As part of the latest NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready driver which also offers day-one optimisations and enhancements for the stunning Microsoft Flight Simulator it also adds ray-tracing support for the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands beta in the form of ray-traced shadows.

Massive news to be sure, World of Warcraft is one of the longest-running and most successful MMORPGs of all time.

The addition of ray-traced shadows will no doubt add a cutting-edge feel to the now 15-year old epic. And hey, it's called Shadowlands -- so this makes a lot of sense. As per early word ray-traced shadows in the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands creates softer and more realistic looking shadows that also benefits from the increased detail that comes from more light sources.

Since its release Blizzard has of course continuously expanded and improved the game's visuals with each expansion bringing something new to the table. Whether that's new character designs, overhauled environments, or impressive real-time cinematics.

That said ray-traced shadows are subtle in what they bring to the table, as seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare -- the result is a more realistic look. Perhaps this paves the way for a more comprehensive Minecraft RTX or Quake II RTX ray-traced overhaul coming in the future.

That would be something.