Let's Bring Back the Pre-release Campaign Grahpical Style!

[General Maximus]

Back when this game was announced and promoted, it looked very different from when it was released.

I don't know why, but I loved how the game looked during previews. Just take a look:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As you can see, it was very different.

- Graphics were more clear. Though that could be simply because of their settings.

- Colours were insanely more vibrant. Sure, trees are primitive (it was beta after all) like in ETW/NTW, but they were but still coloured correctly.

- Water was a bit too green, but otherwise looked great and was clearer compared to the dark blue/black colour we have now. Beach sand was also different, not necessarily better but here it looked good.

- Cliffs actually looked like cliffs, with wet hard brown stone instead of the absurd looking low-poly white rocks we have now.

- Since mountains use the same rock textures, they look wonderful. Compare that to the weird low-res green-white rocks we got at the base of mount Fuji and every other mountain we have in the game.

- Just look at that weather and lightning effects in the sky! This is exactly what Rome 2 tried to imitate and then failed. It looks so much better.

- Name of the provincial city/castle was displayed alongside the name of the province (now you have to mouse over it and read the tiny font that appears for a while).

- You could zoom further outwards, as well as further inwards. Camera was more limited since release.

- The undiscovered areas/fog of war looked far better than they have ever done after release.

It looked actually amazing, far better than the still screenshots, during the campaign map video previews and beta gameplays, which have all been deleted long ago, sadly.

The game had a certain...mystic feel about it. Something that made exploration actually feel like exploration. It looked far more immersive to me, personally, even though I also love the graphics we eventually got.

CA also showed battles in a massive, beautiful rainstorm with lightning and fog. All that seems to have been cut for some reason, but that's another story.

PROPOSAL

So here is my proposal and request - Let's bring this campaign art style back!

I mean, we've had many mods that edit campaign map terrain texture, for better or for worse. Why not one more, one that brings back the original alpha and beta style art of Shogun 2's previews? With its farmland terrains, grass, darker seaside cliffs and mountains, clear heavy-tinted water

I know it wouldn't sit well with many, but for many players (including me) it would be simply wonderful. And nostalgic.

Alongside all that, please bring back these features too:

- Ability zoom in and out more.
- More yellow-ish and degraded paper-type fog of war art.
- (If possible at all) Displaying city/castle town's name alongside the province name. For example, instead of reading "Kai" it would read "Kofu, Kai".

We had this proposal to bring back the original beta graphics in 2011-12 during Shogun 2's early days as well. But back then, modding was extremely limited as not many people knew how to mod.

Now that we do, I'd like to humbly propose and ask that we bring the art style back.

[Hazbones]

I still hold out the hope that they completely revisit Shogun 2 sort of like they did with Thrones of Brit, maybe bring some of what they learned in ToB and apply it to SHO2 including improving the map. I think SHO2 could have been so much more had they not gotten lazy and/or sloppy and did even a tiny bit of research to increase the realism. SHO2 really does need a map that is expanded to where regions represent districts as opposed to provinces. This will add the depth to the game I think it is missing so that you can assign your retainers to oversee the district (as was done historically). I agree the map too was extremely sloppy-made and needs everything from a re-texture to better representations of the provinces (a majority of the provinces in the SHO2 campaign map look nothing like the historical province).

[izzi]

I still hold out the hope that they completely revisit Shogun 2 sort of like they did with Thrones of Brit, maybe bring some of what they learned in ToB and apply it to SHO2 including improving the map. I think SHO2 could have been so much more had they not gotten lazy and/or sloppy and did even a tiny bit of research to increase the realism. SHO2 really does need a map that is expanded to where regions represent districts as opposed to provinces. This will add the depth to the game I think it is missing so that you can assign your retainers to oversee the district (as was done historically). I agree the map too was extremely sloppy-made and needs everything from a re-texture to better representations of the provinces (a majority of the provinces in the SHO2 campaign map look nothing like the historical province).

I really hope so. It's my favorite game. But honestly, i doubt they will ever go back to S2TW. I think the max older games they will revisit, is R2TW (as we can see in it's new DLC's and updates).