That image was taken before post-processing, e.g. screen-space ambient occlusion and bloom, both of which can visually glue things together. Especially the SSAO would likely add some smooth darkness around the person's feet.

It's not about post-processing, it's that most lights do not cast shadows. So yes, there can be a bit of "floating" in certain scenes.

Yes the blog post explains that this is how the game works. Some lights do make shadows, but they are expensive so artists may only place a few per sceen. There seem to be none which could make him cast any. Also note how his face is all red even though that red is way further behind in the periphery.

Seems strange that there is nothing instead. Even a round shadow blob beneath, like the games from ps2 used, would make the character look much more grounded in picture.

This is without SSAO.

Good point, didn't know that this frame was before any postprocessing.

SSAO doesn't help much in this case, I've added an image of the final frame at the beginning of the post.

It was mentioned that RTX is off so maybe that’s why.