Solo modder fixes Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's long-standing lighting issues after two years

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A solo modder has taken matters into their own hands and put out a new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth mod aiming to tackle the game's long-standing lighting issues – and the results are incredible, judging by side-by-side comparisons.

Modder David 'dddd5' Matos put out the Shader Injector mod for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth late last month (and recently updated it with a couple fixes). Since then, it's only gained more and more traction with fans.

"Framework allowing injection of modified shaders into the rendering API," the modder explains on NexusMods. "Comes with modified game shaders that improve lighting/shadow quality of the game significantly."

The tech experts at Digital Foundry also gave the mod a look and concluded the game's wonky lighting is much better across the board. Some areas, such as the glowing Gold Saucer, are "totally transformed with much better correspondence between the scene and its reflection," according to the outlet. Several comparison shots show dramatic differences between the modded and unmodded versions of the game, too.

For context, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a mostly handsome game that's still plagued with a few odd lighting issues. Many light sources don't cast shadows at all, in-game foliage often lacks shadows, some shadows are really low quality, and lighting on character faces generally looks pretty weird in outside environments.

Default Shader and Shader Injector 2.1.0 Comparison from r/FFVIIRemake

"The overexposure in this game was f****** unbearable," one player writes over on Reddit .

"It's so impressive how much better the lighting looks with this mod in most cases," another says . "Even the performance version which only costs a few frames."

The next instalment in the series, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation , comes out sometime next year. Here's hoping it launches in tip top shape.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says "open-world fatigue" is real, and since "the world is even bigger than it was in Rebirth," Square Enix specially focused on guiding players.