Assassin's Creed Shadows PC requirements are here, and it sure seems like forced ray tracing is a normal thing now
When I played six hours of Assassin's Creed Shadows at Ubisoft Quebec last week, I knew it would be the only time I saw it looking this good. Global illumination, ray traced everything, super high framerate—I was test driving a Ferrari knowing I'd eventually have to climb back into my Nissan Versa and go home.
All I hoped is that Shadows' official system requirements wouldn't box out my aging RTX 2080 Super, and now that Ubisoft has finally released the full specs, it sounds like I'll be OK. Here's what we're working with:
SELECTIVE RAY TRACING
MINIMUM
RECOMMENDED
ENTHUSIAST
STANDARD RAY TRACING
MINIMUM
RECOMMENDED
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EXTENDED RAY TRACING
ENTHUSIAST
EXTREME
A lot to absorb, but unless you have one of the most expensive graphics cards on the market, let's assume you can pretty much ignore the «Extended Ray Tracing» suggestions. What sticks out to me is that Shadows is the latest game to not make ray tracing an option—sounds like the feature is fundamental to how the game is lit, similar to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is good news for our eyeballs but potentially bad news for the majority of Steam users on older hardware.
It's not as bad as it could be: Those «Selective Ray Tracing» specs are pretty reasonable if, like me, you're still gaming at 1080p. I'm betting that by «selective,» that means yes to global illumination, but no to reflections. Whatever keeps the framerate around a smooth 60.
Curiously, one of these specs include Shadows' install size, just that an SSD will be required (another mandate that's only getting more common). PC Gamer asked Ubisoft about Shadows' install size and we'll update this story if we hear back.
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