Specular Reflection Quality was introduced with the first Rise of the Tomb Raider update. As the name suggests it affects the quality of specular reflections, which can be found on floors, walls and other surfaces and objects throughout the game. Note however that larger bodies of water, like those shown in our interactive comparisons in the Screen Space Reflections section, are not affected by the setting and run at max quality at all times.

Many applications of Specular Reflections are subtle within Rise of the Tomb Raider, naturally enhancing the quality of a scene through the addition of glimmer and other small details you ordinarily wouldn't pay attention to. On occasion though a larger puddle of water will be seen with enough surface area to clearly reflect details in the environment.

It is on these larger wet surfaces that the impact of the new setting is particularly evident. With Very High, reflected detail is significantly clearer, and in-motion flickers and shimmers far less, bolstering image quality. On High reflection quality is reduced, and aliasing introduced from the blending of the lower-resolution specular reflection with the full-resolution scene. Furthermore, foliage and other transparencies blended with the lower-resolution specular reflections can see their fidelity decreased as well, reducing clarity and detail by a fair degree. On Normal, the value used in previous versions of the game, reflection quality remains the same, though a bilateral up-sampling algorithm is applied only on areas detected as edges, decreasing image quality ever so slightly in areas where transparencies are being blended.

In the interactive comparisons below, note the clarity of the foliage reflection, the clarity of the foliage directly to Lara's right, the detail of leafy foliage, the addition of aliasing around the cobblestones, the higher degree of aliasing on foliage, and the addition of aliasing on the building's porch next to "Reload Checkpoint".