All eyes might be on the next-gen “Ampere” graphics architecture Nvidia announced during today’s digital GTC 2020 keynote, eager to catch a glimpse of what’s coming to future GeForce graphics cards, but another announcement benefits owners of existing GeForce RTX 20-series GPUs. Today, Nvidia released not one, not two, but five more ray-traced worlds crafted for Minecraft by several community creators.
A Minecraft beta enabled real-time ray tracing and Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS 2.0 technology in late April. Even in beta form, the 11-year-old game became the immediate standard-bearer for the cutting-edge lighting technology. This version of the game uses full path tracing rather than enabling ray tracing for one or two specific effects. That means all lighting in the game happens with rays, delivering incredibly realistic shadows, lighting, reflections, and more.
Nvidia got the ball rolling with the beta by releasing six creator-made worlds built to showcase various ray tracing effects and Minecraft’s new physically based textures. On Thursday, the company announced five more, bringing the total number of Nvidia-sponsored RTX worlds to eleven. Here’s how the company describes each:
- ”Hilltop Lifestyle RTX by PearlescentMoon – From the creator of Color, Light and Shadow RTX from the first releases, Hilltop Lifestyle RTX is survival spawn set in a new outdoor map utilizing many of the concepts, advancements and features demonstrated in her previous ray tracing and physically-based texture showcase. In this new world users will explore the beautiful Hilltop Lifestyle island, and learn to live off of the land in its Italian-inspired village.”
- ”Egg Hunt by Feed The Beast – Set deep underground, Egg Hunt is a new standalone mini-game featuring a mysterious cave filled with puzzles, traps, secrets, and fun challenges. The goal is to find the hidden eggs, in order to complete the two game modes in the fastest time possible.”
- ”Medieval RTX by Aurelien_Sama – Medieval RTX is a survival spawn that features an idyllic medieval village nestled below an ancient ruin, with god-rays from the setting sun shining happily through the town. As night falls and the shadows grow longer and darker, danger awaits.”
- ”The Dark Village RTX by Wyld – The Dark Village RTX is a survival spawn set in an abandoned village that lies overgrown in the forest, where effigies of the missing stand long-forgotten. Underneath this village lies the realm of hidden horrors. Players will follow the quest, solve interactive puzzles, discover secrets, and experience rich ray-traced shadows to see if your sanity survives as days pass.”
- ”The Observer RTX by IamSp00n – Classified as an adventure, The Observer RTX is a world that starts deep underground. The player explores their newfound surroundings, uncovering the mysteries of the entombed vault they are stuck in. Along the way they discover the lore of the land to reveal the fate of the Observer’s denizens.”
You can find all eleven worlds in the Marketplace of the Windows 10 version of Minecraft right now. You’ll need Windows 10, a copy of Minecraft from the Microsoft Store, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 20-series graphics card, as those are the only GPUs that include dedicated real-time ray tracing hardware. You’ll also need to enroll in the Minecraft beta to grab the RTX-enabled build of the game.