Minecraft raytracing on Xbox Series X isn't happening after it was "inadvertently included" in a preview build

Minecraft The Wild update 1.19
(Image credit: Mojang)

The latest Minecraft Preview build contained raytracing but Microsoft says it was "inadvertently included" and that players shouldn’t expect it to come to consoles in the near future before removing it from the build. 

Just a few days ago, The Verge reporter Tom Warren spotted that the latest Minecraft Preview has been optimized for Xbox Series X|S and has early raytracing support. It was thought that this could be a sign of what was to come, but Microsoft took to Twitter via the official Minecraft Twitter account to clear things up.

In the tweet, the Xbox company said: "The previous Minecraft Preview build available to Xbox Insiders inadvertently included prototype code for raytracing support on Xbox consoles." Before going on to say, "this early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn't signal near future plans to bring raytracing support to consoles." So at least for now, Xbox owners shouldn’t get too excited about raytracing coming to consoles.

In case you missed the original news, the new Preview build of Minecraft released earlier this week exclusively to Xbox Insider members. Players who are signed up to the Xbox preview program get early access to upcoming updates or games ahead of launch, so this version of Minecraft wasn’t available to everyone. 

It was thought that due to only being available to Xbox Insider members that this is a sign of what’s to come, but as we know now, that's not the case, at least for the near future.  

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Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.  

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