Why do you think that I pointed out earlier that the only reason we're even having this discussion is because The Witcher 3 is a thing? Fallout 3 and Skyrim and Oblivion were 'benchmarks in their genre' because there were no other games that could claim that sort of scale with anywhere near that level of fidelity. There were no other AAA WRPGs doing anything even close to what Elder Scrolls and Fallout were doing. However, in terms of visuals, every single one of them was still heavily outmatched by contemporary linear or tech-focused games of that era. Now, The Witcher 3 has now given people the expectation, erroneous or otherwise, that every game that follows the same arbitrary checklist [*open world *role playing *quests], regardless of technological constraints, design priorities, or vastly differing underlying mechanics, should match or at least attempt to compete with its fidelity, as though that ought to be the paramount focus of any game that dares consider itself AAA! From what I've read and seen on this game so far it appears that Bethesda's main priority was packing this game with shitloads of content, and if that means iterating on an engine they're already familiar with in order to focus their lengthy development cycle on an expansive and intricate game, then I'm all for that. At any rate, I'm telling you man, the ice skating animations and reused textures/models absolutely aren't there, man, that's spreading some fud. And I still insist that as far as I'm concerned it's reasonable that I'm okay with the passable NPC animations, given the improvements made to how NPCs can animate and speak to each other during conversation, how you can move and do things during conversations, and that it's probably unreasonable to expect a fully mocapped world in a game of this scale.