CD Projekt Downplays Graphical Differences for The Witcher 3 on Consoles

Speaking with Marcin IwiÅ„ski, CD Projekt’s joint CEO and co-founder, Eurogamer not only learned that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s PS4 version might run and look slightly better than its Xbox One counterpart, but also that the company isn’t particularly concerned about it, and ultimately thinks the differences aren’t meaningful for the players:

“We are still working on squeezing the juice out of the consoles and Microsoft are supporting us in this respect,” Iwinski told me. “The final effect, whether it’s 720p, 1080p – we had the debate in the studio about it and actually asked our tech guys to explain how it works, and they sent me some complicated graphs that ‘if I have this size of the screen, and I sit one meter or two meters from it, then I might be able to see the difference’.

“It’s more of a PR differentiation,” he added, “which is very important for Sony right now – and they are using it, obviously – than something that is really meaningful to gamers.

“We’re definitely working to max out each of the platforms in terms of what we can get, because that’s a crucial element of The Witcher. Will there be big differences? Really I don’t think so. It’s too early to say. If there will be, they will be tiny. It will be more like people talking ‘hey, I have this and you have that and this is better’.”

While this comes off a bit weird from the same company that provided a supersampling option for The Witcher 2, I also understand that IwiÅ„ski wants to avoid controversies, and he stresses that CD Projekt won’t artificially pare down any of the versions to ensure complete parity:

“No we don’t want to make any artificial things with the game, and both platform holders are supportive in terms of making sure it runs to the full potential,” he said. “Again, it’s against our values to dumb anything down for the sake of some business arrangement.”

Ultimately, there’s no doubt that owners of high-end PCs will have the better experience overall, especially if The Witcher 3 gets the same treatment from the developers and the community as the first two.