Resident Evil 2 is an immensely popular remake. It features incredible graphics, intense horror, and mind-bending puzzles for players to encounter. It stands as one of the most well-known Resident Evil games out there, even winning Attack of the Fanboy’s GOTY 2019 award. However, recent changes to the game have caused outcry among long-time fans. What was meant to be an update for the game on later-generation hardware led to massive issues for numerous players. As a result, Capcom had to reactivate the non-ray tracing version of Resident Evil 2 on PC in an attempt to restore playability.
Why Was the Non-Ray Tracing Version of Resident Evil 2 Reactivated on PC?
Following a number of Capcom’s newest announcements – including a demo release for Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak – it was announced that previous Resident Evil games would be getting new versions meant for modern generation consoles. This included the Resident Evil 2 remake, as well as Resident Evil 7 Biohazard and the Resident Evil 3 remake. However, these new versions were mandatory updates on PC, and they effectively increased the minimum system requirements. Capcom warned users about this change in a post on Steam, but anyone unlucky enough to miss it would be left with a possibly broken game. DirectX 12 was now necessary to run these games, leaving users on older versions of Windows without a way to play. Users also reported several issues with the update even if they could run it, with comments from Reddit noting that the update’s new features were “underwhelming” at best and game-breaking at worst.
Following these negative impressions, Capcom released a new patch very quickly, allowing users to opt out of the DirectX 12 requirements. The method might be a little difficult for fans to find, however, as the option to restore the DirectX 11 version is not available in the game’s own settings. Instead, on PC, players will need to access the game’s beta section on Steam and opt into the “dx11_non-rt” option. Doing so will reactivate the non-ray tracing version of the game, though it might also lead to in-game graphics settings being changed. Resident Evil 2 is the most notable title that was affected by this, but fans can also access DirectX 11 versions of Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 3. Capcom states that “both enhanced and previous versions will be made available going forward”, but no statements were made on whether the original version will be kept up to date with bugfixes or other patches.
Resident Evil 2 is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
