Despite Nvidia's years of effort and the release of the GeForce RTX series graphics cards, hardware ray tracing has yet to become a standard in the gaming industry. Even in high-budget blockbusters, the technology is rarely encountered, giving way to global illumination, notably Lumen from Unreal Engine 5.
Edition PC Gamer noted that out of the 21 most popular games of 2025, only five projects utilize hardware-accelerated lighting to enhance graphics. The absence of this resource-intensive technology in visually simple competitive hits, such as Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant, seems logical. However, the technology has also been absent from several graphically complex titles like Stellar Blade or Nioh 3, as pointed out by TechSpot.
Some famous series have even taken a step back. For example, Battlefield V was one of the first to support ray tracing, but the large-scale multiplayer shooter Battlefield 6, released seven years later, abandoned the technology. FromSoftware, which added ray tracing in the original Elden Ring, did not include it in Elden Ring: Nightreign. The Call of Duty franchise removed ray tracing after Black Ops Cold War in 2020, but later brought reflections back to multiplayer in Black Ops 7 and even added the more resource-intensive path tracing in Warzone 2.0 and Modern Warfare III lobbies.
Developers are increasingly implementing ray tracing in static locations with character customization, where real-time lighting recalculation is not required. Ubisoft made ray tracing mandatory only for the hideout in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, while FromSoftware restricted it to the garage in Armored Core VI. Meanwhile, the software global illumination Lumen, which is part of Unreal Engine 5, has become the standard for most AAA projects, although its implementation places the load on the CPU and yields less impressive results. An exception is Fortnite, which Epic Games uses as a showcase for the engine's capabilities.
The reluctance of studios regarding hardware ray tracing is quite understandable. Many still believe that the performance costs do not justify the visual enhancements, especially considering that outside the mid-range and high-end segments, Nvidia's competitors are not betting on this technology. Meanwhile, AMD's products only reached parity with the launch of the RDNA 4 architecture, which is currently focused on a limited segment of discrete graphics cards (primarily the Radeon RX 9000 series).
At the same time, some positive shifts have been noted. Epic Games states that new builds of Unreal Engine 5 aim to achieve a stable 60 frames per second with hardware ray tracing on a standard PlayStation 5. Two recent projects using the idTech engine, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages, have been able to achieve similar metrics, additionally offering ray tracing on PC. Upcoming titles like Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata from Capcom are also expected to replicate this success.
Looking ahead over the next few years, the RDNA 5 architecture in new consoles, PCs, and portable devices could set a new standard; however, the availability of these devices remains in question due to pricing and the ongoing memory shortage.
Source:
Source: 3dnews.ru
