Without ARM's Enlighten, the smaller rock on the left would be entirely dark.
Categories

ARM Enlighten creates stunning lighting effects in open world games

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Open worlds are proliferating in gaming, but it isn’t easy to do them right. Chip design company ARM is helping developers out with Enlighten, a middleware tool that makes it easier to create open worlds with outstanding 3D graphics and lighting effects.

Enlighten is part of a movement in animation for “global illumination,” or creating light sources such as the sun or reflective surfaces that accurately capture the way that light behaves. Enlighten halves the performance cost for making lighting more realistic, and the result is far more realistic scenes in video game worlds.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X!
Join now to enjoy our free and premium membership perks.
Join Now
Already a member? Sign in
Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.