EA has officially confirmed that Battlefield 6 will not include ray tracing, explaining that the decision was made to ensure stable performance for all players. Despite the vast array of options available to PC users, ray tracing wonโt be present at launch โ nor will it be added later. The confirmation came during an interview between ComicBook and Christian Buhl, Technical Director at Ripple Effect.
Goodbye to Ray Tracing
According to Buhl, the teamโs top priority has always been the gameโs performance, and there are no plans to introduce ray tracing in the future.
He explained that all development efforts were focused on optimisation, particularly for default settings and the majority of users. Since ray tracing is not a technology โsuited for everyoneโ, enabling it could severely impact performance on less powerful hardware.
For the developers, maintaining consistent frame rates and delivering smooth gameplay outweighed the benefits of more realistic reflections and shadows.
โNo, we will not have ray tracing at launch, and we donโt have any plans for the near future either. Thatโs because we wanted to focus on performance. We wanted to make sure all our efforts went into making the game as optimised as possible for the default settings and for the default users.
So, we decided relatively early not to implement ray tracing โ and again, we did this mainly so we could concentrate on performance for everyone else,โ Buhl explained.
Ensuring a Solid Experience
The recent open beta played a crucial role in gathering player data. However, it also highlighted how many users were only just managing to meet the minimum system requirements, with some even falling short of them.
Speaking to Eurogamer.net, Buhl elaborated:
โWe built the maps and had to go back to our artists and our technical team to make adjustments so they could guarantee the best possible performance. We worked hard on every front to make sure our performance goals were achieved, and whether youโre playing on minimum specs or on ultra, youโll get the experience we set out to create.โ