In a partnership with famed graphics card developer Nvidia, Wolfenstein: Youngblood is one of the games available for free when you purchase the latest line of ray-tracing enabled graphics cards, the Nvidia RTX series. However, while Nvidia has been using the upcoming title to show off the cool new graphics afforded by the ultra-powerful GPUs, it seems Wolfenstein: Youngblood won't have ray-tracing compatibility at launch.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood is only two days away from its planned launch date on July 26 but it's been officially announced that the game won't have ray-tracing until later. In an interview with Venture Beat, even Jerk Gustaffson, the game's executive producer, was unable to give a definite answer regarding the availability of ray-tracing. Apparently, Nvidia's engineers are still busy testing ray-tracing on Wolfenstein: Youngblood to make the option available at launch. When asked about ray-tracing in Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Gustaffson told Venture Beat:
We’re working together with Nvidia on that, but ray-tracing won’t be available at launch. The engineers at Nvidia are still hard at work getting that solution to look as good as possible for the game, and the date is still to be determined. But from what we’ve seen so far, it’ll be good.
Ray-tracing in video game graphics have become something sort of an enigma as of late. When ray-tracing was first introduced alongside the launch of Nvidia's current flagship RTX series graphics cards, many in the gaming industry commented that while ray-tracing may indeed be the future of graphics, it may be quite a while until we see its application in video games. However, Nvidia was quick to quell these concerns by forming several partnerships in the gaming industry, walking developers and publishers through the use of the new, cutting-edge graphics technology.
In any case, Wolfenstein: Youngblood is due to launch on July 26, but many fans are sure to eagerly await ray-tracing options in later updates. Wolfenstein: Youngblood will be available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, with inclusion on the upcoming Google Stadia service a possibility as well.
