Ray-Tracing Will Be A PC-Only Feature In Far Cry 6

Far Cry 6 is the upcoming sequel to the renowned Far Cry franchise from Ubisoft. It was revealed at Ubisoft Forward in July 2020 and has been a highly anticipated game. Far Cry 6 will be released for the previous-generation and current-generation consoles, and while both the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 do feature ray-tracing, some new information has now come forward which reveals that ray-tracing will be exclusive to PC only.

Earlier this week, Wccftech conducted an interview with Stephanie Brenham, the 3D Team Lead Programmer at Ubisoft working on Far Cry 6, to discuss the primary features of the game, particularly on the hardware side. When asked whether ray-tracing will be a feature on the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, she gave some intriguing insight that may astound consoles players.

“Ray tracing is a PC only feature. On console, our objective has been to take advantage of new hardware capabilities, optimizing performance targeting 4K and achieving 60 FPS, for instance, all while ensuring new game features, like our dynamic weather system, are supported on all platforms,” she said.

This comes as a surprise, considering that ray-tracing isn’t a new feature on current-generation consoles and a few companies have already implemented it for their games on the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. There hasn’t been any confirmation from Ubisoft as to why it has decided not to feature ray-tracing on current-generation consoles. However, Stephanie Brenham does mention that the company wants to focus more on performance than eye candy.

After this news was revealed, TechRadar contacted Ubisoft for a statement. “Ray Tracing is a PC-only feature. On console our objective has been to take advantage of new hardware capabilities, optimizing performance targeting 4K and achieving 60 FPS for instance, all while ensuring that the experience on the previous generation of console would remain consistent,” the statement reads.

In October 2020, LevelUp interviewed Gavin Moore, the Creative Director behind Demon’s Soul, in which he said, “It’s like any other graphic improvement, there is a cost [to implement raytracing]. If we had implemented ray tracing in the game, that would mean that we would have had to leave something out. There is a limited time in game development.” So, ray-tracing is certainly something that companies have to be cautious of when implementing it into their games since it can impact performance significantly, if not optimised well.

Furthermore, Stephanie Brenham also told Wccftech that AMD’s new feature, FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), will also be exclusive to PC only. However, Far Cry 6 on current-generation consoles will support 4K resolution at 60 FPS, so not all is wasted for console players. So far, only a few games have been optimised well to support ray-tracing on the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, so it certainly has its detriments. Far Cry 6 is finally close to release and we can’t wait to see what Ubisoft has come up with.

What do you think about this? Do tell us in the comments below!

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