Built on the brand new id Tech 7, DOOM Eternal is looking primed to be id Software’s most technically impressive game yet. And while the game is going to look great on consoles, where it will truly show its technical proficiency will be on high-end PCs. One thing DOOM Eternal on PC probably won’t be doing though – at least at launch – is support ray tracing.
Speaking in a recent interview with Digital Foundry (which you can view below), DOOM Eternal co-direct Marty Stratton said that though id Software’s tech team has been exploring ideas for ray tracing tech and how they can implement it, it was something that they had to “pull back” on in order to focus on finishing and polishing up the game’s development before its release.
“We actually haven’t talked about that at all,” said Stratton. “And we, quite frankly, haven’t spent a ton of time. The team basically did some initial implementation and exploration of ray tracing about a year ago, but at the same time, we had so much that we wanted to do on the game still. Our tech team are the biggest fans of new tech, so it was a little hard to pull everybody off of that, because it was the shiny new toy. But when we’re talking about getting DOOM Eternal out there and getting it out as close to on time as possible and at the highest polish and quality, we kind of had to pull back on that effort.”
That said, Stratton did say that though work on ray tracing had to be halted earlier, id Software’s tech team is getting back into it again, before teasing that they have some really cool ideas for how to implement it in a way that benefits not just the players, but also the developers.
“It is something that they’re like literally just about ready to start looking at again, and actually have some interesting ideas,” said Stratton. “I don’t want to go too far down that path, because who knows what exactly we do, but there’s more that you can use the technology for than just, you know, the reflections, the shadows, and the real-time lighting. They have some really cool ideas that I think will not only just make it a better experience for players, but actually make it better and easier to create experiences for developers.”
DOOM Eternal is out for the PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia on March 20. The Switch release will come not long afterwards, with development on the port at Panic Button “coming along really, really well.” Meanwhile, id Software might consider porting the shooter to next-gen consoles as well- read more on that through here.