Do you really need to play Minecraft with gorgeous ray tracing? If you feel the answer is “yes”, then better mark your calendars for 16 April 2020, because that’s when the Minecraft RTX beta launches.

The beta will launch with six RTX Creator Worlds, which are “designed to showcase the power of real-time ray tracing and the level of fidelity and immersion that is impossible to otherwise achieve”, according to a blog post from last month. The more recent blog post says that you can download them from the Minecraft Marketplace.

The Creator Worlds are:

• Aquatic Adventure RTX
• Of Temples and Totems RTX
• Crystal Palace RTX
• Imagination Island RTX
• Color, Light and Shadow RTX
• Neon District RTX

There will also be a Razzleberries RTX Texture Showcase that will be available on the Minecraft wiki. “See almost every single block, entity and biome in Minecraft, all laid out in exciting dioramas, and marvel at how ray tracing affects them,” says the blog post.

“And should you make your own textures, after following the steps in our PBR Texturing Guide, you can drop into the map to instantly see your textures in action.”

In addition, you’ll get the chance to create your own ray-traced worlds. There’s also a guide for those who want to convert their Java Worlds to the Windows 10 Bedrock format, which is required for RTX, although players are advised to back up their worlds and files first.

Ray tracing aside, the beta will show off NVIDIA’s DLSS 2.0 technology as well, which basically serve to provide faster frame rates. Like ray tracing, DLSS 2.0 requires GeForce RTX GPUs.

I never thought that Minecraft would be used as a tech showcase, but here we are. The game really does look gorgeous with ray tracing though, and I’m looking forward to checking out YouTubers’ videos of the beta.