Resident Evil Village will have ray tracing, on AMD cards at least

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The scariness will be shinier.

Resident Evil Village Maiden demo
(Image credit: Capcom)

AMD announced its new RX 6700 XT GPU earlier today, which is exciting enough, but nestled among the festivities was news that Resident Evil Village will have ray tracing support on PC—though as you'd expect, it's only confirmed for AMD cards at the moment.

It may be bad news for RX 6700 XT early adopters though, because Resident Evil Village with ray tracing on needs an RX 6800 XT according to AMD's own recommended specifications (you'll only need a Ryzen 5 1600 CPU, though). Still it's exciting news, and the presentation even featured some short comparison clips. Check it out below (or in this video at 9:43).

The improvements are obvious: the soft chandelier and candle lighting is the most visible improvement, but the shiny polished wood is very fancy, too. As Control has demonstrated already, these effects really bring to life darker, grittier environments.

As for AMD's provided specs for those who don't fancy ray tracing, a Ryzen 5 1600 CPU and a Radeon RX 5700 are recommended. If you're not rocking AMD tech, there are no official system requirements on Steam just yet.

The Resident Evil Village release date is May 7, and a demo will precede that, meaning it may be possible to check out the ray tracing implementation without buying it.

Shaun Prescott
Shaun Prescott
Australian Editor

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.