Ray-Traced Games Take Gamescom 2019 by Storm, Including Minecraft, Dying Light 2, SYNCED: Off-Planet, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Cyberpunk 2077,Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 and Watch Dogs: Legion

COLOGNE, Germany, Aug. 19, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gamescom - Marking the ray-tracing revolution sweeping across the video game industry, NVIDIA and its partners kicked off Gamescom 2019 on Monday by premiering blockbuster games that support ray tracing and giving a first look at ray-traced effects in a series of previously announced, highly anticipated AAA titles.

The games, which include established mega-franchises, highly anticipated sequels, new franchises and more, were showcased at a special invitation-only event in Cologne.

“In the year since NVIDIA made it possible to achieve real-time ray tracing in games, this revolutionary technology has been embraced across the industry,” said Matt Wuebbling, head of GeForce marketing at NVIDIA. “Looking at the number of games, the big-name franchises and the breathtaking visuals at our Gamescom 2019 event, it’s clear that ray tracing has arrived and is truly the way forward for game development.”

New games supporting ray tracing include:

• Dying Light 2 – The highly anticipated open world action RPG Dying Light 2, the next installment to the franchise with over 17 million players, will feature real-time ray tracing, taking immersion in the world of the infected set within a Modern Dark Age to the next level.
• Metro Exodus – The Two Colonels downloadable content (DLC) – Metro Exodus’ use of global illumination made it a showcase title for ray tracing. Now, NVIDIA, 4A Games and Deep Silver are adding ray-traced global illumination with emissive lighting via the upcoming The Two Colonels DLC. Attendees can play the upcoming The Two Colonels DLC for the first time.
• Minecraft – Minecraft is the world’s best-selling video game. Together, NVIDIA and game developer Mojang are adding a form of ray tracing known as path tracing for the Windows 10 version of the game. Upon release of the game update, Minecraft players will be able to build, create and explore their Minecraft worlds in stunning realism with real-time ray tracing. They can immerse themselves in realistic lighting and vibrant colors enabled by global illumination, realistic water that reflects and refracts naturally and emissive textures that now light up their world. Attendees can play Minecraft with real-time ray tracing at Gamescom and capture their gameplay to share.
• SYNCED: Off-Planet – Tencent’s flagship games development studio has partnered with NVIDIA to unveil its inaugural AAA game featuring ray-tracing technology. Previously unannounced, SYNCED: Off-Planet is a brand new franchise that will use ray-traced reflections and shadows in a new twist on PvPvE that has players fighting each other while surviving 1,000+ “Nano Zombies.” Attendees can play the game and capture their gameplay to share.

In addition, NVIDIA and its development partners are premiering several ray-traced games that are unveiling ray-traced effects for the first time, including:

• Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® – One of the most critically acclaimed, best-selling game franchises of all time, the Call of Duty team at Activision revealed that the newest installment in the fan-favorite Modern Warfare series will feature real-time ray tracing on PC. Awarded “Best Online Multiplayer” by Game Critics Best of E3 2019, the new blockbuster title launches worldwide on Oct. 25. Attendees of the Gamescom NVIDIA event can finally get hands-on play with the highly anticipated game, and capture PC gameplay featuring ray-traced shadows to share.
• Control – A showcase for ray-traced graphics, Control ships Aug. 27 and is a GeForce RTX™ bundle title. Control was nominated for Game Critics Awards in the Best Original Game, Best PC Game and Best Action/Adventure Game categories. The game supports NVIDIA DLSS technology as well as ray-traced reflections, shadows and global illumination, and will be one of the first games to support multiple ray-tracing effects. Attendees can play the game and capture gameplay to share.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 – Considered one of the five biggest announcements at GDC 2019 by IGN, attendees to NVIDIA’s event receive a guided presentation of the highly anticipated Vampire RPG that features ray-traced reflections.
• Watch Dogs: Legion – With more than 60 awards and nominations received at E3 2019, including Game Critics Best Action/Adventure Game, the newest installment in the Watch Dogs series will feature ray tracing. Attendees get a chance to experience the GeForce RTX title first-hand with ray-traced reflections.
• Wolfenstein®: Youngblood™ – Nominated for E3 Game Critics’ Awards in the Best PC Game, Best Online Multiplayer game and Best Action Game categories, Wolfenstein: Youngblood is the second GeForce RTX bundle title at Gamescom. Attendees can experience the game with the addition of ray-traced reflections.

Ray tracing is also featured in can’t-miss demos at Gamescom 2019, including Cyberpunk 2077, winner of hundreds of awards, and a game Gamespot calls “one of the most anticipated games of the decade.” Cyberpunk 2077’s Gamescom demo features real-time ray tracing. Gameplay presentations happen every 30 minutes throughout the day in the CD PROJEKT RED booth in the Gamescom Entertainment Area (hall 6, booth C049). Attendees can watch the game being played live by members of the dev team.

Real-time ray tracing is changing the way games are created and dramatically increases the image quality they can achieve. Ray tracing is built upon a robust ecosystem that includes industry-standard application programming interfaces, support in an array of popular and private game engines, and games from the biggest publishers for their most anticipated titles.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs are the only GPUs capable of playing games with real-time ray tracing.

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About NVIDIA NVIDIA’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined modern computer graphics and revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU deep learning ignited modern AI — the next era of computing — with the GPU acting as the brain of computers, robots and self-driving cars that can perceive and understand the world. More information at http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.

For further information, contact:Brian BurkeGlobal PR Principal, gaming technologiesNVIDIA Corporation+1-512-694-6106[email protected]

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: ray-traced games taking Gamescom by storm; the games showcasing ray tracing at Gamescom and NVIDIA giving a first look at ray-traced effects; ray tracing sweeping across and being embraced by the video game industry; ray tracing being the way forward for game development; the new games featuring ray tracing; the performance, benefits, impact and availability of the games with ray tracing; the demos at Gamescom featuring ray tracing and information about the demos; ray tracing changing the way games are created and it dramatically increasing image quality; and the ecosystem ray tracing is built upon are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners' products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the most recent reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company's website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

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