2mo ago

New STALKER remasters launch to 'Mostly Negative' Steam reviews as players bemoan blurry visuals, controversial changes

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New STALKER remasters launch to 'Mostly Negative' Steam reviews

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the biggest problem plaguing the STALKER remasters is a strange bug that seems to cause the games to render at a resolution lower than what you set it as and then upscale it improperly, resulting in blurry, muddy visuals that persist even if you turn settings like AMD FSR Super Resolution and depth of field off.
Okay that's... that's not great, but should be fixable in a patch surely?
Another highly contentious change that's drawn the ire of fans is the complete removal of everything Russian or related to the Soviet Union, including all Russian voice acting and localization, the use of Soviet rubles as in-game currency, and even every Soviet sign, statue, and landmark present in the real-world Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that were included in the original titles.
The versimilitude and basis in real world locations was a massive part of what made the originals so great, you can't just scrub that off. I empathize with them, and I am personally firmly on the side of Ukraine but this sits really poorly with me.
The Zone's supernatural mysteries are layered over recognizable pieces of Soviet iconography and rusting Soviet technology is a huge part of what gives STALKER its atmospheric vibe, and the absence of beloved voice lines like "Cheeki breeki iv damke!" just feels...wrong
Yeah I'm not touching these abominations. They even removed Cheeki Breeki? The single most recognisable thing in their games, the most prevalent and beloved meme?
- Alert 2: Revenge
They should have left the graphics alone and worked to squash bugs and add playability/quality-of-life features.
Those games are famous for being brilliant, but deeply flawed. Graphics were not the flaw.
Happy they didn't fuck up the originals, but added these as separate titles. Fucking Sony recently pushed a rEmaSteREd Days Gone as a patch and it sucks, the version before looked great at 45 FPS on Steam Deck, this one is in the toilet for dubious gains. They certainly did it so that people who play the game on their ps5 pro don't notice how much better the game looks and works on the pc.
The editor confusing smaa with supersampling irks me more than it maybe should 😅 Guess more confirmation to always rather look at the sources.
I haven't read the article but I can guess. Forced TAA?
- Nah, sounds like the rendering is simply broken at the time. When you turn off fsr it still seems to render lower than native.
- Worse. Forced DLSS/FSR/whatever you call that slop.
Do they have any QoL improvements like turning off the head bobbing?
- Uhh...

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