The Ascent patch improves DX12, adds ray tracing to Game Pass version

The Ascent is currently receiving a hefty amount of attention on multiple fronts. As such, the improvements are rolling in with the game’s latest patch which went live today. We liked the game a lot, and it’s currently sitting at a 78% mostly positive rating on Steam with over 5,000 reviews, so it seems that most players are liking it too. This patch is currently live for the Steam version, and will be hitting the Windows Store and console versions soon. The developer is going to continue its work on the game beyond this point as well, so there will be more patches in the future. Today’s patch for The Ascent improves DX12, while adding ray tracing onto the Xbox Game Pass and Windows Store versions.

As for what exactly today’s patch for The Ascent had done, the main focuses, as specified in the title, are to improve the performance of the game in DX12 mode, as well as add ray tracing. After installing the update, there will be a 20- to 25-second loading stall upon booting into the game for the first time, but this should be the only time that occurs. Ray tracing was absent from other versions of the game, but now they’ll all be up to par. NPC loading has been improved as well, as has general CPU performance for lower-end hardware.

The Ascent patch finally unlocks ray tracing for the Game Pass version

The rest of the patch’s improvements apply to all platforms, not just PC. As for what’s been improved, there will now be fewer crashes, issues with focus during co-op should be better, and a black screen at the end of mission 12 should be no more. It’ll also take less time to get back to the main menu, and it fixes weapon replication problems during co-op. There are plenty of fixes to saving, such as reducing the risk of corruption, plus many gameplay tweaks, like multiple bosses spawning or mission objectives not updating.