Capcom Quietly Withdraws Ray Tracing From Resident Evil 2 And 3 Remakes

Capcom has removed ray tracing support from the PC versions of Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard without prior notice. The issue was reported by multiple players on the official forums of the games on Steam. It was confirmed by other players as well as everyone started discovering that the “Ray Tracing” option was not available in the graphics settings of all three titles.

The games received official updates from the developer just yesterday after which the buzz broke out among fans regarding the removal of ray tracing support. Capcom released current-gen patches for the three titles in June 2022 which added new features such as ray tracing and 3D audio to the games, the same two features missing in the latest update.

These new patches switched the games to DirectX 12 from the previous DirectX 11. The update was not optional and opened a range of complaints from the fans such as the DirectX 11 mods breaking and several other performance issues on the DirectX12 version. Following an overwhelming bad response from the fans, Capcom reactivated the default DX11 versions of the games.

Fans now suspect it to be an error where Capcom has accidentally switched the three titles to their DX11 versions. The issue comes out as strange and cannot be backed by sound reasoning as for those unaware, Capcom has recently announced the end of support for the DirectX 11 versions of Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes and Resident Evil 7 in July this year.

Moreover, with ray tracing enabled on these games, fans reported some quality issues in graphics and a performance drop so Capcom could just be experimenting or it could really be an error. But in absence of an official statement from the company, the chatter of doubt regarding Capcom’s next plans will continue.

Nothing can be said concretely about what Capcom could be thinking. They might restore the missing features or send out an official reason in a few hours or days, let’s just see. Speaking of removing features, Capcom has also removed Denuvo from Resident Evil Village which has already been removed from Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes. This was not surprising since Denuvo comes with performance issues.

The Resident Evil 2 remake is a 2019 survival horror game, a remake of the 1998 classic, Resident Evil 2. The Resident Evil 3 remake was taken from the 1999 title, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and was released in 2020. Both of the remakes are fairly loved titles and are available on a number of previous and current-gen consoles. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a 2017 title of the same genre from the Resident Evil franchise.