“Completely Ruins The Game’s Artstyle, I Am Not Playing This”: Fans Aren’t Happy With Half-Life 2 RTX Remix – TheGamer

Half-Life 2 RTX Remix, which gives the game a ‘facelift’ through remastered assets and realistic, next-gen lighting, is getting its first playable demo tomorrow. But not everyone is convinced that this overhaul is an improvement.A big complaint levied against the remix is that the new lighting strips away the game’s atmosphere. Take u/Old-Camp3962’s popular Reddit post, which attracted over 1,300 upvotes by simply stating that the mod “completely ruins the game’s artstyle”. Like many, they used Ravenholm as an example. In the original game, the town is dimly lit with shadows swallowing interiors whole, lending to its horror tone. In the remix, the town is brightly lit, peeling back the carefully handcrafted ambience.”The lighting and what it tried to convey has been lost,” reads one comment on the trailer, as pointed out by u/Outrageous-Spend2733. “From dark and gloomy to eye wateringly bright. Why. Was so excited for this but alas this is a step backwards.”It would benefit from a more conservative use of the ray tracing features. In some scenes in the demo, when used in moderation it looks good, but in other parts lights have been made too bright to show off the cool shadows — u/Daigonik.”It’s like the style, soul and atmosphere has been completely ripped out and replaced with nothing. We all go to Ravenholm now, it’s bright and cheerful,” another jeers.”The more we go towards a hyper-realistic approach to lighting in video game[s], the more we abandon singular art directions,” u/IngloriousOmen explains. “HL2’s lack of lights in certain places ([Ravenholm] in this example) was not a technical flaw, but an artistic choice, and HL2 RTX negates this choice as if its developers didn’t understand the point of lighting.”But it’s not just the bright lights that fans are upset with; others note that the huge clouds of smoke completely obscure vital parts of the game, including Ravenholm’s introduction. As you wade your way into the town centre, you find a raging inferno engulfing corpses and debris, with shambling headcrab zombies in the streets. Atop a balcony stands Father Grigori, the shining light in this dingy town, but in the RTX remix, you can’t see him for the smoke.RTX overhauls do little more than gut classic games’ art styles. “There is too much smoke everywhere,” u/Wikot235 put it simply. “Sometimes, you can’t really see what is happening, all because of excessive smoke particle use when anything happens. Is it realistic? Probably yeah. Is it fun? No.”Granted, there are a couple of things to factor in here: a) this is a tech demo, and b) this isn’t the final release. So, maybe things will be improved before launch given the influx of feedback from the community, or perhaps it’ll stay as is to show off what ray tracing is capable of, art direction be damned. At least it’s more faithful than Portal RTX, eh?We want to hear from you! Share your opinions in the thread below and remember to keep it respectful.Your comment has not been savedIf you don’t like it then don’t play, simple I disagree. While it might be a bit brighter the atmosphere is definitely intact. In fact it’s even creepier when you see the shadows of the headcrabs etc before you even see them. Plus this isn’t the final release, so brightness could change by then. To be fair they can only comment on what’s available right now.Seriously who complains about this stuff. If you don’t like it how looks then don’t play it. I love raytracing in games and any older game I’ve played a lot that can add it, by all means do it. It looked amazing to me and the things you mentioned make the game better especially explosions and how is that not fun ??How little things have progressed in 20 years eh!That is the sort of thing a blind person might say yes”A knight in battle attire, got into bed with his squire”.One monster not enough of a challenge? Try taking on two at once with Great Hunts.With so much community content, there are dozens of user created ways to experience Baldur’s Gate 3.You ever fall in love with your best friend?Larian previously stated that mods which involved map editing and heavy scripting weren’t going to be officially supported.Maybe, just maybe, leave the characters as they were designed.

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/half-life-2-rtx-remix-nvidia-backlash-ravenholm-too-bright-reddit/