Dead Space remaster suffers from ‘major graphical issue’ on PS5
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The long awaited Empty space remake suffers from more than a few bugs, including a significant graphics bug on PS5. EA has acknowledged the issue, but can’t say when it will be fixed.
The Empty space remake brings a complete graphical overhaul of the sci-fi horror game, making it look like a modern game, rather than a 15-year-old piece of space junk. However, some PS5 players are reporting an issue where textures load at much lower resolutions than they are intended for, creating an ugly visual mismatch between a highly detailed main character and a low-fidelity environment.
“The team is working on a patch that will improve the issue on PS5,” EA community manager EAKfam said a Reddit post (opens in new tab). “The patch also provides an option to disable VRS on PC. There is no ETA yet, but I will keep you all updated.”
Eakfam describes the bug as a “major graphics issue”, saying it’s the highest priority bug on the teams list that isn’t immediately groundbreaking. While we don’t have an exact date for a resolution, the outage is definitely on EA’s radar. However, these graphical issues are not the only bug affecting the game. Stuttering on PC, “infinite death loops” and “chapter specific items not spawning [and] bugs preventing progression” are also mentioned in Eakfam’s post, along with several workarounds. It’s definitely worth reading if you’ve run into problems in your own playthrough.
Shades of grey
The error is likely caused by Variable Rate Shading, which is a process that allows your graphics card to spend less time and effort on parts of the game that you are less likely to see: such as areas obscured by shadows. VRS changes the number of pixels that a single-pixel shader operation can affect, allowing developers to reduce the complexity of shaders in certain contexts. It improves frame rates and helps lower machines keep up.
however, the Empty space remake’s application of VRS is skewed by this bug, making moderately shaded areas look blurry and odd. John Linneman of Digital Foundry found his own examples of this phenomenon:
For those curious, here’s what VRS does to the image quality on PS5. The actual resolution is much higher (look at Isaac), but VRS basically causes shadow areas to lose most of their detail. pic.twitter.com/Qx9uEyTWzzJanuary 28, 2023
For the most part, the Dead Space remake has been well received by critics and fans alike, with a score of 89 on Metacritical (opens in new tab) with a user score of 8.4. Our own Aleksha McLoughlin has been eagerly awaiting the remake, especially after replaying the original. With gripping horror, gruesome mayhem and the promise of a mysterious alternate ending, it’s no wonder the remake turned out well.
The game’s bugs put a damper on things, but news that fixes are in the works at least gives hope that they’ll be ironed out soon. Until then, the horrors of the Dead Space are more than just the mutated hell beasts prowling the corridors of the USG Ishimura.