WoW Shadowlands to Add DXR & Raytracing Support

One of the biggest positive factors from World of Warcraft is that despite it now being several expansions old, Blizzard has always looked (wherever possible) to ensure that in terms of PC requirements, even the latest version can still run on a (relatively speaking) potato PC. It seems, however, that the launch of the WoW Shadowlands Alpha build is hinting at some impressive new features that are on the way!

So what are they? Well, it seems that the new expansion will likely be bringing official support for DXR, raytraced shadows and Variable Rate Shading. In other words, WoW might be set to leap to a whole new level in terms of graphics!

WoW Shadowlands

In the image above, a poke through the command console has found that support for a lot of modern graphics features will be made available. Why? Well, if you look DXR, raytraced shadows and Variable Rate Shading is mentioned. Put simply, they wouldn’t talk about it if it wasn’t planned!

It should be noted that, at the time of writing, these are not activated yet in the Alpha version. It does, however, seem more than likely that they are planned to be made available in the final release. Who knows, perhaps they’ll sneak these out in a later test-build.

So, this is great news for those of you who own a pretty hefty graphics card. The World of Warcraft will (all going well) never have looked as good as it will in Shadowlands! What about lower-spec users, though?

What Do We Think?

While this is all very exciting news, Blizzard will (almost certainly) still be looking to keep Shadowlands as tame as possible. Specifically, in terms of requirements for more ‘basic’ gaming PCs. If you are, therefore, worried that this might mean that your system will be ‘specced’ out of the latest version, while it is still possible, I doubt that will be the case. While it might likely be looking to bring high-spec users some new visual glory, Blizzard isn’t going to want to cut out the lower-end users! They do, after all, all pay their subscription fees!

What do you think? Do you play World of Warcraft? If so, what specs do you run it at? Are you excited about these new graphical features? – Let us know in the comments!