PS5 Pro players are noticing a major visual change in Resident Evil Requiem after Capcom’s March 4 update, and it’s sparked a lively debate about what matters more: cleaner image quality or the atmosphere that ray-traced lighting can bring.
Before the patch, the PS5 Pro Enhanced version stood out for its ray-traced global illumination (often shortened to RTGI). In Resident Evil Requiem’s Raccoon City sections, that tech helped deliver more realistic lighting behavior, including reflections and more natural-looking light bounce that can make wet streets, dim alleys, and interiors feel moodier and more “alive.” It was one of the standout features highlighted in earlier performance impressions of the game.
What changed with the March 4 update? Players began reporting that ray tracing seemed to be gone in Raccoon City, and analysis suggests the patch effectively disabled that ray-traced lighting in those segments. Capcom’s update targeted graphical glitches across multiple platforms, and one of the biggest complaints had been visual artifacts and noisy, grainy output tied to ray tracing—issues that can become especially noticeable in demanding environments.
According to technical commentary shared by analyst John Linneman, the issue likely comes down to denoising. Ray tracing often relies on denoisers (post-processing tools designed to clean up the speckled, shimmering look that can appear when the game is working with limited ray samples). In more complex, open environments like parts of Raccoon City, denoising can struggle—leading to the very artifacts players were complaining about. The apparent fix, however, wasn’t a better denoiser. Instead, the ray-traced lighting was removed in that area, resulting in fewer artifacts but also a flatter-looking scene.
That tradeoff is exactly why the reaction is mixed. Some players are happy to see the distracting noise and image instability reduced. Others feel the city now looks noticeably more bland, losing the convincing reflections and lighting nuance that helped sell the eerie urban setting—especially compared to other parts of the game that still look more visually striking.
A key frustration for many fans is that the change doesn’t appear to be optional. Rather than giving players a toggle to keep ray tracing (with the risk of artifacts) or disable it for a cleaner presentation, the patch seems to make the decision for everyone—at least in Raccoon City on PS5 Pro.
On PC, it’s less clear exactly how the Steam version is impacted overall, but there have been reports of odd lighting behavior after the update. Some players are choosing to disable ray tracing themselves while waiting to see if future patches improve lighting quality or address the underlying denoising problems.
The good news for PS5 Pro owners is that not everything has been scaled back. Outside of Raccoon City, much of Resident Evil Requiem is said to look largely unchanged. And the PS5 Pro Enhanced release still benefits from other upgrades, including the console’s improved PSSR upscaling, which helps boost performance while keeping image quality sharp.
For now, the patch leaves Resident Evil Requiem in an awkward spot: improved clarity in the areas that were producing distracting artifacts, but with a noticeable hit to the lighting that gave Raccoon City its atmosphere. Whether Capcom revisits the decision—either by improving the denoiser or adding a ray tracing toggle—may determine how satisfied PS5 Pro players feel with the game’s visual direction going forward.
