Raytracing is still very computationally intensive, and doesn’t have enough market penetration to make sense on most modern games. Devs need to implement two solutions: a raytraced path and a raster path. The game needs to be fully playable in both, across a wide range on hardware. The largest install base for most games is still console, where RT barely exists. So RT is generally relegated to eye candy for high-end PC. Which makes it a marketing feature, not a game feature.

It’ll be interesting to see if that changes with the PS5 Pro. I expect we’ll see more first-party titles support it, but not much else until the next real console generation.

That’s not necessarily true. I want my gaming to just work, and that’s not the case in Windows. It’s becoming less the case with console gaming, but I can still be confident that when I buy a game for my PlayStation it’ll actually boot, I won’t need to use third-party software for controller support, and I won’t need to tinker with drivers. That said, I already have a PS5. The TV I game on is still 1080p, so I don’t understand what $700 would get me over my current hardware.

Chants of Sennaar - adventure/puzzle game where you need to learn the languages of the world. It’s not super difficult, but finding all the secrets was challenging.

Manifold Garden - no real story here, but a trippy 3d spatial puzzle to navigate.

Prodigy is the best Trek of this generation, then Lower Decks, then SNW.

A Sega CDX was my CD player for a while.