild West environment (with the Shepherd’s and Hitching Post) has some brown filter going on taking out all the gritty atmosphere out of the scene.
Seriously who are these asinine artists that they ruin the previously awesome looking scenes?
wasnt the 2023 xboxseries x 30fps footage only?
There are differences in lighting and color grading but overall LOD is higher with volumetric fog added. There are far more improvements than downgrades.
I would say overall the 2023 version looks better in all aspects expect for faces/skin and hair (especially facial hair, that sh*t looks awful) But I assume will be rectified by mods. I think the internal render resolution is a lot lower in the 2023 version as well leading to a softer image. Looking forward to the PC version not held back by the console specs.
I see noticeable upgrades. Lighting is much more natural looking in the 2023 screenshots.
The demo was running at 30fps so I suspect it was from the xbox build and not running all max graphical settings that the PC version will have? still I think the 2023 build looks better overall.
I think the first pic shows better resolution and color palette on the 22′ version while the second one 22 and 23′ are both horrendous. There’s a greys fog/tint in the 2023 and blurrier overall.
I don’t know what ya’ll are smoking but clearly you can’t see the details.
Liking your own comment while saying total none sense, you’re more pathetic than i thought
a*s wipe
yeah i knew a bozo like you would come along and i have an answer for you idiot: as any other social media platform does it I did it to bump it, not that a maggot like you would understand. Stop holding a grudge u little stripped m*fo. Move along idiot.
Lol, you like your own comments dude, only losers do this, now calm down and work on your situation, get help
The only objective downgrade I can see is that some of the shots appear to be running at a lower resolution, which is mostly evident on the hair strands, but without going and checking myself it’s hard to say whether there has been any cropping/zooming for the comparison. The lighting looks different because it appears they’ve added more global illumination light bounce, and there is a different atmospheric colour cast or colour grading. Characters’ skin and eyes look less glossy but there doesn’t seem to be any downgrade in material quality. A lot can change in a year of development, and as always, people don’t understand what they’re seeing.
not entirely.. check this https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b39e4abe6eba75ba776e107931ed00c91432fe8f6d56ca2e5186f4ce70b7c498.jpg
Asset Flip?
I hope that wonderful blue sky shows up more often than not on that world
That’s not what these pictures show, Much greater amount of detail, both in the characters and in the scenarios, better shadows, better textures!!!
https://uploaddeimagens.com.br/images/004/510/430/original/starfield.gif
Hard to believe they downgraded it since it already looked so outdated in 2022.
EDIT: They didn’t just downgrade it, they also added a lot of things that were missing in 2022. Shadows and GI are better now but the GI is too strong and sort of ruins the contrast. Feels like they need to adjust their colorgrading to keep up with how much brighter everything is now. The game now has a horrible dark gray as its black level, kind of similar to BOTW and TOTK’s contrast problem.
A lot of this game was made by Microsoft’s AI. The characters and zones have this typical clinical bland and boring AI look.
Someone mentioned how each character’s walk cycle is the exact same, because none of this stuff was done by hand. Microsoft has these libraries with animation cycles and they copy/paste this stuff on every character for all their games.
The game has something incredibly offputting to it because so much was procedurally generated.
How is this a Downgrade..? The Faces look less wooden
Downgrades aside, both versions have the same dead eye NPCs stare. Bethesda can’t make living looking people.
Lol, nobody is talking about this because it’s not a thing. The character and environmental lighting was clearly improved, not downgraded. The 2022 version had much less realistic lighting making characters feel plasticky the environment look less realistic. Now it’s way more natural. Detail has only been improved for the environment and stayed the same for the characters.
At this point i dont care how it looks compared to last year.
I just want to play it. XD
I honestly cannot imagine how much of a loser you’d have to be to not only care about such things but to actively seek them out?
The rest of us just want to play the game.
It’s like Digital Foundry reviewing games.
“If we take our magnifying glass, we can see this ant’s rendering is not as sharp as in the previous shot. On the other hand, under our electron microsope, we see a shadow that is a bit darker.”
stfu digital foundry
Its sad when a trolls lie is just retarded. Try again Sunny.
oh look brainless moron post more garbage about things he doesn’t understand. WTF do you incel morons actually come to this site for? Is it just because like John you love having other racist incel homophobes to jerk off around?
I still havn’t found a way to remove all of dsog articles from infecting my gaming feed.
Eat meat, gain some testosterone for your own sake.
For me it is a mix soe aspects look better in 2022 like character definition but on the whole 2023 looks far better.
Lots of improvements in the 2023 and you can see some reduction in textures on foliage and sometimes faces. Both demos were not on the Xbox the 2023 version is, but this is nothing out of the ordinary for a later build that has seen performance optimizations. You will likely be able to turn up the texture quality on PC and if not modders will be modding the game for years all the same by the end it will probably be a multiplayer game with 8k textures if Skyrim is anything to go by.
To be fair those are minor ones compared to Witcher 3 changes which were old vs new generation type of downgrade.
First, everyone complained in 2022, and the faces were actually just okay.
Now, they look about the same. You don’t even have 1:1 comparisons in that video, regardless.
Honestly, too many rando blokes accuse me of being high, so now I level the same accusation at y’all.
Uh, no, the facial hair in your screenshot is just different. More thick, more coverage. Definition of artistic change.
I think it’s not too much of an issue to accept too many compromises though – already have to accept 30fps if anyone is a console player.
Happens whenever they show doctored screen shots years ahead of release. “This is what we hope it’s gonna look like!” Looking at the tech. It gets better in leaps and bounds. Maybe they actually think it will look like that as these are people who live and work with those leaps and bounds and have seen them? Perhaps it’s a terrible life of disappointment? No point in hating people for being optimistic. I’m sure the game will look amazing! Not “Rockstar Amazing”, but: “Bethesda pretty darn good.” lol
Yeah, no Chief. You completely missed the mark on this one. The 2023 demo is objectively better stylistically. Everything about the trailer has polish all over it and the design choices are way better.
I guess John needed to spike traffic to the site so he posted this bullshit. Cause the 2023 pic looks way better than the 2022 pic.
P.S. Dude looks like he just took a hit of that good sh*t in the 2022 pic, lol.
Their “lighting fixes” seem to come with some odd lighting losses too. Like how the guy in the spacesuit now has light shining through only at the sides, and not from the front, where the lights appear to be. Even the light reflecting off his helmet looks better in the older one
Hideous NPCs in this game, no surprise from modern day Western mainstream gaming industry. An NPC beautification mod will be one the first ones that I install.
Every single thing looks better and the textures are much sharper. What are you even smoking?
“Starfield will most likely be a CPU-heavy game. Thus, DLSS 3 would significantly improve its performance.”
What? No… that’s not how this works. If it was a GPU heavy game – yes, of course. But CPU bound games are not going to be affected by scaling…
Let’s not even try and talk about how strange this article is. Visuals are subjective I suppose, but there are clear visual upgrades here in 2023 and I see zero downgrades. What a strange, strange take.
Can’t imagine what you would think of the SHOWcase had they “SHOWed” a majority of gameplay.
Xbox SHOWed yet again that they will never come close to PlayStation’s E3 SHOWcases from back in the day.
The author must be blind as a bat. This game looks noticeably better after the delay.