Here’s the thing, many gamers will just max settings and complain if it doesn’t run at 60fps on a patatoe, downgrades are understandable.

Seeing how optimized the game is this was a good call! Nothing the modding community cant fix if the performance issues get's better over the months ahead with patches.

Even with the downgrade, it still looks better than Witcher 3. I have both. It's mixed bag with graphics, but still decent. A few mods is all it needs.

These aren't even the same game. These aren't downgrades, this is like they purposely tried to make their game three times worse. And from what I've seen on Twitch, it's pretty buggy, janky, and dated.

game is still so freaking good and one of the best looking RPGs out

Boring game

Looks like low settings in comparison.

The downgrade. It's real.

Well.. sorry to say.. but Im enjoying the hell out of this game. I been shooting people all Holiday....and Monster Hunter I only play with my squad. It feels good to have a game I can play solo and just absorb the atmosphere at my own pace.

Dont follow reviews just rent it first..Its pleasantly surprising.

The game doesn't look great and has lots of bugs, but still loving it. It's a great game.

Alright, so I have put around 20 hours into this game by now, and yes I can confirm its buggy. I’ve had texture that wont load, weird bugs during conversations and a few other things. Nothing gamebreaking really.

But my god is this the best RPG I’ve played in a long time. Its such an immersive experience. The way you level up and unlock skills by doing is fantastic. Story is freaking good and sidequests, while not as good as The Witcher 3, is damn good aswell with excellent variery!

Initially, I didn’t like the combat. I found it cluncky and a litte unresponsive. But as you level up your skills things will quickly start to get A LOT better! That first guy you fight and probably got beaten down by is nothing to you after you’ve practiced your skills.

Its a damn fine game.

I don't know why we can't just give a nod to the amazing feat these guys pulled off for a Kickstarter game. So, it doesn't look as good? Who cares. It's still gorgeous.

What I love is that they were willing to take risks when larger companies won't. It's a breath of fresh air to see an rpg with such nuance and attention to detail, focusing on dynamic gameplay over pretty leaves.

This is why we have the games we do today. Because of articles like this. Who cares. Obviously, if they could have, they would have made it look like real life, but they couldn't for whatever reason. They aren't trying to deceive or rip anyone off.

So I am an early backer. I had access to the beta too. The beta and the final release look the same, actually the release looks better. The character models are so much better.

Noooo really?!

To people saying "this shouldn't have happened" "they lied!" etc... this is the point of a public beta test >_< to get the current build of the game out there running on peoples actual machines, gather data on bugs, performance, everything and then optimize/fix it as much as they can before release. There's a reason why betas usually have a disclaimer about the game being subject to change.

To those asking "why didn't they just include an option in the graphics menu for this?", consider some of the questions a developer might have to ask themselves: Are these beta assets finished? And not just visually, but are they all rigged to move with the wind, react to the player. Are they fully implemented into foliage systems to spawn in the right places, in the right parts of the map. Do they obscure ground visibility too much/too little? Are they optimized? And if the answer is no, then do we have the time to spend on finishing a list of 'higher fidelity' assets that many of our players can't even run?

Development is costly, guys! KCD is honestly an amazing achievement for a new developer, despite any perceived downgrades. Anyhoo, sorry for the lengthy rant!

For me, personally, I have issue with this just because the graphics NOW are so...jarring.

Some scenes look magnificent while others look near last-gen. Even in single conversations you can see this! Take Henry talking to his dad in the forge at the beginning of the game. His dad standing in the forge in shadow looked VERY good, near photorealistic, lighting was on point! Henry, however, standing right outside the forge in direct sunlight looked oily and plasticy. Made the model look worse, lighting felt "off", and it just looked dated. Like jumping between graphics generations as it switched camera angles.

That's the problem with the vegetation now is there's no or little subsurface scattering. You see these gorgeous indoor areas with it's global illumination and static lighting but then the outsides look old and nearly...almost...to a degree...cartoonish. Somewhat cell-shaded. Flat. Very flat. It's jarring to me seeing such beauty then turning around/walk outside and I'm hit with Oblivion like graphics 12 years ago (yes, it's been that long since Oblivion *you're old*).

Blah! Still a good game and my loner/temp GTX 750 isn't liking it but oh well. Certainly should allow graphics like the 2016 beta though at least. Mod's aren't acceptable replacements.

Sadly, there is no native PS5 version :(

Quite a steel.

Own on pc but haven't played, time to see how my 4090 handles it, enjoyed what I played on xbox on release so be even better now. I honestly don't think part 2 looks dramatically different from the first, obviously looks better but not by a lot.

We should all write to the devs to ask they remove the fps limit on PS5.