The demo, named "Back Stage," comes from Square Enix's Luminous Productions — a subsidiary of Square Enix focused on creating a new, untitled project.
The demo intends specifically to show off a new visual technique known as "Ray Tracing," which aims to re-create natural lighting more accurately.
The phrase "Ray Tracing" doesn't exactly spark joy. It sounds like jargon, and that's because it's totally jargon.
Here's a simple, logical explanation of the concept from my colleague Antonio Villas-Boas:
"It essentially simulates the path of light travelling from a light source in a game, like a light bulb, fire, or the sun, more accurately than conventional video game lighting. The result is more realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows in a video game."
Aha!
So, simply speaking, ray tracing makes representations of light in games — whether we're talking about shadows, reflections, light sourcing, or whatever else — look more accurate.
Notably, the demo also highlights the overall horsepower increase with next-gen consoles that will enable high-fidelity visuals like those seen below:
Between the reflection from the mirror and the variance in lighting of the objects on the counter, it's clear that ray tracing has a massive impact on visuals. It remains to be seen how much of this technique can be applied across entire games, but we'll find out soon enough!
