When is Ray Tracing coming to Diablo 4?

Diablo 4 is already quite a graphically impressive open-world title, but it’s about to get a total makeover for those with an NVIDIA RTX graphics card. Ray tracing technology is coming soon to Sanctuary, as NVIDIA and Blizzard announced plans for its release at CES 2024.

Ray tracing is a graphical feature present in dozens of current games. When enabled, it adds realistic shadows and reflections and improves other graphics settings. Up to this point, Diablo 4 fans on PC or console have not been able to experience any form of ray tracing, but that’s about to change for users with a specific hardware configuration.

Diablo 4 Ray Tracing release date

NVIDIA has confirmed in an announcement that ray tracing will come to Diablo 4 in a new update on March 26.

Ray tracing in Diablo 4 was originally announced during the NVIDIA press conference at CES 2024 with a gameplay trailer showcasing what the feature can do. The trailer demonstrates how the real-time shadows and reflections affect the overall graphics in Diablo 4. There’s also a section where fans can see how NVIDIA DLSS 3 helps with FPS even with ray tracing enabled, which takes a chunk out of performance even with a high-end rig.

If you’re looking to take advantage of ray Tracing in Diablo 4 or any other supported game, you need to ensure you have a capable GPU. All NVIDIA RTX GPUs have support for ray tracing, so any cards from the 20, 30, or 40 series will do.

Of course, the older your card is, the less you will get out of it when it comes to ray tracing. The feature takes a massive toll on your PC’s performance, even with DLSS enabled. To take full advantage of ray tracing, you want to have at least a higher-tier 20 or 30-series card. The 40 series cards offer the best visuals and performance, but they come at a high price point.

Unfortunately for any console fans out there, ray tracing in Diablo 4 is only coming to PC. Unlike some recent titles, such as Spider-Man 2, ray tracing will not be an option you can enable on the current-generation consoles in Diablo 4.

If you’re curious about the upcoming season three update in Diablo 4, check out our recent guide that details its exact release date and possible content.