Today is the day that Diablo IV gets its ray tracing update, which was developed in collaboration with NVIDIA. Blizzard has released a detailed explanation of each improved effect, starting with shadows.
By default, with the rasterized method, shadows are way too hard and stark. When enabling ray tracing, they get much more sparse, soft, and realistic as they get further away from the object they were cast from, as you can see in the screenshot comparison below.
The other major ray traced effect added to Diablo IV is reflections. For instance, spell effects and even distant environmental objects that are off-screen are reflected in the example below.
Interestingly, despite having been developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, ray traced effects are also available on consoles, provided that Diablo IV players select the Enhanced Visuals mode.
There are some caveats, of course. This mode targets 30 FPS and also doesn't feature the full breadth of ray tracing available on PC. Here's what the in-game description says:
Enhances some shadowing and reflections with ray tracing. Improves quality of other effects such as fog, hair, and fog.
Blizzard didn't just add ray tracing and called it a day: more visual improvements have been introduced with the update. Ambient Occlusion, for example, has been enhanced on all platforms, although PC users with the Ultra Quality setting turned on will notice the largest improvement.
Lastly, Contact Shadows have been enhanced to include not only the player character (as was previously the case) but all player characters, NPCs, and even monsters.
In just two days, Diablo IV will also debut on Game Pass as decreed by Microsoft, which has now published a brief guide on how it's going to work. On PC, players will have to install Battle.net if they haven't already and connect the Game Pass and B.net accounts to play the game.
It also looks like the game won't support Xbox Play Anywhere, so players won't be able to seamlessly jump between Xbox and PC.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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