Okay guy. I'm making a reasonable assumption that the games technical prowess has been reduced. How did I come to this you ask? By using the material provided to me, the consumer, by Ubisoft. The launch trailer to drum up hype for the release, the footage from the most recent previews, and the initial reveal from E3.
My consumer eyes tell me there's a drop off from the reveal to what we see today. The trailer and preview footage both show quite a gap in visual fidelity. Therefore, my reasonable assumption is that were the graphics the EXACT same as that reveal, somewhere in the trailer or preview footage we would most likely catch a glimpse. But no, everyone's been taken aback by the results we've been shown.
Prove me wrong. Better yet, Ubi prove me wrong. They've certainly got the game to show it off. All it takes is a video, right?
Certainly. They need to show a video that demonstrates that all the good stuff - bokeh, rain, things reacting to wind, and lots of reflections when wet are all still in the game. Unlike apparently most people in this thread, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt - I have no reason to believe they have been removed - indeed the story trailer shows lots of bokeh, albeit in cutscenes, and they have chosen for
some reason to show no rain in the trailer, and some B-roll where the sun is high in the sky and there is barely any wind and no rain.
I have to say I don't see where this new story trailer looks particularly worse - everything looks on par or better than the cutscenes from the original trailer, and I think the characters have improved. But I can understand why people are being thrown off by the B-roll. It does look bland, but that's what can happen when the sun is high in the sky. And again, they chose to have it not raining in the night scenes, which should have shown a load more reflections as we've seen the past. A lower sun, like in the initial reveal, gives you:
- more obvious shadows
- more obvious normal maps
- a nicer colour to the lighting in general
- god rays peek into view
- pavement reflection
All those things have been shown in footage
since the initial reveal trailer.
I have no desire to make excuses for Ubisoft, I'm just offering a possible alternative explanation as to why stuff looks different. Was there any broad-daylight footage in the initial trailer? No. Was there any night time footage in dry conditions? No.