Nvidia revealed its newest DLSS 5 technology in March. It’s intended to make games look more photorealistic, but in practice drastically alters the appearance of characters. People quickly clowned on the “AI slop” tech, posting meme after meme online making fun of how the DLSS 5 can drastically alter a character’s appearance. Resident Evil Requiem‘s Grace was the unwitting poster child for the DLSS 5 technology, and gamers by and large rejected her DLSS 5 appearance.
In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa seemed pleased with how players responded to the situation.
“The fact a lot of players commented they really liked the original design of Grace and didn’t want to see it changed was a positive,” he said. “It meant we got the design right [and] points to the fact that Grace quickly established herself as a fan favorite, that people had such strong opinions on her design.”
Grace had something of an uphill climb to contend with in Requiem. She was a new character making her debut in the title. She was also paired with fan-favorite Leon S. Kennedy, meaning it would have been easy for her to be overshadowed. But that wasn’t so. Fans quickly took to Grace; her anxiety-inducing horror sections provided a nice contrast to Leon’s more action-heavy, over-the-top levels.
Eurogamer notes Kumazawa couldn’t comment on how his team was involved with the DLSS 5 reveal, if at all. Previous reports indicated that developers at Capcom were as surprised as viewers at home about the game’s inclusion in the DLSS 5 reveal video, especially as they said the company has taken a very “anti-AI” stance on its recent and upcoming projects. Staff at Ubisoft were also surprised future Ubisoft games will support the Nvidia tech, with one employee saying, “We found out at the same time as the public.”
If you’re one of the people criticizing how Nvidia’s new graphics tech will change the way Resident Evil Requiem and other games look, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang thinks you’re “completely wrong.” In an interview after the DLSS 5 reveal, he responded to the backlash by explaining the technical details of the graphics tech that he believed people misunderstood, while ignoring the fact that most players were saying they didn’t want Grace, Leon, and more characters to be turned into AI slop.
Resident Evil Requiem’s Grace reveals why she let Leon have all the one-liners
Hard to quip when you’re running scared