@JoeBlogs Yet again taking something out of context. I also said that Insomniac could have made the changes for other reasons - like in keeping with climate of the season that the game is set in so its not a 'downgrade' in context. If they see at as a positive, an optimisation and improvement to the games actual performance and playability, they could say its not a downgrade too because in context its an improvement overall to the game.

As I said, no company will want to use the word 'downgrade' or will openly say its been downgraded because of the negative connotations that has. That was the point I was making so even if Insomniac did 'downgrade' that particular area for performance reasons, they certainly wouldn't admit that. They, like any other devs would use other language - like artistic change or put some positive spin on it to insinuate that the downgrade wasn't made out of necessity because the hardware can't cope with their initial design. Therefore you can't always take a devs word as gospel. I am NOT accusing Insomniac of lying at all because I don't have all the facts. I didn't play the game when the first screenshot was taken and so can't say for definite that the downgrade was made out of necessity or whether the change was made for artistic and/or more realistic seasonal weather conditions. If its the latter, its not a 'downgrade' in that context at all even if its a downgrade on scene complexity and hardware resources needed to render it.

My post was merely to say that there could be many reasons why this has been changed, not necessarily out of 'need' to improve performance. I am NOT accusing Insomniac of lying as I don't have the facts but my post was also to say that Devs, Publishers etc won't want to admit to downgrading IF they had to do it out of necessity and certainly wouldn't want to come out and say they 'had to' because that implies the console (much more important for an Exclusive) isn't capable of delivering the game visuals they had originally intended. That's biting the hand that feeds so to speak and I am sure Insomniac would rather keep up a good relationship with Sony rather than say their hardware isn't up to the task of delivering the visuals they had hoped to bring. Its not just Insomniac either but any developer. Stating you have 'downgraded' something not only puts their name in a bad light (whether its 'forced' because of hardware limitations or not), but also the platforms its releasing on - insinuating that they are not up to the task of delivering the game at a certain level.

To reiterate, without knowing all the facts and the full context of this 'change', I am NOT calling Insomniac as lying. It could be changed for purely cosmetic reasons rather than out of necessity but that still doesn't mean that the scene isn't a downgrade on its predecessor from a technical and complexity viewpoint. I think its obvious its not as complex and resource heavy scene and therefore a 'downgrade' - although that's just in the context of comparing two static screenshots of that 1 specific scene and not in the context of the game as a whole, the setting and the environmental weather of the season its taking place in.

As I have said many times, just because this one individual frame, or even 1 individual area of the game may well be 'changed/downgraded', I doubt Insomniac did it for any other reason than our benefit as gamers looking to enjoy their game when it releases. I doubt that the game as whole will be 'ugly' because of this and will still look great in motion, be as much (if not more) fun to play - its more fun to play IF the 'downgrade' was made to ensure a locked/consistent frame-rate throughout - as nothing ruins a game like big frame rate drops because the action and scene complexity is too much for the GPU/CPU to deliver a constant frame rate - that's much more important than whether or not a scene looks better with larger puddles and reflections before the combat action combined with water effects and the reflections, ripples/splashes cause big frame rate drops. Its much more important that the game as a whole is enjoyable, with a good story, good game-play, good open-world, good activities/side-quests etc than whether or not 1 very small area of the game has a smaller puddle now!

I don't know how else I can it, but this is a 'downgrade' over the previous image when taking as a static image comparison (not in the context of the 'whole' game), but its NOT indicative of a downgrade in terms of the game-play , story etc. Most, if not all visual downgrades are actually made to benefit us as the gamer so it shouldn't be seen as a 'negative' but that is just the mentality of some. That a visual downgrade means a downgrade in the experience and enjoyability of a game....