Mojang partners with Nvidia to bring real-time ray tracing to Minecraft

Less than a week after Mojang canceled Minecraft's high-end graphics overhaul, the developer has revealed the game will be getting a new lick of paint with some help from Nvidia. 

In a post on the Minecraft blog, Mojang explained it's working with Nvidia on a free update that will bring real-time ray tracing support to the popular build-em-up. That means players will see their worlds overhauled with realistic lighting, more detailed water effects, richer colors, and emissive textures. 

As the screenshots below show, it's a change that completely alters the look and feel of the game, imbuing those familiar blocks and environments with more detail and ambience than before. 

The updated version of the game will initially be playable on Windows 10 with devices that are capable of DirectX R, and will eventually be brought to other platforms that support DirectX R. 

In equally notable news, Mojang has also been working on a new game engine called Render Dragon that features more new visual and performance upgrades. Alas, the studio remained vague when explaining how the new engine will change the game, and promised to share more details soon.