I have perfect vision and a huge TV, yet I’m constantly leaning in while playing The Witcher 3.
Here’s what I’m talking about — check the bottom left. (Click on the image to see it at full scale!)
Uggghhhhh.
You spend a whole lot of time messing with your inventory in The Witcher 3 for many good reason. Geralt is constantly picking up loot, crafting potions and reading documents that might lead him to a piece of treasure. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the text is awfully tiny.
Every time I pick up a document, I start to groan. How small will the text be this time?
It might be hard to judge in the article because, hey, you could be viewing it on a monitor. It’s less awkward when your display is right up in your face. But I’m usually leaning back on my couch, and when I’ve opened my inventory, I’m having to pay more attention than I’d like.
There are countless options to fiddle with The Witcher 3′s graphics settings, even one that lets you adjust how much shows up in your HUD (useful!), but nothing to modify the tiny text size.
I’m hardly alone in this, either. There’s a whole thread on NeoGAF dedicated to this point:
Reddit users are resorting to fiddling with resolutions to make the text a little bit bigger.
There’s a lengthy thread on the CD Projekt RED official forums, as well.
Honestly, I just wish the game had this zoom option from the PlayStation 4 interface. (Which, by the way, is currently a useful, if inelegant, solution to this problem, if you’re playing there.)
I’m not sure how difficult this would be for CD Projekt RED to address, but here’s hoping it’s coming in one of the early patches.
Comments
24 responses to “The Witcher 3’s Tiny Text Is A Nightmare To Read”
Yulp it’s annoying. I have to squint to make out the text on some items and I’m sitting closer than average to my TV, even if they just bolded the font it’d help
http://i.imgur.com/yu0NR0U.gif
Relevant gif?
This is my pet peeve with PC games, RPGs in particular.
I have so many games from Steam I haven’t played and I’m unlikely to ever play because it’s impossible to read the game’s text from my couch.
You’re playing PC games on your couch?
You’re not?
HTPC Master Race report in!
So far I’m waiting to build a 2nd PC to play…
Xenonauts
Massive Chalice
Witcher 3
Pillars Of Eternity.
Shogun 2
C’mon PC Devs! Give us a large font option!
I have a 60″ plasma, and struggle to read while sitting on the couch 3 metres back. I also wear glasses, so the last two nights playing the Witcher 3 I’ve been worried my vision is worsening. Glad it is not just me.
I also have a 60″, also sit about 3m back, have 20/20 vision. After last nights session, I was seriously considering getting my eyes checked.
I have a 42″ screen and I sit just under 2m away from the TV. Haven’t really had any problems…
Same. Only I’m about 1.3m away. Bad, I know, but it’s more ‘immersive’.
This issue has been going on for far too long and its ridiculous these developers refuse to acknowledge it
I remember the first cricket game on the PS2 from EA having these miniscule fonts that made it hard to read anything – and that was more than 12 years ago on a game that could barely output 480i – and things have gotten worse
They are looking in to it.
http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2015/05/20/new-the-witcher-3-update-development-small-text-size-frame-rate-issues-looked/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-the-witcher-3-update-development-small-text-size-frame-rate-issues-looked
Strange thing was, The Witcher II had an option to make the text bigger, so… what the heck?
It’s been going on for years. The first game I stopped playing because of unreadable text was Banko Kazooie: Nuts n Bolts. They added a patch that allowed for bigger text, thankfully (but I was already done with that game anyway.) The latest offender seems to be Project CARS; I’m struggling to read anything it throws at me. Even the HUD is too small.
I can vouch for the nuts&bolts tiny text. SUCKED.
Thank god I’m not the only one! I got a 40″ TV about 7 metres from my couch and I pretty much need binoculars to recognise whether there is text or some kind of dead pixel on screen.
I’d need binoculars to see anything on a 40″ TV from 7 metres away. We sit about 5.5m back from a 180″ picture, and that seems just about right.
This is why it should have come out for WiiU. Just look down at the gamepad in your hands 😛
Open an in-game text, read the tablet as if it was a book or dataslate.
Unfortunately not many developers are making any of these type of games for WiiU. 🙁
I imagine in this case it is because it’s been designed around the PC, then they’ve just used the same UI on console, rather than designing a new one.
The first time I noticed it recently was in Diablo 3. I think it is a combination of things, not just size or resolution, but choice of font too. Some are more readable than others. I’m sure a Typographer can weigh in on this. I believe even MIT has done studies. I don’t mind so much when you have small info to make a “Clean” HUD, however once you are into menus and such, it just makes it difficult.
Get a projector, losers.
Playing on a 34″ 3440×1440 res monitor (tiny text on desktop even at medium text setting) and have had no problem with text what so ever. But when I do play games in my lounge room I find myself leaning forward to read text(60″ TV). Maybe they a specail addition for TV players that comes a magnifying glass?
whats this? console gamers are finding the horror of a game not tailored to your chosen platform? but serioulsy i hope this isnt even harder to read at 4k ;_;
WHAT IS THIS? A MENU FOR ANTS?
You just made my day
I have a 50 inch, sit about 2.5-3 metres back and need to wear glasses to see….
Not really having a problem with text size.