Minecraft has never been known for its high-end visuals. Iconic visuals, for sure, but not high-end. That's part of its charm and its low-end accessibility has helped make it arguably the most popular video game ever made. But that doesn't mean some people don't like to improve the graphics where they can, with new shaders, textures, and other visual enhancements. One of the latest to be tried is ray tracing, and of everything else that's come before, that effect can make Minecraft look like something else entirely.
In a video put together by YouTuber ‘Hodilton,' we can see just how pretty Minecraft can be when you apply the Stratum high-resolution resource pack, which adds a number of lighting effects and textures, with the Continuum shaderpack that adds a number of high-end graphics effects, including ray tracing.
Some of the tessellation effects are just as impressive as the ray tracing. It gives real texture and depth to the world and its blocks. We would have to imagine such an effect is far more resource intensive than the standard Minecraft experience, but if you have the high-end hardware to be able to run it, it could make for a transformative Minecraft experience.
The question is, could you go back to vanilla after playing such a modified version of the game?