Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was a somewhat divisive game (by which I mean, some people at Kotaku think it’s a total wonder and others get cross with them about that, and I watch on trying to pick a side), but most can agree that one of its big shortfalls was its bizarre and bland lighting. It looked like it was always lit by an invisible sun floating in the middle of every scene, resulting in this washed out, overly gray reality. But step forward a one-person modding team whose PC Shader Injector Mod makes an absolutely stunning difference, both the scenery and character appearance.
It’s perhaps odd to get quite so focused on lighting in a game of the size, scale and complexity of Rebirth, but it really is extraordinary how deleterious it proves to the aesthetic experience. Scenes are so poorly lit that characters are often hard to pick out from the scenery, and otherwise beautiful areas end up looking flattened and washed out. But fear no more, because mod developer David “dddd5” Matos’s Shader Injector does absolutely breathtaking stuff. You know how I know? Because a proper grown up told me. Here’s Digital Foundary‘s coverage:
The mod makes such a broad range of improvements, including completely reworking Rebirth‘s bizarre and lacking shadows, far better occluding light beneath objects and roofs, and creating far more realistic water, especially as it interacts with beaches. It also causes a dramatic improvement in character faces, removing their strangely 90s-looking angles and replacing them with far more rounded, natural-looking features. It’s very interesting to note how much better this looks than the deeply silly AI-driven DLSS 5 “upgrades.”
For me, a dimbo, the most immediately obvious change is the game just pops more. Where colors felt so grey and sad, they come far more to life with Shader Injector. Watching through the DF video, there are definitely scenes where the original still reads better to me, but they’re by far in the minority. If you want to get into the proper details of exactly what witchcraft is taking place here, then make sure to watch through the video above. However, if you just want Rebirth to look damn site better, you can grab the (free and open-source) mod from Nexus Mods right here.