I get where you are coming from, but as someone who has been interested in ray tracing since the early 2000s, ever since I saw the amazing ray tracing demo heaven seven rendered in real-time (although not at a particularly high frame rate) by my trusty 1.3 GHz Athlon T-Bird, there has been no denying that this is the future of 3D graphics, just as much as the more recent invention of upscaling technology. It enables not just the biggest generational leap in visuals seen in decades, but also makes it far easier for developers to light their games, removing many of the clunky and labor-intensive workflows that are required to make conventional rasterized graphics look good.
If the above paragraph didn’t bore you to death, try Quake II RTX. It’s fully path-traced, but because it’s essentially a shiny coat of paint on a game from the 1990s, hardware requirements are surprisingly modest (it even ran on my old GTX 1080, albeit it at a very low upscaled resolution). Despite the simple geometric detail and ancient animations, it looks absolutely stunning thanks to realistic lighting and new surfaces. Screenshots are not doing it justice - it almost feels real when you play it, particularly outside sections in direct sunlight.
If you don’t own Quake II on Steam, you get the three levels from the old shareware version, which are more than enough to get an idea of the true potential of this technology. If you do, you can play the entire game with ray tracing. Note that this is not the same as the recent extensive remaster of the game by Nightdive Studios, which uses a conventional renderer, but makes far more substantial modifications to assets and level design (and includes lots of bonus features). Both remasters are awesome in their own different ways.
Your card can also handle some newer games with ray tracing. Control is an obvious candidate. It’s old enough to have reasonable hardware requirements even with RT on, but it was also designed from the ground up as a showcase for this technology. Medium RT at 1080p should get you close to 60 fps in this game. The other game you might want to try is Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, which is both visually stunning and incredibly well-optimized. You should get a locked 60fps at 1080p in this game - and even 1440p is possible. It’s night and day compared to the regular version of the game.
That’s an idealistic point of view and certainly an admirable one, but it might not be realistic. Perhaps Sony execs simply don’t want people to be reminded of this flop they signed off on.
I wonder if there is still going to be a Concord episode in the upcoming animated videogame-themed TV show “Secret Level”. A month ago, this was confirmed, but at that point, it wasn’t decided yet whether Firewalk Studios would be closed.
The Boys comes to mind, even though this show is hardly subtle. One has to wonder if at least some far-right demagogues are fully aware of this and are actually doing it as a form of cultural appropriation.
I’ve spent about an hour with “Drova - Forsaken Kin”. The best way to describe it (and I’m not the first person to do this) would be “2D Gothic”. It’s quite neat. Exploration is a bit labyrinthian, but it’s appropriately punishing and bleak, has meaty combat that becomes satisfying once it finally clicks with you. Just like in Gothic, you start out as someone who can barely swing a club and just like in Gothic again, you need trainers to level up your skills. Controls can take a bit of getting used to and I have no idea where the story will take me, but so far, I’m enjoying my time with it. Really the worst thing I can say about it so far is that the music is rather monotonous.
Drova is available on gog without DRM, supporting Linux and MacOS in addition to Windows (also on Steam and every current and last-gen console):
I played the original back in the day, although not as far as the remake. It’s incredibly faithful to it, almost beat-to-beat, but carefully polished and improved in all the right places, e.g. by improving pacing, creating a more interconnected game world and subtle balancing changes. The nostalgia is still there, but it feels modern nonetheless, not just because of its outstanding presentation.
I actually don’t like horror and jump scare games. The fact that this game managed to draw me in and keep me playing is quite the achievement. This is one of those games that is so good, it’s enjoyable even if you don’t like the genre.
Even graphics are often stagnating or regressing already in some cases. Have you noticed that Ubisoft’s facial and movement animations for example have regressed quite dramatically since 2013?