Resident Evil Games Remove Major Feature Without Explanation

Several Resident Evil games got some unexpected updates this week that actually took away from the games instead of adding to them. More specifically, it seems that the remade versions of both Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 have lost the ray tracing feature that so many players push for with that feature entirely absent from the options on the PC versions of the game now. Capcom hasn't said anything about this update despite multiple players sounding off to corroborate that this is indeed the situation the two games are in right now, so there's no telling at the moment why this feature was removed.

Players first started reporting on the absence of ray tracing in the PC versions of the game within various Resident Evil communities and other forums like the subreddit for PC gaming. One player posted in the latter to show that both Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 got updates this week that took out the ray tracing option with screenshots showing the lack of ray tracing within the options menu.

There's also been suggestions made online that Resident Evil 7 has similarly lost ray tracing on the PC platform, though we haven't been able to verify that claim.

So, what's going on with the ray tracing situation, and why did the games suddenly lose that graphics feature that's asked for so often in PC games? Capcom shared an update this same week within the Resident Evil games' Steam pages saying that "On 7/12/2023, support will end for the DirectX 11 non-ray tracing versions (dx11_non-rt) of Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil 2, and Resident Evil 3." That's the last that was heard about ray tracing in those games with the more recent update that actually did something in them not yet documented through Steam's patch notes section for each respective game.

The thought then is that the removal of ray tracing in these games is a mistake and that the feature will be back. This is supported by the fact that Capcom hasn't said anything about this situation either through the game's store pages or through the Resident Evil socials which are typically pretty active when it comes to communicating with players. Given that this issue was just now identified at the start of the weekend, it's likely the situation won't be resolved or addressed until next week, so perhaps we'll hear something about the matter on Monday.