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All Games With Ray Tracing: Available and Upcoming Titles for PC

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As of June 2022, the number of games with ray tracing support now stands at 84. The recent announcements also give hope for exciting development towards the end of the year and especially in 2023. Then, according to current plans, the first games based on Unreal Engine 5 will appear, which uses ray tracing by default. We have included the already confirmed ray tracing releases in the list of upcoming games, but we assume that this overview is by no means complete – we only list games whose RT support has already been confirmed officially or by credible sources.


Ray tracing, the virtual recreation of light rays, is here to stay. Ray tracing has long been the gold standard for high-end rendering, for example in animations and films, and the technology is also used in professional design to model as closely as possible to reality. In gaming, ray tracing has failed for years, since it was too taxing on system performance, and would significantly decrease frame rate.

That’s over now. With the introduction of DirectX 12 API, and its DirectX Raytracing (DXR) sub-system, a new graphics standard was set in motion three and a half years ago. NVIDIA was the first manufacturer of graphics hardware to bring ray tracing into the mainstream, and the GeForce RTX 20 graphics cards (Turing) featuring ray tracing processors have been available since autumn 2018. The successor generation GeForce RTX 30 (Ampere) is further developing the initially set basis and AMD has also jumped on ray tracing bandwagon in the end of 2020 with the Radeon 6000 series graphics cards.

The software landscape has made great accomplishments since the DXR was first introduced. Countless developers have already dealt with ray tracing or have already published games featuring ray tracing support. This resulted with complex calculations becoming more and more efficient, which benefits the production of future games. This topic also received additional attention from a hardware-based perspective, because the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles released at the end of 2020 are based on the same GPU architecture as the Radeon RX 6000 series. This means that developers are now developing and refining ray tracing techniques both on PC and consoles, which should ensure much better cross-platform synergy.

List of Games with Ray Tracing

Our curated list of ray tracing games shows which PC games can be beautified with ray tracing in the summer of 2022. Most of them are based on Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, because this graphics engine has long allowed developers to integrate the new effects with relatively little effort. The dominance of corresponding games is therefore hardly surprising. Ray-tracing reflections can be seen in most games, as this effect is one of the most striking from the graphics effects repertoire. Some also shoot beams to create accurate shadows. The potentially most complex effect is Raytracing Global Illumination, which is only used in a few select games.

wdt_IDGameStatusAPINotes
1Amid EvilReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
2Aron's AdventureReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT-AO
3ArcadegeddonReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
4Battlefield 5ReleasedDirectX 12Frostbite engine, RT reflections
5Battlefield 2042ReleasedDirectX 12Frostbite Engine, RT Ambient Occlusion
6Bright MemoryReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
7Bright Memory: InfiniteReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, full RT effects
8Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold WarReleasedDirectX 12IW Engine 8.x, RT shadows and AO
9Call of Duty: Modern WarfareReleasedDirectX 12IW Engine 8.x, RT Shadow
10ChernobyliteReleasedDirectX 12UE4, RT reflections since Enhanced Edition
11ChorusReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
12ControlReleasedDirectX 12Northlight engine, full RT effects
13Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia ViewReleasedDirectX 12UE4, RT reflections, shadows and AO
14Crysis RemasteredReleasedDX11 + VulkanDX11-Vulkan-Hybrid, Software-RT
15Crysis 2 RemasteredReleasedDX11 + VulkanDX11-Vulkan-Hybrid, Software-RT
16Crysis 3 RemasteredReleasedDX11 + VulkanDX11-Vulkan-Hybrid, Software-RT
17Cyberpunk 2077ReleasedDirectX 12RED Engine 4, full RT effects
18DeathloopReleasedDirectX 12Void-Engine (id-Tech-Basis)
19Deliver Us The MoonReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
20Dirt 5ReleasedDirectX 12RT shadow
21DoomReleasedVulkanVia Mod „PrBoom: Ray Traced” on Github
22Doom EternalReleasedVulkanid Tech 7, RT support integrated since version 6.0
23Dying Light 2ReleasedDirectX 12RT for GI, Shadows & Reflections
24EnlistedReleasedDirectX 12RT-GI implemented, but according to users incorrect
25Escape From NarakaReleasedDirectX 12UE4, Raytracing GI (more precisely: RTXGI)
26F1 2021ReleasedDirectX 12RT reflections and shadows
27Far Cry 6ReleasedDirectX 12Dunia 2 engine, RT reflections & shadows
28F.I.S.T. – Forged In Shadow TorchReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, full RT effects
29Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security BreachReleasedDirectX 12UE4, Raytraced Reflections & GI
30FortniteReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, full RT effects
31Forza Horizon 5ReleasedDirectX 12Forzatech engine, RT in Forzavista mode only
32GhostrunnerReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
33Ghostwire: TokyoReleasedDirectX 12UE4, RT reflections & shadows
34GodfallReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT Shadow
35Helios (VR-Toolkit/Sandbox)ReleasedDirectX 12Early Access, Unreal Engine 4, RT scope unknown
36Hellblade: Senua's SacrificeReleasedDirectX 12UE4, RT reflections and shadows
37Hitman 3ReleasedDirectX 12Raytracing update available since late May (v3.110).
38IcarusReleasedDirectX 12Raytracing GI (more precisely: RTXGI), in Early Access
39IndustryReleasedDirectX 12UE4, RT reflections, shadows and AO
40Lego Builder’s JourneyReleasedDirectX 12Unity HDRP Engine, RT-GI, AO, Shadows & Reflections
41Little Nightmares 2ReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
42Life Is Strange: True ColorsReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT Shadow
43Martha is DeadReleasedDirectX 12UE4, RT effect spectrum not explicitly mentioned
44Marvel’s Guardians of the GalaxyReleasedDirectX 12Dawn Engine, RT Reflections
45Mechwarrior 5ReleasedDirectX 12Unreal Engine 4, RT reflections
46Metro ExodusReleasedDirectX 124A Engine, RT Global Illumination
47Metro Exodus Enhanced EditionReleasedDirectX 124A Engine, RT GI, Shadows & Reflections
48Minecraft Windows 10 RTXReleasedDirectX 12Full path tracing
49Moonlight BladeReleasedDirectX 12RT Global Illumination & Ambient Occlusion
50Mortal ShellReleasedDirectX 12RT shadow

Of course, more games with ray tracing support will appear in 2022 and beyond. Some of these have already been announced, as the list below shows. We are constantly expecting more new additions or more specific information on release dates and ray tracing effects of upcoming games. Updates to the list will follow as official announcements of new games with ray tracing support are released.

DXR, short for DirectX Raytracing, is a Windows 10 exclusive graphics interface and a component of DirectX 12 API, which AMD defined and approved together with NVIDIA, Intel, Microsoft and other committee members. The DXR enabled development of other computer technologies, such as Raytracing, Vulkan, RTX and DLSS.

Raytracing, DXR, RTX, and DLSS

RTX is not only an abbreviation in the name of the current GeForce GPU series, but is also a brand of NVIDIA. The GeForce RTX 20 graphics cards have been able to hardware accelerate real-time ray tracing since autumn 2018. Due to NVIDIA’s pioneering position, many games featuring ray tracing support were advertised with “RTX ready”, which caused the RTX acronym to become synonymous with ray tracing. This type of marketing caused a lot of confusion, but what is actually meant is DXR support, or support for the Microsoft standard. If the latter is used – and this is the case with all raytracing-compatible DirectX 12 games – any DXR-capable graphics card is compatible. Thus, Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs can also be used for this type of rendering. The Arc series of Intel gaming graphics cards, which will be launched in 2022, will also be compatible.

In addition to the DXR component of DirectX 12, there is another programming interface (API) to implement ray tracing effects – Vulkan. The non-Windows interface is also being pushed by a consortium Khronos, but is not evolving at the same pace as DirectX. The Vulkan ray tracing was not fully defined when the GeForce RTX 20 cards were released. Nevertheless, NVIDIA and some game developers experimented with the API in order to provide added value for GeForce buyers. As with the Vulkan predecessor OpenGL, manufacturers can bring in their own function extensions and thus address their hardware. This means that GPU manufacturers are free to make their drivers compatible with Vulkan.

And then there’s also DLSS. Behind this is a high-end AI supersampling method created by NVIDIA. Although DLSS is neither tied to ray tracing nor a lower-level API, it is mostly used in the context of ray tracing. The reason is simple: DLSS is NVIDIA’s solution to reducing the enormous computing load involved in ray tracing calculations. AMD has recently introduced its own counterpart to the DLSS, known as the FSR, while Intel will release its own XeSS upscaling technology once it officially releases its Arc GPUs.

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Frank is the Editor-in-Chief at ViCadia. He is an avid PC gamer, as well as a tech enthusiast. Besides being a tireless writer, he is also ViCadia’s web developer.
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