Kotaku asked developers' opinion about DLSS 5: "It's complete b******!"

The gaming world greeted DLSS 5 with a sharp backlash. Kotaku polled devs and many labeled the tech a "killer of artistic style."

The core gripe: NVIDIA's generative algos can autonomously "redraw" assets, effectively overriding painstaking work by artists (i.e., models, textures and lighting get reinterpreted by the net).

Kallen Dwyer of Doinksoft went further, calling DLSS 5 "disgusting" — she frames it as a corporate money play that erodes visual craft.

Indie creators such as Andy Santagata and David Shimanski argue the system strips projects of personality; according to them, the output ends up averaged toward the network's learned norms, so distinct aesthetics vanish.

Carla Ortiz (ex-Monolith) warns about characters losing nuance: years of sculpted body language and small tells become what she called "digital slop," with odd "glamour" tweaks and unintended skin brightening, e.g., tones shifted in ways that feel wrong.

Veterans around the industry are not in lockstep, but a common thread runs through their reactions — concern about tech displacing artisanal choices, and questions about where responsibility and authorship live once AI layers start rewriting outputs.