Implementing ray tracing in Red Dead Redemption 2 would be a bigger challenge than in Grand Theft Auto V for a few reasons, including the game’s world diversity.

Replying to a supporter’s question regarding the possibility of the rumored next-gen updated release adding ray tracing to the game, the tech expert at Digital Foundry highlighted how the possibility is there, as ray tracing getting added to Grand Theft Auto V on current generation consoles and PC suggests that it has been backported to older versions of the Rage engine. However, it could be challenging to implement ray tracing features in Red Dead Redemption 2, as the entire rendering has changed in the time between Grand Theft Auto V and the second entry of the wild west open-world series. Also, world diversity and the presence of a lot more vegetation than in GTAV add to the challenge, as the visual return would be different, as the game, for example, lacks a lot of man-made glass structures, and most of its world is green and brown, which would make bounce lighting less obvious than occlusion.

Even if Rockstar Games finds this challenge worthwhile, it’s unlikely the entire RT suite would be implemented, and only some ray-traced effects would be a good fit, like ray-traced global illumination, which would enhance the game’s use of SSAO with a static AO contribution with changes brought by the time of day. Ray-traced ambient occlusion would also be a good fit, while ray-traced shadows may not make much of a difference, as Red Dead Redemption 2 already features great shadows.

Despite being released in late 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 continues to be among the best-looking open-world games ever released, so most fans would be happy to experience the game at 60 FPS on current-generation consoles even without any other visual improvement. Even in its current state, however, the game is one worth experiencing, as highlighted by Alessio in his review.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is now available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.