Many gamers don’t know that much about the systems they use to play their games, especially if they have no interest in gaming at high resolutions. However, sometimes messing around with your hardware can yield interesting results. The above cut scene from Rise of the Tomb Raider is played through in 5K. Notice the wetness effect on the characters?
Several Redditors have theorized why the wetness only seems to appear in 5K. The most upvoted comment in the thread, from /u/Sloshy42, suggests that perhaps this effect was only meant to be included for promotional preview footage which is normally rendered at high resolutions. Since most players aren’t playing at 5K, the developers may have left it in unintentionally or because they thought few people would notice. Another user, /u/withoutapaddle, agrees with this theory because of the way that the video’s framerate fluctuates (from 18 to 90 FPS) — the fluctuation could be because the effect was not meant to be used at such a high rate and in motion.
Another player, /u/p90nub, offers a more forward-thinking approach. “I wonder if the Devs took time to add a bit of future compatibility,” they write. Perhaps the developers knew that higher resolutions would be more common in the future and wanted to give the game more longevity and prevent it from looking aged in just a few years, as so many games tend to.
Rise of the Tomb Raider was released for PC, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on November 10 and for PC on January 28. The game will also drop for PS4 on December 30.
