DLSS 5 reactions arrive online as NVIDIA reveals divisive AI-enhanced game graphics

For years now, Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) has been something of a gaming savant, upscaling visuals from lower resolutions to look as good, if not better, than native resolution rendering; however, with DLSS 5, some gamers feel Nvidia has lived long enough to become the villain.

Instead of using motion vectors and colour information in order to make a game appear sharper while using fewer resources by upscaling, DLSS 5 completely alters the look of a game, with many decrying the resulting image as ‘AI slop’.

Nvidia showcased DLSS 5 at Nvidia GTC 2026 in San Jose in a number of titles, namely Resident Evil Requiem, Starfield, Hogwart’s Legacy and Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and said the technology was “bridging the cinematic gap” by using an “AI model to infuse the scene with photoreal lighting and materials that are anchored to source 3D content and consistent from frame to frame”, as noted by the official press release.

If you have been anywhere near social media since it was announced, then you will know that the gaming community at large has resoundingly rejected it.

Much of the criticism is levelled at the fact that DLSS 5 is altering the appearance of games, such as Grace in Resident Evil Requiem, who, for lack of a better term, looks ‘yassified’.

DLSS 5 brings into question how much this could impact on artists' intent, as the included games look vastly different, as surmised by Synth Potato on X.

Genki, a regular poster based in Japan, highlighted just how incredible the character rendering in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is, calling into question the need for DLSS 5.

Many are reminded of the discourse surrounding fans “fixing” games by altering the appearance of characters such as Aloy in the Horizon series.

Safe to say, DLSS 5 is proving to be extremely divisive. Recognising this, Nvidia posted a comment on the YouTube video saying that “game developers have full, detailed artistic control over DLSS 5's effects to ensure they maintain their game's unique aesthetic”.

Developers will have access to an SDK, which Nvidia says “includes things like intensity, color grading and masking off places where the effect shouldn't be applied”.

With much of the criticism being that it looks like an AI filter, Nvidia has pushed back specifically against this, adding that it’s “not a filter - DLSS 5 inputs the game’s color and motion vectors for each frame into the model, anchoring the output in the source 3D content”.

Whether or not DLSS 5 will see widespread uptake remains to be seen, but Nvidia has stated that “DLSS 5 will come to games including AION 2, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Black State, CINDER CITY, Delta Force, Hogwarts Legacy, Justice, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, NTE: Neverness to Everness, Phantom Blade Zero, Resident Evil Requiem, Sea of Remnants, Starfield, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Where Winds Meet and more”.

Todd Howard, CEO of Bethesda Game Studios, spoke highly of DLSS 5, saying: “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.”

As it stands at the moment, DLSS 5 gives some the impression of a mobile game advert, such as Evony.

Though we have only seen a select few titles, many are applying AI filters to other games to highlight their grievances with the tech, such as VideoArtGame, who joked about what the Shadow Ghost from Resident Evil Requiem might look like.

Others, such as the official account for Worms, are taking a sillier approach.

In DLSS 5’s current iteration, it requires two Nvidia RTX 5090 graphics cards to run in Resident Evil Requiem, one for the path-traced game and the other to run DLSS 5, but Nvidia hopes to get it down to one and release it by this autumn.

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