Return to Castle Wolfenstein has been enriched with path tracing, what does it look like?

Path tracing in games can be described as an even better ray tracing, which we looked at two years ago in the game Quake RTX. It also uses path tracing, which is able to load even the fastest hardware with a finger in its nose, but of course it depends on how we set up the game. –

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Dihara Wijetunga, an experienced engineer at AMD, is now focusing on a newer title than the original Quake. However, Return to Caste Wolfenstein has been around for 21 years, so it cannot be considered a game that can compete with today’s titles in quality, and of course no path tracing will change anything. Unfortunately, the author has not yet offered more than just a few comparative screenshots, but has promised to provide more materials soon. This is mainly about the lighting of scenes, which stand out the most in motion, so we can wait for the video.

However, work on path tracing in RTCW (Wolf RT) is still at an early stage, so even the pictures may not show the state that the author wants to achieve. What is certain for now is that path tracing can significantly change the graphics in this game.

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There is also a lot of noise in dark scenes, which is removed either very difficult by counting multiple passes for one frame, or using an AI denoiser. The picture below tells us, above all, that in many cases the lights do not even function as a source of light, so the whole scene is strangely unnatural.

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We will wait for the playable version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein in this way.

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