Hands On: Cyberpunk 2077 Is Now Utterly Essential on PS5 Pro

We've just cruised around Night City after installing Cyberpunk 2077's new PS5 Pro update, and all we can say is... wow.

CD Projekt Red's dystopian open world was already one of the best looking games on Sony's system — at least, in our humble opinion — but this patch makes it borderline jaw-dropping at times.

Granted, you're still going to get better results on a high-end PC — obviously — but the jump in both visual clarity and lighting detail is blatant between the previous PS5 version of Cyberpunk 2077 and this upgraded edition.

To quickly recap, this patch unlocks three graphics modes on PS5 Pro. Previously, the game didn't have any support for the increasingly expensive console — the only benefit of playing on the Pro was that frame rates could be a little more stable thanks to the additional heft of the hardware.

But all three of the aforementioned modes make a significant difference in their own ways. And in truth, we don't think you can go wrong with any of them — and that's a rare occurrence indeed when it comes to graphical optimisation on consoles.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, we should highlight the very effective use of PSSR 2 here. Sony's AI-driven upscaler, which was recently upgraded, appears to bring a certain crispness to Cyberpunk 2077 that simply wasn't there before.

In particular, middle-distance details can look way higher quality, giving a kind of newfound visual depth to Night City as a whole. In short, it's like the resolution's been bumped up across the board, regardless of which graphical mode you choose.

Now then, as for the modes themselves...

Ray Tracing Pro

As its name suggests, Ray Tracing Pro looks to max out Cyberpunk 2077's ray tracing capabilities on PS5 Pro, and the result is easily one of the most impressive examples of the tech running on consoles.

With this mode enabled, Night City is simply stunning when the sun goes down. Every neon sign, every streetlight, every lit-up room in every skyscraper — they all give off a believable glow, be it warm or cold.

When you pack so many of these light sources together, say, along a highway or street in the game's busy downtown district, the setting reaches a whole new level of eye candy. Just gawking at the passing cityscape is a genuine delight.

Ray-traced reflections are a selling point of this mode as well, although it's worth noting that said reflections only exist in select areas. For example, the puddle-based reflections that caused a bit of a stir on PC are absent, but you can still see full reflections in both car and building windows.

The reflections are impressive once you notice them, but we don't think they're the main reason to choose Ray Tracing Pro; it's the overall boost to Night City's many illuminations that cement this mode as a true eye-popper.

Of course, the downside to Ray Tracing Pro is that it limits the title's frame rate. It's lowered to 30 frames-per-second on a 60hz display, but if you've got a screen capable of 120hz, you're handed a much more agreeable 40fps.

For us, 30fps is far from ideal for such an action-heavy title; and it's really hard to go back to such a cap if you've enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 at 60fps before, even with all of the ray-traced bells and whistles.

But 40fps can make for a surprising sweet spot, and so we'd encourage anyone with a 120hz display to at least give Ray Tracing Pro a shot — even if it's to just hop in your favourite car and take it for a ten-minute spin around the block.

Ray Tracing

Cyberpunk 2077's middle-of-the-road mode might be our personal pick of the three.

Ray Tracing sacrifices some of the ray tracing features found in Ray Tracing Pro in order to provide a frame rate boost to 60fps. You're effectively getting very smooth gameplay and — at a glance — the same kind of glorious lighting that you'll encounter with Ray Tracing Pro.

Ray-traced reflections are basically the same, and so the biggest difference comes in the form of lighting quality.

With Ray Tracing Pro, big shop signs, for example, will give off a glow that illuminates a realistically large area, coating everyone and everything around it.

But with Ray Tracing, that glow isn't as far-reaching or as effective at interacting with surrounding objects, like cars or NPCs. There's less 'volume' to it, if that makes sense, and so Night City doesn't seem quite so colourful.

This downgrade probably won't make a difference to most players, though. As alluded, Ray Tracing still manages to breathe new life into the game's countless light sources, and when you couple that with 60fps, well... it's hard to look back.

And yes, that 60fps is rock solid. We purposefully went on a murderous rampage in one of Night City's most populated spaces, and the frame rate held up shockingly well, even when MaxTac got involved alongside dozens of desperate cops.

Performance

Performance is easily the least impactful mode on offer, but there's still something here for players who value the smoothest possible gameplay.

This mode disables ray tracing features entirely, which honestly feels like an immediate downgrade on the previous two settings — and that can be difficult to get around after seeing just how gorgeous Ray Tracing Pro and Ray Tracing can be.

But if you can stomach the distinct lack of lighting density, Performance gives you a silky frame rate. On 60hz displays, this is harder to recommend because you're still capped at (an admittedly unshakeable) 60fps — but playing on a 120hz screen means you can enjoy a super smooth 90fps target.

And let us tell you, Cyberpunk 2077 feels damn good at 90fps. The game's already punchy gunplay hits hyper responsive levels, and based on our testing, it takes some serious stress to make this mode drop even a small number of frames.

The ray tracing trade-off won't be for everyone, but the open world title's simply never played better than this on console.

Comparing the Three Modes

In order to try and highlight the immediate difference in ray tracing quality between the three available modes on PS5 Pro, we've taken the same screenshot across each mode:

Ray Tracing Pro

Ray Tracing

Performance

As you can (hopefully) see, the overall 'volume' of light is much greater with Ray Tracing Pro — this is best evidenced by the fact that the yellow sign overhead comes close to enveloping the whole sidewalk in a warm glow. That same glow is mostly lost with Ray Tracing.

Both Ray Tracing Pro and Ray Tracing show reflective surfaces across the car. Again, it's the overall difference in lighting quality that's apparent between these two modes.

Performance, as explained previously, boasts no ray tracing whatsoever — and so while the main neon sign is reflected on the car's hood — albeit at a much lower quality — that same reflection doesn't appear on the windshield, and the purple neon strip disappears from the car window.

So, in conclusion, Cyberpunk 2077 is effectively a must-play on PS5 Pro. The ray-traced modes have left us thoroughly impressed, bringing an entirely new sense of visual depth to an already outstanding open world.