It’s Monday, Must Be Cyberpunk 2077

The Verdict Seems To Be; Good Enough

Cyberpunk 2077 has arrived, at least for some, while the rest of us have to wait another two days to check out Night City.  One of the lucky few was Ars Technica, who are happy to share their thoughts on CPDR’s latest effort.  The overall look keeps to the neon jungle from the original tabletop RPG, as we saw in the various teases released during the long run to release.  It is populated by a large number of people, apparently quite diverse in appearance but from the sounds of it you shouldn’t expect much in the way of dialogue from them; it’s not Bethesda after all.

Armed with an RTX 3080 they tried out ray tracing to see how well implemented it is, as usual the answer is a little complicated.  When it works Ars describes it as beautiful, the reflective surfaces and light sources offering impressive visuals during the day or at night.  The lighting is still impressive without ray tracing, but nowhere near as well rendered so you should still enjoy the game without it, though they do mention some dark locations which are much easier to see in with ray tracing.  This is a preview, so no performance numbers as of yet. 

Not all is perfect, for instance melee weapons currently out power firearms by enough that Ars felt them overpowered.  Trying to look at yourself also presents issues, you are not reflected in game unless staring at a mirror and that offers some different issues.  The various dialogues and plot points can also cause you a bit of trouble as they do not seem to mind starting up when you are in a different conversation, or a firefight for that matter.

Overall it looks like this one should be good, though it will be up to you to figure out for yourself if it lives up to the hype.