Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 is an excellent sequel that puts players in the shoes of the beloved writer as he sets out on a quest to craft an intricate plot that would help to escape from the Dark Place. Its developer Remedy Entertainment is a master of creating worlds that not only look good from a graphical perspective but also have a unique feel to them. Alan Wake 2 makes good use of the Northlight Engine to power its visuals, and the PC version supports path tracing for indirect lighting which makes everything look a lot prettier and realistic than otherwise. It’s a computationally taxing effect, sure – but you should definitely turn it on if you have a PC that can run it.

Quake 2 RTX

Quake 2 is an incredibly fun shooter that also served an important role in popularizing online gaming in the 90s. The gameplay surprisingly holds up to this date, but the dated graphics from the original remain an issue for modern fans wanting to jump into this fast and frenetic shooter. Thankfully, Quake 2 RTX is here to fix those issues – and the resulting product is nothing short of absolutely gorgeous. It’s a great demonstration of how path tracing works in a 3D space, and it does a good job of alleviating the aforementioned visual inconsistencies and making the game more suitable for modern audiences.

Portal RTX

Valve’s Portal series is yet another game that stands tall as one of the best puzzle games of all time, despite being more than a decade old at this point in time. Portal meshed together an engaging story with igneous puzzle designs that strike the perfect balance between accessible and brain-tickling, which culminates in an experience that’s unlike anything we had seen and have seen since its release. Portal RTX soups up that experience by adding path tracing into that equation, and the visuals have received an immediate bump in quality. Sure, you might notice a level of inconsistency with regards to the asset quality – but Portal RTX is a great game that both veterans and first-timers should try out.

Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projket RED’s latest release Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t start out on the best footing, but the developer has remained committed to solving the many technical and non-technical issues that plagued the launch version back in 2020. The Cyberpunk 2077 we have now is a markedly different game, and one that not only looks better but also plays better thanks to reworked progression mechanics. The PC version supported ray tracing from the get-go, but the developers have added support for path tracing which can be enabled by setting ray tracing to Overdrive. The differences are immediately noticeable, though you will suffer from some performance issues if you don’t have an adequately powerful rig.

Justice

Justice is a popular MMORPG from NetEase games where you embark on dangerous missions through fantastical realms, and slowly and steadily get more powerful as you collect resources and craft better gear for your character. It’s a largely familiar experience, but what makes Justice stand out from the crowd is the astute attention to detail on offer. It’s one of the few games that leverage the power of modern technologies like path-tracing to present visuals in a way that simply looks exquisite. The reflections are very accurate, and the game is able to perfectly replicate light behavior from both direct and indirect light sources in a wide variety of challenging scenarios.

Teardown

Tuxedo Labs has done a fabulous job with Teardown, a game that lets you lose in a sandbox with a wide variety of tools and tasks to complete daring heist jobs. It’s a really open-ended game where your imagination is the only limit. It presents itself through a voxel-based art style that’s reminiscent of something like Minecraft, but what’s really cool here is that Teardown also features full path tracing for its lighting without relying on dedicated RT cores to do its bidding. It’s a very sophisticated SSAO solution that we wouldn’t be diving into too much right now, but it is definitely impressive and gets the job done decently well enough.

Minecraft RTX

Minecraft is arguably the most popular survival sandbox game on the market, and that praise can largely be credited to the limitless possibilities that it provides. Minecraft has transcended from just a video game to a pop culture icon, and the developer doesn’t rest on its laurels and continues to put in the effort to keep updating the game with new and interesting features. One such feature is obviously full ray tracing support, which essentially means the use of path tracing for all light sources and reflections. Turning it on instantly makes the game look a whole lot better, with realistic reflections and other lighting effects peppering the game world and changing the entire look and feel of the environment.

DESODRE

Built using Unreal Engine, DESODRE is a puzzle game where players are transported to a new dimension and must solve increasingly difficult puzzles through the smart use of their weapons and abilities. DESODRE has a really unique art style with its glossy textures and simple colour scheme, but a lot of what makes its art unique is the smart use of path tracing for realistic reflections and bounce lighting. Reflections are extremely precise and that combined with the high quality of assets used throughout the environments makes DESODRE a visually appealing experience.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is a vast adventure that thrusts you into a beautiful world brimming with places to explore, companions to meet, and things to do. It’s a very open-ended game where you get a lot of freedom ranging from the builds that you want to try out to the quests that you choose to do and even what decisions you make in those quests. Skyrim is also famous for extensive mod support, and we can enable path tracing on the game using custom mods that replace the original lighting with an RTGI solution. Switching that mod will instantly make a ton of difference to how indoor areas are lit, and the reflections also look a lot more precise than before.

Half-Life 1

Half-Life 1 was an important milestone in gaming, and it continues to be one of the most loved shooters of all time. A Valve-approved fan remake by the name of Black Mesa was recently released to some great critical reception, but graphics enthusiasts have to check out the Half-Life RTX mod by creator Sultim T. Using this mod, we can experience the deepest and darkest corners of the Black Mesa facility in great detail, and the bevy of changes including but not limited to a proper ray-traced global illumination solution and use of path tracing in reflections makes it a totally fresh experience in more ways than one.