Wow, it's honestly impressive how much this makes the game look significantly worse. Really makes me appreciate the style the Devs went with even more.
Not a troll. Night Dive Studios intentionally made the textures crunchy as an artistic choice. You may not appreciate the art direction, and you may tailor it to suit your tastes...even if your taste is muddy textures.
No it isn't pixel art. It's just pixelated. Pixel art is pretty. This is hideous. Only people with no taste like textures resized via some trashy photoshop effect combined together with modern lightning and atrocious len's flare. By your standard censored Japanese porn is pixel art.
Yes it does need a fix. Intentions can be wrong. A choice would be nice. The game looks horrible, nothing like an initial demo. If I want a vintage look I’d be loading a super low textures in each game now and disable filtering and call it an artistic choice? I bet deep inside the development they just went lazy and upscaled original textures and slapped it and call it a “style” - and sold as a deliberate choice for lamers who believe it. Seems like it worked.
Just because you don't appreciate an artistic direction, doesn't make that direction wrong. I absolutely hate the muddy appearance of texture filtering, and the only way to turn it off in most games requires me to open some .ini and .config files and type in various console commands that get overridden if another video setting gets adjusted in-game. Now you know how we feel.
Or the other way around if you can tolerate this horrible looks. Sorry I’m a graphic designer and can’t stand the choice they made. I’ll wait for massive discount to maybe buy it in the future but after playing the demo I personally hate it.
I was thinking refund before I found this mod that makes it at least tolerable. Another unbelievable thing is that cyberspace that would make much more sense to be pixelated (as I imagine you really don't want the device in your head to overheat) is actually not. Knowing the gaming community, someone started to making all the textures hi-res on the day one of the release so don't worry, you'll be having the pretty one day
Wow... just wow. This thread shows that there's no way for universal peace to ever exist in the world.
Even if the style doesn't fully sit with someone... 'hideous'? 'refund'? Discount bin? Seriously? I can't help but feel some people just die-hard try to be edgy.
Then again the internet is filled with insecure kids spitting out 'project reality' reshades dime a dozen that crank up sharpness and contrast filter to 11 and claim to have fixed this or another horribly hideously-looking game.
Personally I'd be hard pressed to imagine how they could have nailed the aesthetic any better - it's a very well considered art direction and colour palette that both pays faithful homage to the original game and works effortlessly all on its own. The only thing I find a little underwhelming and standing out is the sun model outside the window.
This thread shows that there's no way for universal peace to ever exist in the world.
Yes, especially when people keep bullying others for not liking a subjective thing. I also think it's hideous, but I understand that others find it beautiful, it's divisive, but who cares, it's just a game.
Either way, this mod is obviously not for you, so please, stop bothering people, who are legitimately interested in this mod, for not sharing your opinion.
I have zero issues with this mod or the author's rationale for it or for anyone wanting to use it. That's what mods are for, have fun.
What I'm critical of are the comments of the sort mentioning refunds and discount bins because of how apparently hideous the game is. There are opinions and preferences, sure. But the gaming community seems to be positively overflowing with extreme opinions that seem so blown out of proportion it just makes me sad about the state of the industry. You don't like the pixel filtering? No problem. But going out of your way to saying how unbearably hideous the game is (it's nowhere near deserving of the term) and suggesting refunds and discounts is just seriously absurd.
Well the aesthetic is inherently inconsistent. Modern PBR, modern shading, modern post processing, somewhat modern polygon count for main structures, then 2000s polygon count for objects, 2000s texture resolution, and 1990s texture filtering. It doesn't work.
Its fine that this mod exists... but I gotta say how people reply to criticism against this mod really reveals they have a common denominator in lacking taste and grace.
The common denominator with people who criticize the pixelated textures is that is that the pixelated textures flat-out suck. This game could have looked glorious with proper high-res textures and nobody would have complained that there's a lack of visible pixels. The textures that we got are just the artist's way of choosing the lazy way out.
Well, in my opinion, the pixelated textures are a deal-breaker. Unless of course, that can be fixed with mods such as what we see here. Future texture packs should make this situation better too.
Just throwing my hat in the ring in case a developer ever comes across these comments: I like the nearest-neighbor filtering, and enjoy the retro/pixelated aesthetic it imparts.
Glad people can mod whatever they want, more power to you; but the people throwing an absolute s#*!-fit over it in these comments, as though nearest-neighbor filtering somehow ruined the entire game for them, are just being massive babies. I actually played the original game in the 90s, and I'm trying to even imagine someone from back then being like "oh some game has a stylistic art choice, I literally can't play it". It would be an unrelatable concept because our standards weren't "my way or the highway" when it came to every little f*#@ing setting in the entire game.
So it must be a picky zoomer thing, and hopefully you'll grow out of it.
Definitely a Younger Gen | Different Generation Thing.......... Played | Still Play the OG SS1 from back in the day.
I've read constantly : from the DEV's mouths themselves; they wanted to keep as Close as much as the OG SS1 Game from back in the day in everything. soo Art Designs as well too.i truly don't see why its a Problem.
- lastly i'll say this...... Mod's exists for These Reasons:
1) Just Because for FUN, FUN, FUN, FUN - wonder WHAT happened to just having FUN these days ? 2) a games OVER-SIGHT | UNDER-SIGHT - truly depends on the GAME. some games the Dev's miss(ing)ed_some detail(s). while other games_Dev's didn't give ENOUGH attention to detail(s). a MOD can either fix-adjust-add-negative-help-support-eliminate the situation(s) | item(s) | issue(s) | problem(s)... 3) a Mod can give the Ability to "Alter-The Game" in a way that you never knew existed before.....soo similar to NO.2. but it can give you a Different Perspective on the GAME itself !
my take: I'm just glad; there is a SS Up Dated in our timeline to play-run on Modern Systems. NOW how gud it is or playable is an ENTIRELY Different Topic of Discussion ALL Together.......Lol !
1) Just Because for FUN, FUN, FUN, FUN - wonder WHAT happened to just having FUN these days ? 2) a games OVER-SIGHT | UNDER-SIGHT - truly depends on the GAME. some games the Dev's miss(ing)ed_some detail(s). while other games_Dev's didn't give ENOUGH attention to detail(s). a MOD can either fix-adjust-add-negative-help-support-eliminate the situation(s) | item(s) | issue(s) | problem(s)... 3) a Mod can give the Ability to "Alter-The Game" in a way that you never knew existed before.....soo similar to NO.2. but it can give you a Different Perspective on the GAME itself !
I think in the case of this game you would need to add: 4) some people don't like the valid stylistic choice of the developers.
For me... 1) i loved System Shock when it was released. I was ~23 at the time and it was GROUND BREAKING. Definitely one of those games that defined a genre of interactive FPS + RPG elements games which Deus Ex and System Shock 2 and Thief then perfected. 2) I also, obviously, backed the remake on Kickstarter and was one of the backers that was 100% on board with the reboot in direction mid-development with the walk back to the modern-retro vibe with the "pixelized" aesthetic and sticking as close as possible to the design and gameplay of the original. I can also see why some would rather have 4K high detail "photorealistic" textures, especially if you didn't play the original back in 1994. For that, sure, someone could just use AI upscaling/sampling to try to create a pack for those folks. Sure why not.
What I do think is headache inducing, which is just a sign of the times unfortunately, the vitriol and hyperbole some people use to tear down the original vision as if it's some affront to gaming. If you don't trust us Gen Xers and Boomers that played it on release.. maybe trust the biggest graphics afficionados and critics folks around.. Digital Foundry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjQVf1vxQu0
Thank you for this. As someone who grew up playing both DOS games and late 90s 3D accelerated games, I just couldn't stomach the fake retro style they've chosen. Believe it or not, this mod actually makes the game enjoyable for me. Ignore the kids hating on you in the comments.
However, there's still an occasional texture sticking out. Most notably, the texture on the metal pipe (your first screenshot), the berserk patch, the corpse right at the beginning.
How did they manage to get that effect, anyway? It's like an unholy combination of nearest neighbor and linear filtering - pixelated and blurry at the same time.
Your funny. Yes i said the same thing i have a suspicion that these"retro" radicals... Advocating for pixelated high polygon world with modern lighting... Are teens trying to school the Boomer on how we should enjoy our own class of games. And i have also noticed the last paragraph of yours too
Thanks. Silly bickering and insisting that opinions can be 'wrong' aside, the fact is that I'm simulating running around in a space station, not simulating PC gaming in 1994. If I want retro, I'll play the 1994 version (again.)
In 1994, we had pixels because we didn't have a choice. Now it's like dirt on the camera lens - it only serves to remind me that it's fake, which takes me right out of the space station and puts me back at my desk.
I just downloaded this mod, and for some reason, after installing it, elevators in-game are often more broken than not. You can’t progress further in some instances(although all requirements for elevator to work are done), yellow unaccesible floor panels in elevator are absent, and weirdest of all - you can return to Security from Bridge(even cutscene repeats itself lol).
Retro art style goes in hand with retro level design. Enabling texture filtering, turns stylish looking game into blurry mess. Each to their own, but this is heresy.
No one asked for your opinion. And it's wrong anyways. They didn't make games blocky because they thought it looked good they made them blocky because they had no other choice. There is nothing retro about high polygon environments and models and modern lighting but somehow you people never complain about those things. The textures in this game are objectively garbage. And filtering them makes them look slightly higher rez. Facts
Some of the best looking classic games in history like no one lives forever, avp2, quake 3, unreal tournament, daikatana, deus ex... Did not have blocky textures. They probably literally used it simply as a way to expedite release and save mine money and you have some weird due hard fan boys that think the company can do no wrong and try to prevent other people from criticizing the game... Weird stuff
you are pretty wrong on that and going full stupid. Plus always better to have a game and a working game then have a small group wasting a disgusting amount of time on crap like textures when ones they made work extremely fine and are part of the theme
It's literally not the theme. Everything else visually is modernized. The lighting, high polygon models and world, effects.. it's lazy, arbitrary, ugly, inconsistent
I'm always down for high fidelity, but it's obvious that the developers took on a cool philosophy to how this retro game should look. The blend of lo-fi and hi-fi is goddamn delicious and some just don't have the tastebuds for it. This is absolutely heresy.
Agree with the OP. Changing the texture filtering = no taste.
But these are the same kind of people that run SNES games on emulators with "HQ2x" filtering and s#*!, that makes everything smooth ugly blobs. They have no taste. Any time they see a square in a video game, they riot. They never would've been able to handle the original game so I'm not sure why they're so uptight about playing this remake to begin with, but who knows.
If you don't like it, that's perfectly understandable. Even though I personally love high poly + low res materials, and I think this game's art direction is phenomenal, I can also see how it might come across as disjointed. Regardless, calling it lazy is just factually incorrect. It's just an artistic decision that you personally disagree with.
They're using UE4 & probably created all of the materials by hand in substance painter. It would've taken exactly as much time & work (possibly even less) to use hi-res textures & trilinear filtering. I honestly cannot picture a mode of reasoning in which making this particular distinct stylistic choice could be considered "lazy".
The hilarious thing about you repeatedly using the "SNES with HQ2x filtering" as an insult is that ORIGINALLY those games weren't razor-sharp, super-blocky pixels. They were designed around the limitations of CRTs and took advantage of it to soften and blur them giving the impression of greater fidelity and depth. Running emulated games without filtering is literally NOT what they were intended to look like. While you're crowing about how wrong it is for people to change the texture appearance from what Night Dive intended. That's hilarious irony. You absolutely were not alive when those games were modern so you wouldn't know that.
I played the original SS and SS2 back in the day and the other people are right. The pixelated look was not a stylistic choice, it was a necessity. Doom, Wolf3D, etc. were all designed with the limits of hardware at the time. We didn't have hardware that could do better. And the mix of high-poly models and high-quality lighting, volumetric fog, etc. with incredibly low-res textures is a terrible, visually disjointed combo. Night Dive originally said the retro style would be a mode you'd unlock. Yet it was released at the default (and only) mode. Which was almost certainly due to them wanting to rush it out faster as it would mean not having to do two sets of textures.
tl;dr: Stop trying to use hilariously ironic insults against people who just want a mod to make the game less disjointed-looking.
This is a godsend. I'll be playing with this once we get a proper texture overhaul mod. The devs were seriously TONE DEAF for deciding to mix high poly models with pixelated textures, in what is supposed to be a MODERN remake. People keep defending this as a "design decision" but to me it's just laziness on their part. It looks disjointed and I hate the way it looks. Which is a shame because in every other aspect, this game is awesome.
The only thing "tone deaf" here is zoomers like you that throw a s#*! fit every time a game makes stylistic choices like this, because you have the video game equivalent of "picky eater" syndrome.
Why are you even trying to play this game? The original would've filtered people like you at the f*#@ing main menu. "Oooo no this game uses nearest neighbor filtering, well I hope someday it's playable" is the take of someone with trash opinions, who probably runs SNES games at HQ2x as well.
Keep your ugly smooth blobs, plenty of us are enjoying the game as it was intended.
@Justwanttodownload11 If you enjoy it so much 'as intended' then wtf are you even doing here on nexus? When ppl dislike something about a game they mod it. A lot of ppl disliked the visuals. Myself included. And I am a big fan of the original but I absolutely hate the pixelated look. It's not even retro it's hipster bs. Because way back CRT monitors would smoothen-out your picture anyway. But that's not my biggest gripe with the remake. The blueish neon-like lighting is.
Why are you even trying to play this game? The original would've filtered people like you at the f*#@ing main menu.
I've literally played through the original multiple times when you probably weren't even born yet. No I don't mind visible pixels at all and I love old games and even retro throwback games. Except this is not a retro throwback or "boomer shooter" type of game. It's meant to be a modern remake. It's supposed to bring System Shock into the 21st century so I expect modern graphics. But what this game does is a strange mix of unfiltered low resolution textures, high poly models and modern rendering techniques that just doesn't work together.
There's just something beautifully ironic about coming to a mod website to throw a hissy fit at people modding their single player experience. Not even anything other than the visuals too. It's kind of profound, in a way.
Has the human race hit peak stupid yet? Who knows, but there's some comfort in knowing that as bad as I've been in life, I've never quite been this dumb.
This, this game is a waste of cash and never will be anything less until this horrific wrecking of the game is restored to the Alpha version, which ACTUALLY HAD NORMAL textures..
Although at this point I'm tempted to just buy the game once it's on sale and look past the lazy texture work. It's just kind of disappointing. This game could have looked SO much better with proper textures, yet the devs chose the lazy way out. And it kept me from buying the game to this day.
The devs probably justified their decision to keep the textures because it would hurt the feelings of the person that did them. The thing is, the product is ALWAYS more important than protecting someone's feelings. A developer should always do what's best for the product.
101 comments
My taste is even less for fake retro in an immersive game.
They just intentionally put in extra work to make the textures lower resolution.
The game is still hideous, but at least it's no longer making me nauseous so I don't have to refund, praise be
Even if the style doesn't fully sit with someone... 'hideous'? 'refund'? Discount bin?
Seriously? I can't help but feel some people just die-hard try to be edgy.
Then again the internet is filled with insecure kids spitting out 'project reality' reshades dime a dozen that crank up sharpness and contrast filter to 11 and claim to have fixed this or another horribly hideously-looking game.
Personally I'd be hard pressed to imagine how they could have nailed the aesthetic any better - it's a very well considered art direction and colour palette that both pays faithful homage to the original game and works effortlessly all on its own. The only thing I find a little underwhelming and standing out is the sun model outside the window.
Either way, this mod is obviously not for you, so please, stop bothering people, who are legitimately interested in this mod, for not sharing your opinion.
What I'm critical of are the comments of the sort mentioning refunds and discount bins because of how apparently hideous the game is.
There are opinions and preferences, sure. But the gaming community seems to be positively overflowing with extreme opinions that seem so blown out of proportion it just makes me sad about the state of the industry. You don't like the pixel filtering? No problem. But going out of your way to saying how unbearably hideous the game is (it's nowhere near deserving of the term) and suggesting refunds and discounts is just seriously absurd.
This game could have looked glorious with proper high-res textures and nobody would have complained that there's a lack of visible pixels. The textures that we got are just the artist's way of choosing the lazy way out.
Glad people can mod whatever they want, more power to you; but the people throwing an absolute s#*!-fit over it in these comments, as though nearest-neighbor filtering somehow ruined the entire game for them, are just being massive babies. I actually played the original game in the 90s, and I'm trying to even imagine someone from back then being like "oh some game has a stylistic art choice, I literally can't play it". It would be an unrelatable concept because our standards weren't "my way or the highway" when it came to every little f*#@ing setting in the entire game.
So it must be a picky zoomer thing, and hopefully you'll grow out of it.
Played | Still Play the OG SS1 from back in the day.
I've read constantly : from the DEV's mouths themselves; they wanted to keep as Close as much as the OG SS1 Game from back in the day in everything. soo Art Designs as well too.i truly don't see why its a Problem.
- lastly i'll say this...... Mod's exists for These Reasons:
1) Just Because for FUN, FUN, FUN, FUN - wonder WHAT happened to just having FUN these days ?
2) a games OVER-SIGHT | UNDER-SIGHT - truly depends on the GAME. some games the Dev's miss(ing)ed_some detail(s). while other games_Dev's didn't give ENOUGH attention to detail(s). a MOD can either fix-adjust-add-negative-help-support-eliminate the situation(s) | item(s) | issue(s) | problem(s)...
3) a Mod can give the Ability to "Alter-The Game" in a way that you never knew existed before.....soo similar to NO.2. but it can give you a Different Perspective on the GAME itself !
my take: I'm just glad; there is a SS Up Dated in our timeline to play-run on Modern Systems. NOW how gud it is or playable is an ENTIRELY Different Topic of Discussion ALL Together.......Lol !
I think in the case of this game you would need to add:
4) some people don't like the valid stylistic choice of the developers.
For me...
1) i loved System Shock when it was released. I was ~23 at the time and it was GROUND BREAKING. Definitely one of those games that defined a genre of interactive FPS + RPG elements games which Deus Ex and System Shock 2 and Thief then perfected.
2) I also, obviously, backed the remake on Kickstarter and was one of the backers that was 100% on board with the reboot in direction mid-development with the walk back to the modern-retro vibe with the "pixelized" aesthetic and sticking as close as possible to the design and gameplay of the original. I can also see why some would rather have 4K high detail "photorealistic" textures, especially if you didn't play the original back in 1994. For that, sure, someone could just use AI upscaling/sampling to try to create a pack for those folks. Sure why not.
What I do think is headache inducing, which is just a sign of the times unfortunately, the vitriol and hyperbole some people use to tear down the original vision as if it's some affront to gaming. If you don't trust us Gen Xers and Boomers that played it on release.. maybe trust the biggest graphics afficionados and critics folks around.. Digital Foundry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjQVf1vxQu0
However, there's still an occasional texture sticking out. Most notably, the texture on the metal pipe (your first screenshot), the berserk patch, the corpse right at the beginning.
How did they manage to get that effect, anyway? It's like an unholy combination of nearest neighbor and linear filtering - pixelated and blurry at the same time.
In 1994, we had pixels because we didn't have a choice. Now it's like dirt on the camera lens - it only serves to remind me that it's fake, which takes me right out of the space station and puts me back at my desk.
I added a couple before/after screens to the images tab.
Some of the best looking classic games in history like no one lives forever, avp2, quake 3, unreal tournament, daikatana, deus ex... Did not have blocky textures. They probably literally used it simply as a way to expedite release and save mine money and you have some weird due hard fan boys that think the company can do no wrong and try to prevent other people from criticizing the game... Weird stuff
But these are the same kind of people that run SNES games on emulators with "HQ2x" filtering and s#*!, that makes everything smooth ugly blobs. They have no taste. Any time they see a square in a video game, they riot. They never would've been able to handle the original game so I'm not sure why they're so uptight about playing this remake to begin with, but who knows.
They're using UE4 & probably created all of the materials by hand in substance painter. It would've taken exactly as much time & work (possibly even less) to use hi-res textures & trilinear filtering. I honestly cannot picture a mode of reasoning in which making this particular distinct stylistic choice could be considered "lazy".
The hilarious thing about you repeatedly using the "SNES with HQ2x filtering" as an insult is that ORIGINALLY those games weren't razor-sharp, super-blocky pixels. They were designed around the limitations of CRTs and took advantage of it to soften and blur them giving the impression of greater fidelity and depth. Running emulated games without filtering is literally NOT what they were intended to look like. While you're crowing about how wrong it is for people to change the texture appearance from what Night Dive intended. That's hilarious irony. You absolutely were not alive when those games were modern so you wouldn't know that.
I played the original SS and SS2 back in the day and the other people are right. The pixelated look was not a stylistic choice, it was a necessity. Doom, Wolf3D, etc. were all designed with the limits of hardware at the time. We didn't have hardware that could do better. And the mix of high-poly models and high-quality lighting, volumetric fog, etc. with incredibly low-res textures is a terrible, visually disjointed combo. Night Dive originally said the retro style would be a mode you'd unlock. Yet it was released at the default (and only) mode. Which was almost certainly due to them wanting to rush it out faster as it would mean not having to do two sets of textures.
tl;dr: Stop trying to use hilariously ironic insults against people who just want a mod to make the game less disjointed-looking.
Why are you even trying to play this game? The original would've filtered people like you at the f*#@ing main menu. "Oooo no this game uses nearest neighbor filtering, well I hope someday it's playable" is the take of someone with trash opinions, who probably runs SNES games at HQ2x as well.
Keep your ugly smooth blobs, plenty of us are enjoying the game as it was intended.
Has the human race hit peak stupid yet? Who knows, but there's some comfort in knowing that as bad as I've been in life, I've never quite been this dumb.
Although at this point I'm tempted to just buy the game once it's on sale and look past the lazy texture work. It's just kind of disappointing. This game could have looked SO much better with proper textures, yet the devs chose the lazy way out. And it kept me from buying the game to this day.
The devs probably justified their decision to keep the textures because it would hurt the feelings of the person that did them. The thing is, the product is ALWAYS more important than protecting someone's feelings. A developer should always do what's best for the product.