A new AI-powered upscaler promises to bring photorealistic graphics to Roblox, and it’s just as unsettling as Nvidia’s DLSS 5 tech.
Roblox has long been marred with controversy around child safety concerns, with a myriad of lawsuits popping up in the US over the past year, but it’s now getting negative attention for an entirely different reason.
The online game platform, known for user-generated titles like Brookhaven and Grow A Garden, unveiled a new AI-powered system this week called Roblox Reality, which looks set to add photorealistic graphics to the experience.
In a blog post about the tech, Roblox’s senior vice president of engineering, Anupam Singh, said: ‘Roblox Reality is a hybrid architecture combining our distributed Game Engine’s structured simulation with edge-based Video World Models for supersampling.’
‘This architecture will empower creators of all sizes to author and maintain interactive worlds that blend unprecedented visual fidelity and motion on top of traditional persistence and structure, without increasing development costs,’ they added.
As demonstrated in a trailer, Roblox Reality strips away the familiar, low tech aesthetic with creepier photorealistic visuals. The short clip is split into four separate screens, with the top left highlighting the current Roblox render, while the bottom right shows off their planned ‘vision’ for the upscaler, so none of it has been finalised yet.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
The tech itself only appears to impact the visuals, with the footage showing the same stilted animations for characters as they walk through the environment. In other words, it’s similar to Nvidia’s DLSS 5 technology, which has been criticised for using generative AI to alter a game’s visuals to the point where it scrubs away the original artistic intent.
It’s arguable how much artistic intent Roblox has in the first place, but based on the reception to Roblox CEO David Baszucki’s tweet about the news, it hasn’t gone down well with fans. ‘Roblox should stop pushing out-of-touch AI slop and focus on better tools that actually help developers learn, create, and innovate,’ one user wrote.
Another added: ‘If this is what Roblox turns into, I hope you know you will lose the ENTIRE player base – this looks absolutely horrendous.’
In Roblox’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday, Baszucki confirmed Roblox Reality will not be a free addition, because of its emphasis on cloud technology. ‘This will not be free,’ Baszucki said (via The Verge). ‘This will use cloud compute. We will have some kind of way of subscribing or paying for this.’
This might limit the appeal of Roblox Reality, as the platform’s free-to-play nature is one of the driving reasons behind its success. However, it remains to be seen if the novelty of photorealistic graphics, as creepy as they are, might be enough for some people to lay down the cash.
A promised ‘early version’ of Roblox Reality is set to rollout either later this year or early 2027.
Whether Roblox Reality is a success or not, the prominence of generative AI in the games industry is a concerning trend across the board – with companies like Microsoft seemingly looking to use the tech as a main selling point for its next generation console.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.