I can understand your opinion, the backgrounds were more divisive than I though they would be. I’ve seen both love and hate for them :P.
On the next update we’ve reduced saturation by 10-30% to make them look less vibrant and did some tweaks by hand, hopefully, that will improve their look for most people.
I’ve already expressed the reasons for the change, but I’ll make a duplicate here for general information, but still everyone is allowed to disagree, this was our choice in the end :).
Technical Reasons:
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I no longer have access to the generative model used to create the original backgrounds, meaning that any new background will have to have a different style, and I would like to have everything of the same style.
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The previous backgrounds, also generated by AI, were more “photorealistic pastel” looking which makes their colors, light and shadows very complex. As a non-artist, this makes those backgrounds very hard to change, and with update 1.20 introducing the island map, we wanted to give continuity to the backgrounds and make them feel as part of the same place. Flat color art styles are way easier to edit for people with less skills.
Personal Reasons:
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I never liked the previous backgrounds, but was the model I could get with the least errors in images as possible while still looking fairly similar to the original game.
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IMO, a more cartoonish style fits better with Leah’s appearance and item icons than the previous backgrounds. For me they always felt a bit out of place, like something trying to look more realistic when everything else was way more “drawn”.
Thank you for the feedback :D!