With its latest patch, Diablo 4 finally welcomed support for an expected feature which was supposed to greatly enhance the game. The reality is unfortunately obviously quite different.
The PC version of Diablo 4 is clearly the one that should supposedly benefit the most from Ray Tracing. This feature has also been deployed on PS5 and Xbox Series. But on PC as on consoles, the result is apparently not so good to see… especially in terms of the FPS counter.
Diablo 4 burned by the rays of Heaven
Diablo 4 is unfortunately struggling to retain its audience after a very successful launch. The addition of Ray Tracing was a way like any other to at least bring back fans of beautiful graphics. Unfortunately, this wishful thinking was clearly not up to the task. Several comparative videos have emerged to examine the game with and without this feature.
Considering a view from above where we see little of the scenery in detail, the visual gain on shadows and reflections is practically imperceptible. If we add to this a nervous gameplay where we don’t really have time to dwell on the reflections in a puddle, the usefulness of Ray Tracing appears quite relative. Worse still, the framerate seems to take a big hit. Even on hellish monsters like the RTX 4080 and 4090, the FPS loss is considerable.
An already unloved feature on a game lacking love
On PC, enabling Ray Tracing is therefore more of a curse than a blessing. The result is unfortunately not much better on consoles. In addition to Ray Tracing, these versions received other visual improvements such as higher ambient occlusion or improved contact shadows. But this inevitably involves running the game at a maximum of 30 FPS… when everything is going well. In a hack’n slash, however, fluidity is key compared to graphic performance. There is no doubt that Ray Tracing will certainly be ignored by a large majority of players, all platforms combined.
So unfortunately this is a setback for Blizzard (and to a lesser extent NVIDIA). Let’s hope, however, that Season 4 and its major changes will be more successful. Diablo 4 would really need it, while waiting for its first expansion to come this summer.