Diablo 4 is getting a ray tracing update for reflections and shadows in March

Blizzard's Diablo IV launched on PC with DLSS 3 Frame Generation support, boosting performance for all GeForce RTX 40 Series owners. At the time, both NVIDIA and Blizzard mentioned that ray-tracing was coming to the game at some point, and at CES 2024, we finally got confirmation that ray-tracing is headed to Diablo 4 this March.

Hot off the heels of a well-received Season of Blood that fixed many of the game's launch and end-game criticisms, 2024 for Diablo 4 will see the arrival of new seasons, an itemization and loot overhaul, new end-game ladder activities, and the first story-based expansion called Vessel of Hatred coming later in the year.

As for going RTX On, Diablo 4's real-time ray-tracing effects cover ray-traced reflections, ray-traced transparent reflections, and enhanced ray-traced shadows.

NVIDIA showcased the new RT effects at CES 2024, and in the trailer above, you can see the new ray-traced reflections and shadows in action with DLSS 3 Frame Generation enabled. With DLSS 3 and RT On, we can see 4K gameplay hit close to 150fps - which is impressive. This footage was probably captured with a GeForce RTX 4090 or the new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER; neither the video nor the announcement don't specify the GPU being used.

Either way, with ray-tracing, the visuals in Diablo 4 do improve. The effect is subtle at a glance, but as someone who played hundreds of hours of Diablo 4 in 2023, the improved shadow detail is immediately noticeable - adding more depth to the game's dark and gothic caves and dungeons.

All the NVIDIA news from CES 2024.

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• Read more: Twitch Enhanced Broadcasting allows for five concurrent streams with a single GeForce RTX GPU
• Read more: GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition unboxing
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• Read more: Generative AI by iStock is commercially safe image generation powered by NVIDIA Picasso
• Read more: Half-Life 2 RTX gets a new stunning trailer, RTX Remix Open Beta launches later this month
• Read more: Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition coming to PC 'Early 2024' with DLSS 3, DLAA, and Reflex