Minecraft with ray tracing looks so good I actually want to play it

Despite its immense popularity, I’ve never really cared for Minecraft – mostly because I’m not keen on crafting games, but also because I’m not into the low-fidelity art style that’s all large pixels and flat colors. But now that Microsoft is teaming up with Nvidia to harness ray tracing tech and vastly improve the look of the game on Windows, I might just give it a go.

If you’ve got an Nvidia 2060, 2070, or 2080 card (Super and Ti variants included) in your PC, or even an RTX-enabled GPU in your laptop, you’ll soon be able to enjoy a more realistic looking Minecraft, complete with dynamic lighting and shadows rendered in real-time. You can also expect specular highlights, reflections, and additional depth and detail across the board. Hit play on the video above to get a taste.

It’s welcome news, especially for fans of the game who were bummed to hear last week that Minecraft’s Super Duper Graphics Pack – which was announced at E3 back in 2017 and promised a major upgrade to how the game looks – was canceled owing to technical challenges.

The new ray tracing treatment will become available in a future update; Microsoft hasn’t announced a release date for it.