NVIDIA just unveiled their next generation AI-based upscaling technology DLSS 5 and although it’s currently being touted as the company’s most hyped up breakthrough since their implementation of real time Ray Tracing that arrived back in 2018, the results don’t look nearly as exciting. Due to a heavy degree of generative AI usage in the latest DLSS 5, the resulting images look shockingly generic and resemble AI slop, almost devoid of any artistic value that was originally intended by the developers.
However, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard has already confirmed that Starfield along with all future Bethesda games will be using DLSS 5. In the official blog post from NVIDIA, Howard has stated:
“NVIDIA and Bethesda have a long history of pushing gaming graphics and innovation forward, and DLSS 5 represents the next major step in that journey.”
“With DLSS 5, the artistic style and detail shine through without being held back by the traditional limits of real-time rendering. We’re excited to work with this new technology and look to bring DLSS 5 to Starfield and future Bethesda titles.”
This means that both The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 would be using DLSS 5 when they arrive, which can potentially take away a large chunk from the overall sense of aesthetics and art direction in those games, based on the initial impression of NVIDIA’s new upscaler.
The reason why upscalers like DLSS became so useful is cause how they enabled players to get more FPS out of their GPUs without interfering with the overall look and artistic choices made by the developers. But in DLSS 5, we see the upscaler actually altering many fundamental visual features and producing an image that looks shinier and sharper but also feels that it has lost a significant amount of artistic richness and depth.
In short, studios like Bethesda’s decision to implement the highly divisive tech regardless of whether the players actually like it or not, could take the entire industry to a place where art direction in visuals will have a lot less meaning than it does now which could also result in a lot of artists being let go by the studios and videogames losing a huge part of what makes their visuals look and feel unique.
