PS5: 10 Ways It Will Change Gaming Forever

10. Ray Tracing On Home Consoles

Raytracing might be a bit of a meme at this point, with the internet posting about raytracing curing cancer and helping estranged couples fall in love, but to underestimate the effect it can have on a game’s atmosphere is folly.

Simply put: Raytracing is a rendering technique which traces rays - or paths - of light as pixels in an image plane. By tracing the path of the light and what that light interacts with, you can simulate far more realistic lighting more akin to what you might find outdoors.

Until now we’ve used a lot of approximations (as well as straight-up trickery) to give the illusion of realistic lighting - everything from volumetric lighting (or, “god rays”) to hand-placing spotlights in a scene to appear like a real-world setting.

Raytracing is important for a number of reasons - not least that it allows for a brand new level of believability in intricately-lit areas, taking care of reflections and ambient lighting, whether your game is in a realistic style or otherwise.

Not to be confused with going onto Yodel and Rotten Tomatoes to challenge others to rapidly writing scathing reviews - that’s “Rate Racing”.

I’ll... I’ll see myself out.