Far Cry 6 won’t have ray tracing on consoles

Ray tracing is one of those things that the newest consoles can do, but it’s often implemented at the expense of better frame rates or higher visual fidelity. F1 2021 had to “temporarily” remove ray tracing to stabilize performance, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart‘s ray tracing mode at caps the frame rate at 30 FPS in 4K, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales‘ Performance RT mode has a lower resolution than the other two modes.

Instead of having players on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 decide if they wanted to compromise between ray tracing and higher resolution or frame rates, Ubisoft is making that decision for them with Far Cry 6.

In an interview with Wccftech, Ubisoft 3D Team lead programmer Stephanie Brenham revealed that ray tracing “is a PC only feature.” But it’s for a good reason. Brenham goes on to explain:

“On console, our objective has been to take advantage of new hardware capabilities, optimizing performance targeting 4K and achieving 60 FPS, for instance, all while ensuring new game features—like our dynamic weather system—are supported on all platforms.”

The newest consoles will come with a few more benefits over their last-gen predecessors. Far Cry 6 on Series X and PS5 will have better levels of detail, “draw distances, better ocean simulation, and HD textures,” all in 4K at 60 FPS, Brenham said.

If your PC can handle it, then that’s where you’ll want to play, as that platform also enables DXR Reflections & Shadows, unlocked FPS, and adjustable field of view—an option that’s sadly missing from the console version. Still, PCs with either an AMD RX 6800 or NVIDIA RTX 3080 can still only run the game in 4K at 30 FPS with ray tracing enabled.

To make up for that, the PC version will also have AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution, an upscaling technology that allows games to run at a higher resolution while maintaining a better, more consistent frame rate. Unfortunately, that tech won’t be in the next-gen console versions of the game, despite both Xbox and PlayStation using AMD’s integrated RDNA2 tech.

Far Cry 6 launches on October 7th for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows PC, Amazon Luna, and Google Stadia. Ubisoft has already revealed its post-launch plans for the game, and you can read our early impressions before jumping in.