D4 looks really good art-style and tone wise, but graphically, it is very washed out, and too desaturated. It really needs more contrast
imgur . com/a/SSVjt9b
I threw together an album of edited shots to show what a difference simply turning constrast up can make on various types of scenes. Obviously this would be best hand-tuned by a level designer or artist, but I feel like just a simple edit in photoshop has made these normal washed out scenes so much better, colors truly pop out, there’s a marked difference between light and dark areas of a scene and overall it just looks better.
D3 had this problem of lack of contrast as well, so I hope D4 can avoid that same fate as well. It would be a shame to have such a great artstyle so subdued by washed out colors.
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I don’t think you’ll have to worry too much. Given that this will (hopefully) be a game with modern tech under the hood, there’s a good chance that D4 will support HDR or HDR10+ by the time it releases. Who knows, if Blizzard isn’t chintzy on the licenses, we may get lucky enough to even have good surround support or (gasp) Dolby Atmos support.
As someone with a heavy home theater investment (dual RTi-A9s, RTi-A6, dual TSi-200s, MicroPro 4000 subwoofer, Yamaha CX-A5100 preprocessor, and Monolith M7X amplifier w/ XLR inputs), immersive sound means even more to me than immersive graphics. 
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HDR isn’t the solution. Nor should it be seeing as not everyone has an HDR monitor.
The original poster is very correct. As someone with an artistic eye, I can tell you he nailed the problem I had with the demo footage. Everything just blends together too much.
I don’t know why blizzard is afraid of contrast. OP’s screenshots are indeed better visually and it’s a very easy thing to do.
Knowing blizzard, it’s not going to change.
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There’ll be plenty of graphic mods going around after release.
I agree it looks really washed out. To me personally, in some scenes everything just blends together because it all has the same gamma, blur and color.
I remember one of the interviews before D3 came out where they explained that they use different sharpness/gamma for different layers of the game, and that makes your eye instantly distinguish between the player, monster, spell effects and background.
D4 needs to take a lesson from that book - and I don’t mean to make everything colorful like in D3. But something definitely needs to be improved.
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Yeah I thought the game looked kind of washed out/blending together too much. I think the adjusted pictures make the game look higher in graphical quality.
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Ideally though, it should be done by the game designers themselves, because what works for one area doesn’t necessarily work for others, contrast should be defined per scene by art/level designers for best effect.
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This guy has jokes, I like it. I’m just waiting for the joker who thinks the character is a final product. As a develOPer I can assure you that placeholders don’t matter.
My only concern atm is that they’ll stick to this depthless runeword system. Either do it right or don’t do it.
Yea absolutely all washed out.
I mentioned this in my post too but got “no I love the color it’s amazing” replies, its like smh, there is only-grey with bits and pieces of grass around.
Diablo 2 was Gothic and Medieval first, with dark areas and dark caves.
It was not light-grey to beige, literally everywhere, with a handful of colors, shipped as “dark” because we are not D3 lol.
Please learn what made D2 successful, it was being medieval and not using just-light-grey and beige all over. Colors and contrast matter, majorly, such as black and colors.
Diablo 2 had plenty of blacks and colors, much more than Diablo 4, which uses grey 99.9 percent of the screen.
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I like it. It looks really great. If you don`t like it play D3.^^
So first you people complain D3 is too colorful, now D4 doesn’t have ENOUGH color…
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Could’t agree more about the contrast issue. D4 is too washed out that was noticable right away. People probably spammed how D3 was too colourful. Now it’s too far the other way. Please get it right. Gotta nail it Blizz
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You realise both could be true at once, right?
Ever heard of Goldilocks and the Three Bears? One porridge was too hot, one porridge was too cold, and one porridge was just right.
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No, Goldie, never heard of ya…
i hope to be able to remove that red glow aura around monsters. this remove all the dark atmosphere so bad
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Exactly and yes! You are the big Diablo 3 fan on the D3 forums arguing against people who see what Diablo 2 did much better than Diablo 3.
Diablo 3 is not too colorful, its the wrong art style.
Make sense? Thanks.
Diablo 4 isn’t medieval enough, like Diablo 2 was, and doesn’t have enough color so far, as it without debate looks mostly grey.
I’s ok that you probably haven’t played enough Diablo 2 to understand the good those developers did. Please play a lot of Diablo 2 and form an opinion on the game being ‘trash’ or ‘good’ based of that.
This may be true.
But this is still the time to give them our feedback.
Your post brings literally zero value to anyone. It’s just showing off how smart you are.
Newsflash: balance is important in such things. You can go too far in BOTH directions.
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I thought it looked brilliant. Mute colors but they had some sort of contrast. The demo we saw is not the final product, I hope they add some tone differences as the finalized details. At least give us some sort of brightness scale so we can decide for ourselves… Wait, it doesn’t have that sorta thing, right? They never do.
I think game looks beautiful visually still, I lost my hype.
I respectfully disagree. I watched several live streams during blizzcon and I’m absolutely enamored by the new look. If you watched the panel where they discussed the artwork that’s gone into the development of D4, it’s been very methodical. I hope they continue on the path they’re on.
It’s also worth pointing out we’ve only played in a small section of a single area. I’m sure it will be diversified as they expand the map into other regions. For Scosglen the gray, rainy, washed-out vibe most definitely fits.
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I also respectfully disagree.
I’ve been criticizing d3 color palette and artstyle for years.
This time, their modeling, animating, artwork, lighting, ambiance teams are terrific. What they achieved is amazing. They listened. (Sebastian Stepien presentation was gorgeous) The contrast is perfect here (imo):
But the other artwork and paintings background shown in this video look too busy. Medieval art must NOT be busy, it’s rather non decorative, functional and modest. Don’t over-decorate.
They talk about medieval art, which is the excellent step to start. Though, after the fall of the Roman empire, most arts and techniques were lost across Europe. Perspective was discovered after Renaissance. (I hope their artists understand what I mean). Most paintings were frescos or murals with more simple shapes.
I’m being a bit nitpick, but understanding these basics helps at early stages.
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