Metro studio 4A Games on next-gen graphics: "We experimented a lot, and with spectacular results so far"

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4A Games hints at its ambitions for next-gen visuals

(Image credit: 4A Games)

Metro developer 4A Games briefly discussed its ambitions for next-gen graphics in a recent interview with Digital Foundry, and after the visual splendor of Metro Exodus, any graphics tease from 4A Games is mighty tantalizing. 

"We are fully into ray tracing, dropping old-school codepath/techniques completely," says chief technical officer Oles Shishkovstov. "Internally we experimented a lot, and with spectacular results so far. You will need to wait to see what we implement into our future projects." 

Ray tracing has been around for a while now, but it only came to games relatively recently, and it was largely off-limits on current-gen consoles due to computational limitations. However, it's clear that 4A Games is investing in ray tracing for its next-gen projects, which suggests the feature will be much more available in PS5 and Xbox Series X games.

Separately, Shishkovstov added that, as far as next-gen features go, "I am more excited for not yet publicly revealed things." We've known for a while that next-gen games and consoles will deliver plenty more than better lighting and visuals, but many features and figures have yet to be seen. We'd like to know what's got Shoshkovstov so excited, whatever it is.

For now, here are 10 things we learned from Xbox boss Phil Spencer's big Xbox Series X blog post.   

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.