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God of War Ragnarok will be released later this year on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and might incorporate ray-tracing on the latter. With Atreus coping with the knowledge of his actual identity and Kratos attempting to defend both of them from Freya and Thor's combined fury, this sequel will bring the Norse tale to a close.
The much-anticipated follow-up to Kratos’ Nordic Saga, was revealed back in 2020, during the PlayStation 5 showcase. However, while the majority of the fans were excited to see Kratos and Atreus returning in all their glory, a part of the fanbase complained about the lack of a drastic graphical leap.
God of War Ragnarok could boast ray tracing on PS5
When God of War launched back in 2018, it was not only a visual masterpiece but a far cry from the origin of the franchise. Considering God of War Ragnarok was originally unveiled for the brand new PlayStation 5, the concern regarding the game's visual fidelity being similar to its predecessor isn't unconscionable.
However, from a development standpoint, the developers at Santa Monica Studios essentially designed God of War Ragnarok as a continuation of its predecessor. As such, the decision to build upon the same engine and assets, while refining them, is understandable.
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What about ray tracing?
Ray tracing is a different way to calculate reflections and shadows, where the game engine calculates the path of each light ray instead of the standard Screen Space Reflection (SSR) common in most titles.
While this technology has been utilized in different sectors such as animation, it has recently started to make its way into gaming technology, ushered by Nvidia’s RTX series GPUs. With the new generation of consoles having dedicated ray tracing cores in their APU, it has become a staple of the new era of gaming.
God of War Ragnarok could incorporate ray tracing
While God of War Ragnarok is a next-generation title, it is also coming out for the PlayStation 4. Although the game is being presented as a follow-up to 2018’s God of War, unlike its predecessor, it might have ray tracing on the PlayStation 5 version.
As exemplified by previous PlayStation titles such as Spider-Man Remastered and Spider-Man Miles Morales, as well as the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West, ray tracing is an option on PlayStation 5 but an impossibility on its predecessor.
A similar conclusion could arise with God of War Ragnarok. With that being said, it should be mentioned that both PlayStation and Santa Monica studios are yet to confirm or deny it at the time of writing.
