It is disappointing that they weren't able to deliver the visual fidelity of yesteryear; the difference isn't something I would get mad over though.

A bit disappointing, but if it's necessary to help make the game run, then fine by me.

My god. It looks like Edward Crayonhands had a seizure on a piece of poster board.

Yes I'm kidding. There is a downgrade but I still like it and think it looks good. Just getting in on the fake hating so don't lynch me

On a side note, recent video content of NLA looks better than the city shot from the 2013 E3 trailer, IMO. And those ground texture issues int he opening of that specific clip don't recur with any other (larger) floors/grounds in the rest of the direct. So yeah, I'm going to mostly attribute that issue to pop ins and texture loading issues.

It is strange, and I wonder why they would have to change the visuals of a cutscene.... it really makes no sense. Could that video have been from an earlier date than the E3 vid? Or a quick CG mock up specific for the direct. We'll have to wait for the game to know for sure.

The trailer from E3 was probably filmed in such a way as to make sure texture pop-in and loading issues didn't happen.  Not very hard to do, just start each clip filming several seconds early to let textures finish loading and then edit out the early bits with the issues.  Also, the E3 trailer had a far longer timeframe for production relative to the length of the video, so if a texture didn't load in properly they could jsut film again and again to get it right.  These directs, on the other hand, have focused much more on being representative of raw gameplay footage and had less time to be made and had o be much, much longer.   The graphical hicups at the start with certain textures don't appear to repeat themselves eslewhere in this or the other directs, hence my reasoning. 

The lighting though. The textured I think are fine and don't notice a downgrade at all.

Oh the lighting.  Well, I think part of that was actually to hide character faces :P .  Remember, they never revealed them till E3 2014 and the lighting helps to kinda make them hard to make out.  Also, the cockpit view in the Direct is the cockpit view from in game, which has a fully lit cockpit.  THe one in the trailer was not from in game and used diferent lighting as a result.  The only real missing element not explained by this is the sort of fog effect and bloom has been turned down.  This could be a time of day thing or it could be the effects were causing framerate issues. 

That's what I was thinking (time of day could be the reason for lack of shadows, ect). Who knows.

Lol, back when Ubisoft did this in Watchdogs, everyone went insane. Of course, that was on a bigger scale.

The floor looks considerably worse, the character model changed (I liked the 2013 one better), the weapon looks very pixelated, and lighting effects changed. Nothing too bad, but it is noticeable.