Minecraft is getting ray tracing, but this time it’s official

It’s Gamescom time, and Mojang and Nvidia have teamed up for the first surprising update to come out of the event in Cologne: Minecraft is getting a ray tracing as part of a visual upgrade exclusive for Nvidia RTX owners. 

The patch, which will work for the game’s Windows 10 version, is somewhat controversial as it has come just seven days after the cancellation of the Super Duper graphics patch, which was planned to be free for all Xbox and Windows players. The Super Duper patch had been beset by delays over the last two years. 

Related: Gamescom 2019

This RTX update is looking pretty impressive, using the dedicated ray tracing core packed into all RTX model cards to amp up Minecraft’s chunky aesthetic and make it something special.

But why listen to me go on about it? Take a look at this teaser video. 

Water looks remarkable, but the biggest thing is the way that lighting will work with your own custom structures. The way light filters through windows is incredible. 

Related: What is ray tracing?

There’s no information on when we’ll see the patch release beyond the fact that it will launch in 2020. It’s also not clear if this will cost users any cash or whether it will be a free upgrade. It seems like a significant improvement, so it’s hard to feel too hard done by if it costs money but, of course, that’s going to sting when you consider the fact that the Super Duper patch was supposed to be for free for everyone. 

This update comes at around the same time that Minecraft is moving from its original Bedrock addition to a new rendering engine called Render Dragon. It seems after years of relying on fan-made modifications to pretty-up the aging builder, there are big changes coming to the game.