In fact, it’s both! After a few hours of playing time, the somewhat tough prologue including intermezzo and a few crashes (including patches), I am now a few nerves poorer and many experiences (as well as a game that is probably addictive) richer. If I had simply resisted the temptation to start right on the first day, I would probably have saved myself a lot of trouble. But whatever. With version 1.04 you can already live (and sometimes benchmark) quite well. So it fits.
Atmospherically, Cyberpunk 2077 is first class, the stories and dialogues are all around, the German synchro deserves its name rightly, a great open world (with size, flair and pep) leaves nothing to be desired, the soundtrack is almost outstanding (also in terms of quality of the material), graphically it’s all a revelation (if you don’t play it on low) and even raytracing is more than just a sugar-sweet wrapping that spoils your taste with too much bombast. Yeah, it pretty much adds up, and I can hardly remember ever seeing a game get so many positives in one test. Although I actually like (and mostly rightly so) nagging.
I remember exactly when I called the “Master Propper for the grenade-polished mirror floors” on Battlefield V and later on Metro Exodus the whole raytracing story (RTX On) rather as a running gag and “coloful and photrealistic dying, but at least in slow motion”. Here I have to apologize at this point, because never before raytracing was used in a game in a more meaningful and beautiful way than in Cyberpunk 2077. The added value expresses itself in an even further increased immersion and an almost photo-realistic representation, provided of course that the appropriate hardware is available. And this is where the tour of tears for many an expensive pixel push begins. But I’ll get to DLSS for doping V’s hair in a minute.
If you only take the “normal” rasterization (DXR Off), then you won’t manage to achieve constant frame rates of 60 FPS in Ultra-HD even with a GeForce RTX 3090 or Radeon RX 6900 XT, in WQHD this works at least from a GeForce RTX 3070 or a Radeon RX 6800. This looks noble and nice, of course, but for all cards below, the iron sliding rule in the settings applies: Left over right protects against data jams and bunnies. And raytracing is a completely different calibre. Of course not for the AMD cards, because they have a complete timeout there.
Let’s first compare the individual quality levels and pay attention during the day to reflections (puddles), environmental obscuration, lighting including shadows and, of course, the overall impression as the sum of all four effects (they can also be individually defined and switched off):
This also works at night, especially since I personally like Night City at night (nomen est omen) and the surrounding wasteland during the day best. All cats are grey at night, well, almost:
Raytracing is the hottest shit of the season, at least in Cyberpunk 2077 this can’t be discussed away anymore. Sure, it also works without and at least everything from “high” on looks still quite usable thanks to the well implemented global lighting. What else? Also the streaming has been polished up properly, as one can drive through all parts of the city without feeling any reloading jerk. Also the view from prominent, because high places allows smooth panoramic views at any time, assuming a proper multi-core CPU. Here AMD is ahead of Intel, after all.
If we concentrate on the impressions of the first 12 hours of play (more was not possible due to time constraints), then as an intermediate conclusion it remains that smaller mistakes are forgivable, even if they can be annoying. You are welcome to patch up a little bit here. Why does a car have to explode, e.g. when touching a concrete plank (including your own death), while elsewhere you can pleasurably rivet all oncoming traffic together and no damage model is applicable?
Accidental death comes unpredictably and without a recognizable pattern. Sometimes never, sometimes permanently. That still belongs out, just like smaller clipping errors, glitches or even crashes. Which, by the way, often occur when, for example, an additional controller like my XBox Elite Wireless Series 2 is connected. Talking about crashes and error messages, the studio did a good job and at least showed some humor. You also need it, because in many longer missions you can’t save meaningfully and have to grudgingly start over again. But yes, it has become better (because less).
Of course I also have benchmarks and an additional note on DLSS for you, because it has never been as valuable as it is today. Why that is so, you will find out in a moment. Turn the page, please
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