Resident Evil fans furious as Capcom removes ray tracing from remakes

Capcom is putting the "evil" in Resident Evil, as furious fans are annoyed that the beloved developer has stripped ray tracing from the recent remakes. Worse yet, it looks like it was snuck in under our noses. 

We've come a long way from the lows of the action-heavy Resident Evil 6, and alongside the beloved Resident Evil 7, the team has done amazing work remaking older games. Everyone is enjoying the recent release of Resident Evil 4, but sadly, Resident Evil 2 and 3 are being buried alive.

Why has Capcom removed ray tracing from Resident Evil?

There are multiple reports that the latest Steam update for 2019's Resident Evil 2 and 2020's Resident Evil 3 has quietly nixed ray tracing. A thread on the Steam discussion board highlights numerous issues going on right now in both versions on PC.

User DendeThe1st asked whether others noticed that the ray tracing option has been removed. It's apparently affecting the two remakes, while others claim HDR isn't working in either since the update rolled out. As RTX was working fine just a few days ago, it's a confusing state of affairs.

It also appears Dolby Atmos has gone from RE3, making us question what else has been given the boot. On Reddit, there were plenty of theories about what's going on. It seems like a simple oversight from Capcom, however, some think the problem is on Nvidia's end.

Will Capcom fix the Resident Evil remakes?

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These issues come just after Capcom announced it was removing support for these games and Resident Evil 7. The developer confirmed support for DirectX 11 was being shown the door, with updates only applying to the DirectX 12-enabled versions.

This might not sound like a big deal, but basically, if something breaks in the older versions, they'll stay broken forever. Capcom warned, "After technical support has ended, we cannot guarantee compatiblity or operation when using these versions of the games." 

That DirectX 11 changes aren't coming until July 12, so it's unclear whether the ray tracing issues are linked to this or not. As there's no official statement from Capcom at the time of writing, we're left in the dark as to why ray tracing is MIA in Raccoon City.