007 First Light's path tracing update is here, and unsurprisingly, the update takes a massive hit to performance to improve the game's shadows, ambient occlusion, reflections, and other lighting properties, similar to other titles with a path tracing mode. MxBenchmarkPC on YouTube provided a side-by-side comparison showing how the game looks and runs on an RTX 5080 with path tracing on and off. On average, the RTX 5080 lost 62% of its performance turning on path tracing at 4K using DLSS 4 balanced upscaling.
In a worst-case scenario, the YouTuber saw frame rates plummet from 60 FPS down to just 26 FPS using path tracing with the aforementioned DLSS 4 upscaling mode active in the third mission of the game. Other scenes in other missions were not nearly as intensive; back in 007's apartment for instance frame rates dropped from a much higher 117 FPS baseline down to 44 FPS when switching on path tracing.
Visually, the path tracing mode massively improves all of the game's lighting effects to provide a more realistic-looking experience. Textures glow less, and shadows properly apply to all of the objects in-game, including chair legs, plants, boxes, and items on tables. For example, in 007's apartment, all of the interior lighting in the daytime is lit from windows surrounding the apartment with path tracing on. With path tracing off, you can subtly tell where virtual light sources have been artificially placed by the game's artists to brighten specific parts of the room, causing unnatural shadows to affect certain objects (such as the dining room table). Mirror reflections also improve massively with path tracing with ultra high resolution reflections that allow you to see every single detail being reflected through the mirror. With path tracing off, the mirror effects are significantly blurred, making it difficult to see objects in the distance.
The benchmark results back up 007 First Light's system requirements page for the path tracing update, which demands an RTX 5090 for a good 4K gaming experience, an RTX 5080 for a 60 FPS experience at 1440p, and an RTX 5070 for a 60 FPS experience at 1080p. I also ran 007 First Light's path tracing update on my personal RTX 4070 and found performance to land in the mid-20 FPS range using either the path tracing medium or ultra settings at 4K using DLSS 4.5 in performance mode, in the game's staging area for its Tactical Simulation mode.
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007 First Light is the latest game to come out from the Hitman developers, and launched with raging success, amassing over 1.5 million sales in 24 hours after launch, and in three months sold 4 million titles, making it one of 2026's quickest-selling games. The game takes many of the gameplay mechanics of the Hitman series, tweaked to serve the needs of a 007 game. The devs also went out of their way to ensure the engine is well optimized for older hardware, to the point where the game is playable on a GTX 1650 despite having a software-based ray tracing solution you can't turn off.
