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It's early days for real-time ray tracing, with only a handful of PlayStation 5 games currently using the technology. But you should pay attention, because it is literally the future of video game graphics—and it's only going to become more important and widespread as time goes on. But what is real-time ray tracing? Put simply, it's a rendering technique that makes light behave the way it does in real life. It accurately simulates shadows, light scattering, depth of field, motion blur, and—most exciting of all in the case of the upcoming Gran Turismo 7—reflections.
Gran Turismo 7 is heading to PS5 next year
Gran Turismo 7 was announced at last year’s PS5 reveal, before its March 4, 2022 launch date was revealed at this year's PlayStation Showcase. It's the latest in Polyphony Digital's long-running series of realistic racing sims, and once again helmed by studio president Kazunori Yamauchi. You can read 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:our interview with the man himself for more insight into the game itself, including how he wants to make it more approachable than ever before. This will be t🐈he first mainline entry in the Gran Turismo series since GT Sport, which launched on PlayStation 4 in 2017, so excitement le꧙vels are high.
I'm looking forward to getting behind the wheel of those lovingly rendered cars—especially with the DualSense controller. The rumble of the tarmac and the resistance of the adaptive triggers is going to feel amazing. But I'm equally excited about how shiny it's going to be. Gran Turismo's vehicles have always been impossibly glossy and polished, even going back to the original PlayStation. I remember being stunned back in '97 when I first saw those primitive, pixelated reflections. But the implementation of real-time ray tracing in Gran Turismo 7 is on a whole other level.
You can see the ray tracing in action in the game's wonderfully dramatic reveal trailer. There's a shot of a car transporter opening, revealing a Toyota Supra, and you can see a perfect reflection of it on the chrome above. Later, the camera spins around a Porsche 917 in a series of differently lit environments—a desert, a snowy mountain, a city at dusk—and the bodywork, mirrors, and windows accurately reflect the surroundings. We also see various cars in a race, their windows reflecting the course in real-time as they speed along it. Gran Turismo has never looked better, and I can't wait to see this thing running in real-time at 4K.
So is ray tracing the future of games?
I don't like to put too much stake into advances in graphics tech, because really it's how games play that matters, not how they look. But I'll make an exception for Gran Turismo 7, because this is a series as much about admiring cars as driving them. Gran Turismo is a passionate celebration of cars as incredible feats of engineering and design—and the addition of real-time ray tracing can only enhance that appreciation. A full list of cars has yet to be revealed, but there will be over 400 in the game at launch, as well as the return of classic tracks like Trial Mountain and High Speed Ring—all of which will look more realistic than ever.
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Real-time ray tracing is going to change how video games look forever, and I can't think of a more perfect game to illustrate just how impactful it will be than Gran Turismo 7. However, it won't really change how games play—so calling it the future of gaming as a whole, as some have, is probably a little overdramatic. Gran Turismo has always been at the forefront of graphics tech on PlayStation, so it's good to see Polyphony returning to give Sony's formidable PS5 hardware a vigorous workout. I'm also fairly confident that, beautiful visuals aside, it'll be a great driving simulator that takes full advantage of the DualSense to make screeching around those tracks feel extra weighty and tactile.
