Nvidia DLSS 5’s AI filter turns all your favourite Resident Evil Requiem characters into yassified Instagram models

Oh, it wasn’t a dream. Nvidia really did announce DLSS 5 last night, its central feature not being better upscaling or frame generation but a "real-time neural rendering model that infuses pixels with photoreal lighting and materials." In practice, the primary function of this model appears to be looksmaxxing, transforming Resident Evil Requiem’s traumatised wallflower Grace into a smouldering ScarJo lookalike and, erm, lightening the skin of Starfield’s PoC characters. DLSS 5 isn’t launching until this autumn but I can tell it’s going to be just the thing if you secretly want all your games to have the same aesthetic, and that aesthetic is 'Evony ads.' Good lord, my lord. This has been inflicted upon the Earth for about 16 hours so far, enough time that I can’t add much to the points about the erosion of artistic intent or the spirited backlash from working gamedev professionals that have already been made. Honestly, I’m mainly just sad. Sad that this was proposed. Sad that no-one stopped it. Sad that that some of the most powerful and influential people in tech look at these Grokified, "hire fans" visuals and see them as the way forward, rather than for what they are: artless hallucinations, empty of meaning beyond the occasional glimpse of an underlying prejudice. It’s a minor moral crime, in comparison, but I don’t care for how it’s being yoked to DLSS as well. Versions 1 through 4.5 have, even with an unconvincing swerve into frame gen, been a net good for games. It’s AI-powered, but not in a way that burns through water supplies or triples the price of PC components, and has proven itself as one of those rare techy features that non-nerds can get something out of - its core upscaler making games look, run, and (by reducing input lag) feel better. DLSS 5’s wider embrace of genAI is only promising one of those benefits, and I’m not even sure that it does look better. In Nvidia’s short showcase alone, there are lighting details that get dulled or flattened – look at the glow of the shop window in Resi Requiem, or the bright screens in the latter part of the Starfield section – and everything gains both blown-out, overwrought contrast and a heavy sharpening filter effect. It might add up to somebody's idea of greater fidelity, but these automated choices are still aesthetic ones: it doesn't just look 'more real.' Rather than reject this push for homogenised, identity-deprived Insta gloss, however, game development’s executive class have embraced it. Nvidia did not kidnap Requiem and pump it with lip filler in some secret lab; Capcom gave their blessing, with exec producer Jun Takeuchi providing a glowing quote for DLSS 5’s press release. So too did Bethesda’s Todd Howard, who crooned: "With DLSS 5, the artistic style and detail shine through without being held back by the traditional limits of real-time rendering." Mate, they made your game look like it was knocked together by a ChatGPT true believer off LinkedIn. Those details never existed, let alone shone.