Diablo 4 Ray Tracing Update 1.3.5 Available Now for Download

It’s a big week for Diablo IV, as not only is it launching on Xbox Games Pass, but it’s also receiving one of its more interesting graphical updates, as Blizzard released title update 1.3.5 to the game. With this update, the game will now officially support ray tracing, allowing for enhanced shadows and reflections that are sure to make the game look even more stunning to behold.

The game already looks pretty great, but upping the quality and realism of things like sun shadows and light reflection can really bring life to a game, as we’ve now seen seemingly hundreds of times before in other titles. The big improvement to reflections will certainly add to the environment, but furthermore, it’ll negate the visual artifacts issues that you inherently get by using Screen Space Reflections.

However, even if you’re not using ray tracing, this update also improves the ambient occlusion implementation and nearly all objects will now be able to cast dynamic shadows, which is something any GPU can benefit from, not just ray tracing capable ones.

However, keep in mind that you’ll need a ray-tracing-compatible graphics card to enable such features, and the system requirements will be higher with these ray-tracing features enabled. However, it’s not too drastic, or at least, nothing unexpected in regards to running ray tracing on a AAA game. You’ll need an RTX 2060 with DLSS enabled to run the game at 1080p with Low Settings at 30fps. For high settings at 60 FPS, you’ll want an RTX 4060 with DLSS, and for 4K60 that will move us to an RTX 4080 with DLSS Frame Generation.

Michael Bukowski, Diablo IV Technical Director, said:

“The launch of Diablo IV was just the beginning for us. We are regularly iterating based on player feedback and exploring how we can enhance the visuals and dark atmosphere of the game. The addition of ray-traced effects is our next step in making the brutal world of Sanctuary feel more immersive than ever. Effects like lightning strikes are now reflected in pools of blood and water, dank cellars and dungeons are more foreboding with realistic soft shadows, and the open world and towns are more grounded with additional realistic shadows and reflections. We are very excited for our community to experience this new technology.”

Kevin Todisco, Diablo IV Principal Software Engineer, also added:

“It was great working closely with NVIDIA to bring raytracing to Diablo IV. The experience they have with ray tracing technologies was instrumental in helping us take our ray tracing implementation to production quality, and libraries they offer like RTXMU gave us a valuable boost as we were developing.”