I’ve made this thread before, but sadly there has been no response from Bungie on the issue and the previous thread has long since been buried. I’m making this new thread in the hope it’ll reach Bungie.
Ever since the release of The Witch Queen expansion I’ve run into problems with Destiny 2’s HDR on my Xbox series X. Since the expansion the game looks washed out (greyish), colors look dull and muted and are no longer vibrant and popping like they were before. Not only does this apply to the game world, but also to the HUD elements: enemy heath bars and my ability bars are greyish/dark and barely perceivable.
I’ve noticed that the problems with HDR are not uniform across every location and activity. The problems appear mostly in public destinations and less in “instanced” portions of activities. Also the problems are very noticeable in areas with lots of “natural” sunlight or intense light effects, and almost completely gone when inside or when it’s night in game. This makes me think that the problem is related to light sources in the game. From what I’ve gathered from reddit, these problems are also happening on PS5 (so not just Xbox series X).
I’ve compared how the game looks on my Xbox series X in HDR and how it looks on my PC in SDR and made screenshots in similar locations to highlight the difference:
HDR (xbox) [url]https://imgur.com/a/2k9CYrO[/url]
SDR (PC) [url]https://imgur.com/a/WCXK7nV[/url]
I've also made some more recent screenshots during season of the haunted in HDR:
[url]https://imgur.com/a/boyRRPQ[/url]
As you can see the colors in HDR look muted and greyish compared to what they should look like (see the Mars pictures). Also in the screenshots from the PsiOps activity you can see how the colors are muted again but also my HUD is very greyish and almost translucent. It appears as if there is a grey filter applied over the entire picture. This effect however is completely gone when I’m inside or when it’s night in game (see bottom 2 pictures from HDR screenshots). Also in certain area's where there are no intense light effects the issue is gone (see the screenshots from the corrupted strike under the season of the haunted link).
Right now (for me) the game is barely playable on console because of these issues. Not only does the game look bad because of them, but it’s interfering with the gameplay because I can hardly make out my HUD and enemy health bars. Especially in crucible it’s nearly impossible for me to make out opponents let alone their health bars. Whenever it's trials on a bright map (the mercury maps are the worst) it's nearly impossible for me to make out any details of the HUD or enemies. It’s genuinely a nightmare.
I’d like to add that these problems are ONLY in Destiny 2 and ONLY since the release of the Witch Queen. My TV (LG CX 55) is properly calibrated and HDR in other games/tv/movies looks just as great as it always has. Just to be sure I’ve already tried changing setting on the console and TV side of things to see if that would improve anything, but sadly this was not the case. The source of the problems must thus stem from D2. Obviously I’ve also tried changing the HDR calibration in game, but this does not solve the problems. The problems also persist between both HDR10 and Dolby Vision.
I’ve posted about these problems before on reddit and I’ve tried to reach out to community managers via twitter. See:
[u]https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/tniwh1/persisting_hdr_problems_washedgreyed_out_colors/[/u]
[u]https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/tniwh1/persisting_hdr_problems_washedgreyed_out_colors/[/u]
However so far I’ve not seen any acknowledgement from Bungie that they are aware of these problems or working on a solution. I’ve waited a few months with posting this again, especiall until after the season in the hope that the problems would be fixed by that or at least mentioned/acknowledged by Bungie as a known issue, but sadly that is not the case.
Because of this I feel compelled to make this thread to keep remembering Bungie about the issue. I hope that this post helps Bungie pin down the source of the issues and find a way to fix them.
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Edited by nihil: 6/27/2022 10:25:36 PMI have a very similar issue with HDR on PC - the game world itself looks incredibly washed out/desaturated in the same way your Xbox HDR pictures look. It seems to vary from map to map (e.g. things look fine while in orbit, Nessus is terrible), but my menus and HUD are consistently fine. This was introduced with the release of Witch Queen and looks like the same exact issue HDR had post-Beyond Light (which was fixed with a patch several seasons into the year). My drivers are fully up-to-date, reinstalling the game has done nothing, the HDR settings for my monitor are set correctly and changing the in-game HDR settings does nothing to fix the issue. The fact that elements of the game work perfectly (menus, HUD, while in-orbit), while specific maps have varying (but consistent) issues with being washed out imply that it's something wrong with the engine or it's something baked into the maps themselves.