Ray tracing coming to Diablo 4 in March, shadows and reflections getting a makeover

Ray tracing is coming to Diablo 4 this March. Announced during Nvidia's CES 2024 Special Address, the update will offer ray-traced reflections and shadows to better show off the carnage you leave in your wake.

You can check out a brief teaser trailer for the ray tracing update in the clip embedded above. I'm just hoping it really captures all the gory and magical details in the game—Diablo 4 is a surprisingly good looking game for its dingy and dark atmosphere but it could look even better with more vivid lighting.

Promised in a post-launch update last year, some players have been waiting a while for ray tracing to be added to the game. Diablo 4 already supports DLSS 3, which might come in handy to offset the performance impact of ray tracing.

Nvidia gave a glimpse of the sort of performance we can expect from the update, though it didn't specify which card it was using for testing meaning the figures aren't as useful as they could be. With RT enabled, the frame rate is around 53fps. With RT and DLSS 3 enabled, it's over 144fps, and even as high as 188fps at times.

During the Special Address, Nvidia also announced DLSS 3 support coming to Horizon: Forbidden West once it arrives on PC "early this year" and Pax Dei, a magical medieval sandbox MMO built in Unreal Engine 5.

Nvidia also announced three new RTX 40-series Super graphics cards over at CES 2024. The RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4070 Super are faster or cheaper than the cards they replace. All three are launching this month, starting with the RTX 4070 Super on January 17.

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PC Gamer's CES 2024 coverage is being published in association with Asus Republic of Gamers.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.