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All current owners of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter on the PC will have a free surprise waiting for them today. An update bumps the game from Unreal Engine 3 up to Unreal Engine 4 and they're calling it The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux.You buy just one game, called The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and you get two. The original, and this new remaster, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux (UE4).
If you already own the original, the Redux version is a free update and will appear in your Library as The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux next to the original The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
Story-wise both games are identical. There are no extra quests or secrets in the Redux version. Note that “Redux” is sort of an unofficial tag, we do not even feature the word on the game’s art.
If you already own the original, the Redux version is a free update and will appear in your Library as The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux next to the original The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
Story-wise both games are identical. There are no extra quests or secrets in the Redux version. Note that “Redux” is sort of an unofficial tag, we do not even feature the word on the game’s art.
It's a bit like getting two games for the price of one, but both games are the same. So really, it's just like getting one game for the price of one. Yeah, that's the ticket. You can get it at either Steam (40% off sale) or GOG (50% off sale).
In case you missed it, read our full review for The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
1. A new save system. The UE3 version saved only entire solved areas. This was not the worst solution imaginable for this particular game but it was confusing. Now the game simply saves the state of the whole world right after most player actions, so you can exit the game at any time and when you come back the world will be restored as expected.
2. Invisible or barely visible streaming of new areas. You can run from one corner of Red Creek Valley to another nearly without a hitch. In the UE3 version, the streaming could freeze the game for a second or so, depending on the PC.
However, this comes at a cost. UE3 version is quite low-end PC friendly, and does not have demanding hardware requirements. UE4 version requires a 64-bit Windows and minimum 6 GB of RAM. If that’s not what your system has, we recommend playing the UE3 version. Again, story is exactly the same in both versions.
3. No more backtracking. Some PC players complained about the need for backtracking at the end of the game. It’s not always the case, but it’s hard to explain why without spoiling the game. Let’s just say that we believe the problem was fully eliminated in the Redux version.
4. Some PC players found a section of the game too scary and/or too exhausting. We have tweaked a few things to make sure that it flows better – without compromising the original vision.
Any graphical enhancements in the Redux version?
There were literally hundreds of smaller tweaks and updates to the visuals. It’s probably not something a lot of people will notice, but we could not help ourselves and made sure that the new version is as flawless as possible.
Also, we have extended the palette of options for the advanced PC players. Multi-monitor set ups or non-standard screen ratios should work nicely now. Internally we call Redux as “The Vanishing of Ethan Carter PCMR Edition”.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux features something called Resolution Scale. Most people will want to leave it at 100%. Those with minimum specs might want to lower it to e.g. 70%. Those with powerful hardware can go e.g. 200%: the game will render internally at twice the current resolution and nicely scale down the image to display it at the current resolution. Such technique produces an image of higher quality than most anti-aliasing solutions. Or, as our graphics programmer insists, “as an alternative to anti-aliasing, such technique produces the extra pixels to help reduce jagged edges.”
It also includes support for FXAA, T+FXAA, SMAA 1X, SMAA T2x, and TAA.
I wouldn't imagine most visuals will look any different because they're still using almost all of the same assets/textures from the UE3 version. It's still a great looking game though. It's kind of like Dota 2 Reborn. It's on a new engine but it still looks almost completely identical to Dota 2 non-Reborn because none of the assets are new.