Crysis Remastered: this is what ray tracing looks like on consoles

The release of Crysis Remastered draws closer and today we can reveal a technical feature of the console versions that we simply didn't believe possible just a few short months ago - the implementation of real-time ray-traced reflections. In a console game? Really? You can cut to the chase by checking out the embedded video below to see this technology in action on Xbox One X, but the fact is that via clever optimisations, the software-driven RT found in Crytek's Neon Noir demo has been optimised for Microsoft and Sony's enhanced consoles - and it looks very, very impressive.

This continues a trend of Crytek delivering cutting-edge visual features to hardware that just doesn't seem capable of running them. For Crysis Remastered on Switch, Crytek and partner developer Saber Interactive impressed us by dramatically relighting the game using actual real-time global illumination via SVOGI - sparse voxel octree global illumination. In effect, SVOGI allowed surfaces to approximate the way light bounces, a form of ray tracing in itself... running on Switch! Crytek's software ray traced reflections work as an extension of that technology, covering specular reflections around the player view.

It's computationally expensive, limited in certain respects, but very definitely makes a positive impact to the overall presentation. Metal surfaces and glass produce accurate reflections - even on objects that are not present in screen-space. A very subtle but impressive effect is delivered via RT reflections that are mapped onto the nanosuit itself, as seen in the game's various cutscenes. Limitations? For a start, the technology is so GPU-intensive that it's only implemented on the enhanced consoles - PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. The vanilla variants of each machine are not invited to the RT party. Secondly, should you select the ray tracing option (there are performance and resolution/quality modes too), resolution is busted down to a dynamic 1080p.

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