Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake 2: The Lake House, the latest expansion of the survival game, is out on Sunday (27 October). And gamers are poring over one specific feature: the reflections.
"The Lake House is definitely winning in the ‘Best Elevator Reflections of the Year’ category," CD Projekt RED's Radek Grabowski joked on X referring to the impressive ray racing – presumably on PC.
The new expansion looks like it continues Remedy's aim to push what it can achieve in photorealism, and ray tracing makes a notable difference from the blurry reflections in console versions of the game until now (see our pick of the best laptops for game development if your working in game design yourself).
The Lake House is definitely winning in the ‘Best Elevator Reflections of the Year’ category. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/jokjIH9DU9October 23, 2024
The original Alan Wake 2 game was released last year and Night Springs expansion in June. The game was developed, no not in Unreal Engine 5, but in Remedy's proprietary Northlight Engine, which is getting stunning results. We previously interviewed the VFX and art teams about how they crafted the chilling survival horror vision.
Alan Wake 2 - The Lake House Launch Trailer | PS5 Games - YouTube
Ray tracing is a lighting technique used in a variety of rendering algorithms for generating digital images. It's capable of creating much more realistic looking visuals, in particular reflections, but at a cost in terms of performance compared to traditional rasterised rendering.
Implementation can vary wildly, and it requires modern AMD or Nvidia graphics cards. While Xbox Series X and PS5 support ray tracing, but it has remained inferior to on PC. It should be greatly improved in the new PS5 Pro.
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Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.
