If you could wield Excalibur, I guess the other legendary swords will have to do.
I'll start off by saying: when using the classic edition of the game (pre-next gen update) I had the settings at their max with the HD rework and HD monsters mods installed and working on an ultra-wide 3440x2440 monitor running at a locked 75 fps. Without v-sync it easily exceeded 150 fps! Now, with the new update everything is bonked. There appears to be no visual fidelity increase other than tesselation and obviously higher resolution textures when compared to vanilla. However from my understanding CDPR used the HD Rework and HD monsters mods for the vanilla version to upgrade the visuals of the "next-gen update", so to me I can't see that much difference as I used these previously. I have been running this new version at 3440x2440 with all settings on Ultra WITHOUT raytracing but WITH DLSS on. I have an RTX 2080TI so you would assume these would be reasonable settings right? No. Average fps is 45 to 50 but averaged 58 to 60 in undense, unpopulated regions. Unacceptable! Using the supposed textures CDPR have implimented I previously had 100+ fps, so this is downright pathetic. I really feel for the pre-2000 series gpu holders because I know that even a 970 could have handled the HD rework mod on the classic edition. So what on earth has gone wrong here? How did the very well optimised game become this? The textures haven't been upgraded that much. I can't believe I'm saying this, and I seriously backed cyberpunk (I enjoyed it at release), but after seeing what happened to that game and now with this, I don't reccomend you support CDPR until they get their act together. These rushed projects provide no promising prospects for future releases. THE ONLY SAVING GRACE AND ONLY REASON THIS REVIEW IS NOT ONE STAR IS BECAUSE YOU CAN REVERT THE GAME VERSION BACK TO 1.32. Other than that, it's bonked.
Let's be totally real with one another. There is a lot of circle-jerk that surrounds this game, and it's unwarrented. The complaints however, are. So let's get this straight shall we? The Story: It is exacly the caliber of complexity that you would expect. You can tell it was from the team who created The Witcher 3. I would say the story is better in some ways than The Witcher 3 given that the plot and direction are far more in it for itself than keeping true to a set of pre-written narritives that are the world of The Witcher books. The unfortunate side is that life paths don't seem to have much an impact on outcome of the story BUT, they do affect how you get there, for me at least it satisfied me. We have to remember there isn't a slideshow at the end showing how your choices affected the world like in Fallout:NV, but it's animated, and directed and controllable, so to me the endings met my expectations. Overall: Amazing voice acting and character development; utterly outstanding. Really solid plotline where sidequests, shards and gigs play into it narratively. The Soundtrack: My god. It's one of the best soundtracks I think i've heard. It compliments the world and story so so well. The radio is amazing, the ambient OST is great and the story's music is just outright a 10/10. It's meticulously placed into moments, conversations, combat and adds great suspense in some scenes. Riding through the city with The Dirge radio with KonnradOldMoney - Gr4ves playing, man it just works. World and AI: OK, most controversial last. The world setting is unlike any other. You can really feel the scale of it and there is so much to do however, it lacks a certain element which is radiant and random events. If I've pi**ed off the Tyger Claws, why don't the footmen try to settle their scores, or come after me .etc? Interactable arcade and pachinko machines would be cool too. Plus the bugs, which is why this review is a 3/5. Once the bugs are fixed this is a solid 4.5/5 for me.
