The Witcher 3 gallery: the prettiest sunsets and ugliest rocks

As we touched on in our review, The Witcher 3 is a game of beautiful vistas, stunning sunsets... and some textures that don’t quite hold up when you take a closer look. CD Projekt Red made concessions to build such an enormous world, focusing on the bigger picture over some of the smaller details. Of course, there are tons of tiny elements that look great up close, too. This gallery intends to show off some of the best and worst of The Witcher 3’s graphics I’ve noticed so far.

Good: This sunset

Sunsets and sunrises are my favorite thing in The Witcher 3. CD Projekt made the golden hour an over-the-top melty orange, casting long shadows and tinting everything the sun touches. They help sell the fantasy world more than any other artistic choice. How often do you get to see sunsets this stunning in real life?

Good: Another sunset

Here's another sunset. Pretty, isn't it?

Good: All the sunsets

Wonderful.

Bad: Rocks

There are some seriously ugly rocks in The Witcher 3. Granted, rocks aren’t exactly the most exciting elements in nature. They don’t need a ton of detail, and I imagine you don’t want to waste polygons on intricately shaped rock formations, but some of these rock textures look really bad.

Bad: These rocks, too

More blurry rocks.

Bad: Also these rocks

You can't tell easily unless you enlarge the image, but these rocks are mush on the top.

Good: Moonlight

Almost as beautiful as the sunsets are The Witcher 3’s moonlit nights. Powerful god rays slice through the trees to illuminate the forest floor below. It adds a layer of ambiance that most games don’t have at night, when the midnight hours are mostly defined by an absence of light.

Bad: Vegetation up-close

At a distance, The Witcher 3’s forests are lush and full. The hills are absolutely covered in trees and grass, and in motion they look fine, even great, especially as you’re galloping along and they pass in a blur. But when you’re on foot exploring the woods, some details—especially the leaves—are sadly low-res and angular. It’s a fair trade-off for the volume of foliage CD Projekt has managed to fit into this world at a playable framerate, though.

Bad: More vegetation up-close

At a steep angle, it's really noticeable that the leaves are impossibly thin planes.

Good: Blood

The Witcher 3’s camera pulls back enough in combat to give you a good view of the action, so it can be a bit tough to see how detailed and brutal some of its kill animations are. Get the camera up close enough, though, and you’ll see some really good blood splatters. Yuck.

Good: So much blood

Uh, sorry about that. I had to do this for a screenshot gallery.

Good: Water

I’ve seen some complaints about the water in The Witcher 3, and I get where they’re coming from. The water doesn’t look realistic. It doesn’t crest and foam and break against the shore with the same realism and fidelity as Grand Theft Auto 5’s water. But CD Projekt clearly went for a more stylized look that I think is beautiful. The Witcher 3’s foliage at times takes on a watercolor quality, but the water does even more so. I love it.

Good: Some cobblestones

In some places, at the right angle, The Witcher 3’s rock and cobblestone walls look wonderfully craggy. Shadows seep into their cracks and individual stones seem to jut out, adding a degree of three-dimensionality to a flat wall.

Bad: A lot of other cobblestones

Unfortunately, most of the walls in The Witcher 3 don’t hold up to scrutiny. Take a close look and they’ll be disappointingly flat, aching for some tessellation. Or low-res, aching for some more detailed textures. Or both.