Recent foreign players released a test video of Dead by Daylight with DLSS 5 applied. From the overall visuals, enabling it does bring different lighting and detail improvements. However, what players first noticed wasn’t how realistic the graphics became, but rather the characters’ faces seemed to have changed significantly, with people joking they “look much older.”
It Was Already a Horror Game, But the Survivors Aged First
DLSS 5 uses AI neural rendering to enhance game graphics, making lighting, textures, and character details look more realistic. But in Dead by Daylight, the character face changes became the discussion focus. Players think some characters’ skin and facial details became more pronounced after enabling DLSS 5, giving even originally young characters a “weathered” look. The horror game hasn’t even started, but the survivors’ age crisis has arrived first.
More Realistic Always Better?
DLSS 5 has sparked similar controversies in different games recently, because AI enhancement focuses not just on resolution upscaling but may reprocess lighting, textures, and character details. The question becomes whether “more realistic” always means “better looking.” If AI processes character facial details too heavily, even changing the original art style, players might see not an upgrade but a different face. This is one of DLSS 5’s most controversial aspects.
Characters Can’t Escape AI Skin Smoothing
This test used Intel Core i7-14700K, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB, 32GB DDR5, tested on 4K 144Hz. But no matter how powerful the hardware, if DLSS 5 makes players only ask “did she suddenly age,” then the graphical improvements might need to take a back seat. Dead by Daylight relies on its characters and horror atmosphere. If AI redefines character ages too, whether this is an upgrade or a failed facelift remains to be seen.