By Jacob Miller | Sep 01, 2025
On consistent performance, not graphical qualityIn an interview with Ripple Effect Studio Technical Director, Christian Buhl, he explained that the decision around ray tracing was made in the very early stages of development. The studio had decided not to launch Battlefield 6 with ray tracing and does not plan to add ray tracing anytime soon. They had made this decision way before, then focused all of their resources on optimizing the game with the default settings to provide as many players as possible. Buhl also made it apparent that their main priority was making sure everything was running smoothly as opposed to those higher graphics, which are more resource-demanding.
Frame Rates Matter More
Ray tracing provides some good benefits, like realistic lighting and shadows, reflections in water, and weather effects; however, these also come at a serious cost of hardware power. In games like a first-person shooter, frame rates are likely to mean more than an upgrade to the graphics, specifically for a fast-paced shooter like Battlefield 6. Fans of a series like Battlefield will always value responsive gameplay over whiz-bang technical effects, which makes ray tracing an even smaller drawback to a game. With the most recent Battlefield 6 beta breaking records in 2021, excitement is climbing as the game launches on October 10, only a few weeks ahead of the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on November 14, and setting the scene for another major rivalry in the FPS gaming world.
