Blizzard has officially released World of Warcraft: Forever, a new game client designed to fundamentally update the visual components of the venerable MMORPG. The main feature of the project is the integration of real-time ray tracing (RTGI) and dynamic global lighting, which work through a special sample tracker to provide high performance even on older graphics cards.
In addition to soft light diffusion and realistic color reflections from the environment, the update brings fully dynamic shadows based on the time of day, volumetric fog with support for weather effects, and advanced water rendering to the game.
At the same time, the developers retained the original textures and recognizable visual style of the 2004 model, refusing to completely switch to physically-based rendering (PBR) materials in order to preserve the unique atmosphere of classic Azeroth.
