[Update - November 20, 10:21 am] Kirby Air Riders using the RTXGI is not a guarantee the game features ray-traced global illumination on Nintendo Switch 2.
According to Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia, "RTXGI SDK allows the dev to bake out the probes if they want for an offline mode that does not use Real-Time RT." As such, a more in-depth look at the game is required to understand if Kirby Air Riders is indeed the first Nintendo Switch 2 first-party title to support ray tracing in some capacity.
Original story follows.
[Original Story] Powered by NVIDIA technology, Nintendo Switch 2 games can leverage RTX tech like NVIDIA DLSS and ray tracing to deliver better visuals and enhanced image quality at solid performance. Since launch, Nintendo's own titles had yet to take advantage of either, but it seems like the ray tracing floodgates have been opened by the publisher's latest first-party title, Kirby Air Riders.
As confirmed by a screenshot of the game's license readme found in the Nintendo Switch 2's menu shared on ResetERA, Kirby Air Riders reportedly uses the RTXGI SDK, meaning that the racing game uses ray-traced global illumination in some capacity, making it the first proper Nintendo first-party game to do so.
While it's not yet known how Kirby Air Riders implements ray-traced global illumination, this is a very interesting find in light of how the Nintendo Switch 2 handles the game. According to our own Nathan Birch, the game not only looks gorgeous, but runs at a smooth 60 FPS even when the tracks become utterly chaotic. As such, it will be interesting to see how this is achieved, and whether any upscaling technology, such as the aforementioned NVIDIA DLSS, is also utilized to deliver the excellent image quality and solid performance the game exhibits at launch.
Although Kirby Air Riders is reportedly the first proper Nintendo game to use ray tracing in some capacity, this isn't the first time we could be witnessing ray tracing on Nintendo Switch 2. Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world game developed by Ubisoft based on the popular franchise, also makes ample use of ray tracing. Future third-party releases, such as Resident Evil Requiem, will likely utilize ray tracing in some capacity as well, judging from currently available footage
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