The latest Assassin’s Creed game has saved developers a lot of data and work thanks to ray tracing (RT).

Several interesting details about Assassin’s Creed Shadows were revealed at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC). One key takeaway is why many developers now prefer ray tracing (RT) over baked lighting. Nicolas Lopez from Ubisoft explained how the series has handled global illumination, noting that as worlds became more complex, compromises had to be made.

Assassin’s Creed Unity had excellent lighting thanks to its small world and fixed time-of-day cycle. If Assassin’s Creed Origins had used the same method, the game would have included 450 GB of lighting data, and the baking process would have taken three months. The more complex world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows would have needed 2 TB of lighting data and up to two years of development time. Ray tracing significantly simplifies planning, so developers will likely abandon pre-baked lighting altogether in future games. Shadows’ developers supported both approaches due to hardware constraints but plan to focus on RT in the long run.

The presentation shared performance metrics for Assassin’s Creed Shadows using the RTX 4080 GPU on PC and consoles, and for ray-traced reflections on the PlayStation 5 Pro. Running with RTGI at quarter resolution, the Xbox Series X outperforms the standard PS5 (4.30 ms vs. 5 ms). The Xbox Series S is even faster, but only because it renders at 900p internally, compared to the 1440p output on PS5 and Series X. The PlayStation 5 Pro is the only console supporting ray-traced reflections, so the only performance benchmark comes from comparing it to the RTX 4080, with expected differences.

Ray tracing is gradually becoming mandatory for developers, as can already be seen in current PC system requirements—such as with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Source: WCCFTech, GDC