Welcome back to Cyberpunk 2077, a game transformed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. The prior ‘back-compat plus’ versions of the game yield to a brand-new rendition based on current-gen SDKs, allowing CD Projekt RED to fully tap into the capabilities of the new wave of consoles. This is a game with a troubled history and this new 1.5 upgrade delivers both 30fps ray tracing and an enhanced 60fps performance mode, combined with other current-gen improvements such as improved loading times – but how much of an upgrade do users actually get?
First up, it’s worth addressing the elephant in the room: Xbox Series S. There’s no dressing this one up, the junior Xbox has no graphics toggle at all and is set to simply run at a dynamic 1440p, at 30 frames per second. In pixel counts that’s actually a range of between 2304×1296, up to 2560×1440 based on my testing. Purely on a surface level here it’s a shame to see it miss out on a 60fps mode (CDPR says it’s investigating adding it) but equally, no ray tracing features are enabled either. Still, the overall quality of life improvements on patch 1.50 do make Cyberpunk more playable – just don’t expect any revolutionary boosts to its visuals in this case. For that, we have to turn back to PS5 and Series X, where for the first time on console, ray traced shadows are enabled, working in combination with improved screen-space reflections.
Despite talk of 4K, our tests strongly suggest that the RT modes on both consoles render at a native 1440p. Dynamic resolution scaling may be in effect, but all results on all consoles deliver the same value in every scenario – which raises the question: what does RT actually do? Outdoors, the impact of RT shadows is fairly muted to the point where even in direct head-to-head comparisons, you may have trouble noticing the difference between the quality and performance modes. Indoors, it’s a different ball game, where sharp directional lighting can really demonstrate the upgrade. RT produces more realistic shadows, following the real-world logic where the further an object is from the light source, the more diffuse the outline becomes. The same goes for vehicle barriers, small items around V’s apartment and even the pillows on their bed. The effect is often subtle. In select spots though, shadows fully envelope a scene to create an obviously richer, deeper image.
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But ray-traced shadows are where the upgrades in ray-tracing settings end on console. Ray traced reflections look phenomenal in the PC version of the game, though sadly they’re not present on PS5 or Series X, while their ambient occlusion method similarly remains the same. All told then, placing PS5 and Series X in RT mode alongside Series S’s standard non-RT presentation, all are offering a 1440p30 outlook and all look very similar, with RT only manifesting in an impactful way in select indoor areas. Elsewhere, the upgrade is less apparent on Night City’s streets. Textures, effects and draw distance on geometry are all are matched between the three in driving sequences. Meanwhile reflections are improved on the two more powerful machines – using a higher-grade screen-space technique – but beyond that it’s a very similar presentation on each platform. Even crowd density on Series S holds up convincingly next to the other two.
Performance across Series consoles and PS5 in their respective 30fps modes is fairly straightforward to assess. Barring occasional hitches and one-off tearing at the top of the screen, frame-rate is a mostly consistent 30 frames per second. The only real issue with this mode is general input latency being far too high, making it harder to aim or drive than the 60FPS mode. Ultimately, the RT mode does the job if you’re really interested in RT shadows, but up against the 60fps performance mode, it’s difficult not to come to the conclusion that this is an interesting experiment, and ultimately not the way this game should be played.