Resident Evil Requiem screenshots with path tracing are being mistaken for real photos

Resident Evil Requiem has sparked plenty of discussion beyond just its gameplay and story – the game's visuals at max settings with path tracing have left both press and players genuinely stunned. Social media is filling up with 4K (and higher) screenshots that some people are genuinely mistaking for real-world photos.

One content creator wrote:

"What you're seeing is NOT real images. It's a video game, Resident Evil Requiem. This is how the game looks in 4K at max settings with path tracing – photorealistic environments."

Another shared personal screenshots at 5120x1440 with path tracing running on an RTX 5090, calling it "one of the best-looking games of the entire generation."

A technical analysis by DSOGaming notes that with path tracing enabled, the game occasionally reaches cinematic quality – some frames are genuinely difficult to distinguish from real photography.

Other outlets reviewing performance have called Resident Evil Requiem the best-looking game of 2026, suggesting it will be very hard to top.

A reviewer at Tom's Guide admitted to being skeptical about path tracing before playing Resident Evil Requiem, but said the game completely changed his mind. Paired with NVIDIA DLSS 4, the level of immersion reportedly reaches something he hadn't experienced before.

Other reviewers pointed out that path tracing is especially striking in the opening street scenes – wet concrete, puddle reflections, headlight beams, and glare off pedestrian umbrellas combine into an unsettlingly convincing image that works perfectly for the horror atmosphere. The more realistic the world looks, the harder the impact when it starts to fall apart.

Resident Evil Requiem runs on Capcom's RE Engine and supports path tracing, standard ray tracing, NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, and AMD FSR 3.1.5. Path tracing is exclusive to NVIDIA GPUs – enabling it automatically activates DLSS and Ray Reconstruction.

The visual fidelity comes at a cost. Without ray tracing, an RTX 5090 delivers a minimum of 120fps at native 4K on max settings. Standard ray tracing drops that to around 60fps, and enabling path tracing with DLAA brings it down to 24–27fps.

Reactions online are split. Many are impressed by the photorealism, while others point out that this level of graphics is only accessible to people with top-end PCs – and that's a very small group.

"Very pretty, but you need a $5,000 PC to get 30 frames."

Some call path tracing and ray tracing "the biggest smoke-and-mirrors sale in gaming and hardware history," while others say that once you've seen it, playing without it feels impossible.

Resident Evil Requiem is available from February 27 on PC and consoles.