Microsoft: Xbox Minecraft ray tracing preview was a mistake

Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images

The software giant says that it was a mistake to start testing the game on the console. There is a preview version of the game for the Xbox and the ability to enable ray tracing.

The prototype code for ray tracing support was inadvertently included in the previous preview build.

The previous Minecraft Preview build available to Xbox Insiders inadvertently included prototype code for raytracing support on Xbox consoles. This early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn't signal near future plans to bring raytracing support to consoles.

— Minecraft (@Minecraft) March 31, 2022

It's clear that Microsoft isn't ready to roll out ray tracing on the Xbox Series X in the near future, despite teasing it two years ago. The door is still open for ray tracing to appear on the Xbox Series X and S consoles at some point in the future.

The ray-tracing support in the preview build required separate packs and workarounds to work, and it was clearly un-optimized when we tested it. Currently, ray tracing is only available onMinecraft for Windows, and it is boosted by the upscaling of theDLS. Don't expect to see this feature on the Xbox Series X / S any time soon.