Starfield will reportedly feature Nvidia RTX ray-tracing

Nvidia RTX ray-tracing will seemingly be used in Bethesda's hotly anticipated space RPG Starfield.

This news doesn't come directly from Bethesda itself but rather from the LinkedIn page of one of the company’s employees. According to Germain Mazac, who works as a graphics programmer at Bethesda, the studio uses “RTX integration” in the upcoming sci-fi RPG dubbed Skyrim in space. Mazac also mentions that he is part of the team involved in implementing PBR lighting and Indirect lighting.

No other details regarding the use of RTX in Starfield were shared, so we don't yet know the extent to which the technology is being utilised. The game could potentially feature an array of ray-tracing tech, including ray-traced global illumination and ray-traced shadows to add realistic lighting, shadows, and other effects to the ambitious space-themed adventure.

Some fans have already been weighing in on what they think RTX integration could mean for Starfield, "If they're saying RTX specifically, maybe RTXGI? It would be cool if it had RTXDI, but I won't get my hopes up," said one Resetera user. While another notes that "RTX integration "could just be DLSS support without ray tracing."

Starfield was the shining star of this year's Xbox and Bethesda Summer Game Fest. We were treated to an in-depth look at the action with some spectacular gameplay footage, as well as confirmation that you'll be able to build your own spaceship to explore the game's sprawling universe composed of more than 100 systems with "over 1,000 planets". Initially scheduled for a release in 2022, the game is now due to land sometime in the first half of 2023. 

See what other gaming delights are making their way to Microsoft's current-gen console with our guide to upcoming Xbox Series X games.