[Update 2: Ray tracing has been reimplemented in a recent patch. This writer has confirmed that the options now once again appear in the settings.]
[Update: Capcom has stated via Twitter that they are aware of the issue with Ray Tracing not being available in the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 remakes on PC. They say that this will be addressed in a “future update.” As of writing, the patch is not available. Our original story follows.]
Bring out the floor unpolisher
In a strange update that some are speculating was an accident, Capcom has removed the Ray Tracing feature from the PC ports of the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes. Furthermore, the Dolby Atmos feature was removed from Resident Evil 3.
The patch rolled out sometime over the weekend. This writer saw it and wondered internally what it was for. There were no patch notes included with it. Reports later came in of the feature removal.
Capcom has said nothing of the change, leading to much speculation. I did what you should never do and checked the Steam discussion forums and immediately regretted it. While there is a thread that demonstrates how you can revert to the previous patch and restore the feature, most of the comments were pure speculation, dumb jokes, or complete disinformation. I followed up on Reddit, and there, it’s much the same. No one seems to know what happened.
On April 12, Capcom reported that they were ending support of the non-Ray Tracing DirectX 11 version. What they meant by this is that the DX11 version will no longer be receiving updates – you can still access it if you want to. However, this has led some to speculate that Capcom accidentally disabled the DX12 branch. Then disputed. The theory that this was an accident is credible, if only because Capcom didn’t announce it in advance when they advised about the end-of-support for DX11. However, it seems like it would be very difficult to just do that by mistake.
Following my playthrough of Resident Evil 4, I reinstalled Resident Evil 2 for another go-round. I very quickly became distracted by other things, but I found the Ray Tracing to be well-implemented and that it ran reasonably well. While I’m not a fan of Ray Tracing’s performance relative to the visual differences it has, it does look more natural than RE2’s built-in screen space reflections. I guess I’ll wait a bit to see if another patch comes through the queue, but otherwise, I might just uninstall it and play it on console instead.
The console versions of Resident Evil 2 and 3 seem unaffected. Resident Evil 7, 8, and 4 all retain their Ray Tracing feature on PC. Destructoid will keep you posted on any comments by Capcom or reverse in the removal.
