While not exactly ugly, DS2 development was marked by several graphical downgrades starting from the original gameplay trailers. Upon release, the graphics were considerably downgraded when compared to preview images on steam and several parts of the game had pretty low quality textures/effects. And the incoming graphical update doesn't tell a good story for consumers.

It looks like they didn't even try to make it look pleasent at all.

Pre-rendered graphics, really? Are we back in the 80's where you couldn't model 3D without hollywood levels of money?

BUT THE GRAPHICS ARE "IRONIC"

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

Bland (adjective) lacking strong features or characteristics and therefore uninteresting. "Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is a bland piece of shit" synonyms: uninteresting, dull, boring, tedious, monotonous, monochrome, dry, drab, dreary, wearisome;

Elder Scroll games have had a history of looking nice, what the hell happened here?

Looking way dustier and decidely less sharp as the trailers leading up to it, and with several weird effects, like windows that reflect a whole other dimension. luckily, if you are on PC, you can make the graphics half decent by unlocking graphics options in the games'.ini files, like a TRUE HACKER.