So this is quite shocking when you think about it

Even the all worshiped Witcher 3 was downgraded. There was this big thing about the 'e3 controversy' and they showed images and videos of how Witcher 3 was dumbed down. It just goes with the territory, I guess.

Looks like they went for a more bright and shiny look. They did this with sloane too. She has all that stupid shit makeup on her that just looks like garbage. Giving her a few scars would have sufficed but they want this futuristic look for her. A futuristic gang leader that looks like trash. I think when they redid it for whatever reason they didn't take the time to bother with facial animations. Or sabotage from within. Always a distinct possibility. LOL

Edited to add that BW's biggest plus is also their biggest failing. They listen way too much to people and care way too much about what they think and adapt way too much as a result.

They need to find their own truth. Their north star if you will. Know who they are and what they do great. Make that the heart and soul of every fucking game. Then do the rest as best as they can and go back to their roots when they were good. On that note, the one thing they had was story. DAO and ME1 had great stories. Great characters. The characters generally improved with time as did gameplay. But they are trying too damn hard to steal good ideas from other games that did well and incorporate them into their own and sometimes it is a fail. In MEA we have these things that look like they were stolen -- Playing as sibling reminds me of Ciri from W3. Some of the scanning quests remind me of W3 using his senses. It's okay-ish but they have to really be careful because even the maps feel more like them trying to be like w3 and skyrim than BW. As a result those are kind of meh. They don't do open worlds very well. The one thing they did well was interactive choices, better than other games you could see some difference. They used to do better stories with actual writers who appeared to know their craft. They used to have some great characters. Now, less depth seems required in all characters. And they are trying to damn hard to be like every other great selling or critically acclaimed game out there which makes them nothing but hacks compared to when they used to have the games that others wanted to copy. Oh how far they have fallen. Reminds me of how you see fame cause celebrities to fall apart. They might have been great at whatever their craft was once, but then fame turns them into a mess due to pressure and they lose their focus, listen to others and eventually end up dead of an overdose in a ditch somewhere. BW really needs to get back to what it does well. Not copy their own games that did well but get back to the actual roots of what they did well like craft a great story and build from there, sticking with visuals that worked for them before and saying fuck the criticisms. Maybe then things will be better.

If anything, it's quite shocking how they failed to polish up animations for that infamous Kadara vertical slice. I mean, usually the cat's not out of the bag until the game is released.

Can i get alpha build pls ?

And the alpha was leaked footage from a dev's resume show-reel, who knows what extra attention that had received...

Given that the resume text in that footage said "Created: pollen plumes", he probably had precious little reason to touch up all the elements that he didn't create in the first place. 

He did the plumes, apparently. None of the models, none of the animations, not the map.

Plus, when and where would he do that? At work, while still being employed at BioWare? Or did he "borrow" all the art assets and edited them at home? Both would have been problematic.

Well said. 

I doubt my PS4 would have been able to really pull off the considerably more detailed version. In any case, I didn't see anything in the entirety of Drack's loyalty mission sequence that looked particularly bad in any way, so…

I agree. 

Sad because it showcases something that a console would never run in a month of Sundays, and yet people will moan about 'downgrading'?
Yes that is sad.

So it's either:

- because consoles
- PC render bait and switch
- confusion in the studio

wonderful...