"We don't agree there is a downgrade... and gamers' feelings can be different," say Witcher 3 devs

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developers have been taking quite a bit of heat from some fans for allegedly downgrading the game's graphics in the retail version.

Wild Hunt developers at CD Projekt RED spoke to Eurogamer in an interview about the alleged graphical downgrade of the game and why the visuals of the final version are different from what was shown in the VGX and E3 trailers.

"If you're looking at the development process, we do a certain build for a tradeshow and you pack it, it works, it looks amazing. And you are extremely far away from completing the game," says CD Projekt's Marcin Iwinski. "Then you put it in the open-world, regardless of the platform, and it's like 'oh s**t, it doesn't really work'. We've already showed it, now we have to make it work. And then we try to make it work on a huge scale. This is the nature of games development."

Studio head Adam Badowski adds that the rendering system was changed after the VGX 2013 trailer was released. It was choice between two rendering systems, one of which would've required more dynamic lighting, which wouldn't have worked for such a huge world.

Commenting specifically about how different the smoke effects looked in the VGX trailer versus what they are now, he said "It's a global system and it will kill PC because transparencies - without DirectX 12 it does't work good in every game."

"We don't agree there is a downgrade but it's our opinion, and gamers' feeling can be different. If they made their purchasing decision based on the 2013 materials, I'm deeply sorry for that, and we are discussing how we can make it up to them because that's not fair," explains studio co-founder Marcin Iwinski.

"In a way, because of us not seeing it as a problem, and working hard on the game until the very end, that's where we are today and that's why we have to explain. I hope it shows our intentions, because we are not hiding anything. Considering our values, hiding is the last thing we ever want to do.

"And for those who are still not 100 per cent decided, I definitely encourage them to wait and see what we will be releasing in patches, updates and whatnot."

During the interview, the developers said that there's a patch currently in certification that contains over 600 changes. The PC version specifically will be getting a patch that allows players to edit .ini files for maximum customisation.