Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot at the starting line with the Series S and the requirement that all games support the weaker-than-Xbox One X hardware.
Played for a couple hours last night. The updated ambient occlusion makes the biggest difference and is a most welcome change. I honestly don't think the ray traced shadows are that big of a deal, and I didn't play anywhere the reflections would be noticed. All of it put together, though...
It's not a ray tracing showcase, if that is what you're asking. Even with ray tracing this game uses a lot of baked lighting in the environment. It looks good, regardless.
Looks like they did a good job with the ray tracing implementation. The updated ambient occlusion is very much improved and should do wonders for the overall look of the game.
Returnal isn't procedurally generated, I don't think. It's more like Diablo in that they have pre-generated rooms that are just randomly stitched together.
Looks like Denuvo was removed today. The main executable shrunk by 230 MB. Why does the DRM bloat the size so much?
https://steamdb.info/depot/1544021/history/
https://opencritic.com/game/16489/south-park-snow-day
"Professional" reviewers say the game lacks content, gameplay depth, and the typical South Park humor. User reviews seem to agree on the lack of content and questionable replayability, at least. People are saying the game can be beaten...
You go to their website and it talks about using subversion and social science to create games. The CEO is an anthropologist and photographer, but somehow designed the UI for World of Warcraft. No wonder people need plugins to customize their UI to make it usable.