With international borders shut, the only place I could safely travel to during this pandemic was Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City… courtesy of a new editing/ gaming rig. After sinking in approximately 100 hours and completing all main and side quests, my thirst for travel photography has also been satiated with the in-game camera…

Whilst the release of CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 was riddled with controversies, especially for those playing on last-gen consoles, on newer hardware it is a visually stunning game and an excellent demo for ray-tracing capabilities. The world is visually striking and almost photorealistic, and if you don’t look too deeply into the very basic AI, it feels like a lived-in city with each zone of Night City having it’s own distinct architectural and cultural flair.

Despite the lack-lustre (bordering non-existent) AI when comparing to older open-world counterparts such as GTA V or Red Dead Redemption, there are little vignettes that play out, almost implying a brief moment in the NPC’s lives. Despite being superficial where the illusion can be broken quite easily with the slightest of provocations, it’s these moments that satisfy my craving for candid street style snaps. In real life, I would be using either my Ricoh GR III or one of my Leica cameras.

Even off the street, the NPCs populated around the place have their own distinct flair, whether it’s their unique wardrobe, the situational behaviours or even by pure randomly computer-generated wizardry (story-based or not). The interior set designs and lighting scream cyberpunk with their complimentary neon colour schemes. The ability to render volumetric lighting effects and simulate depth of field in the inbuilt camera system allows for visually realistic captures.

The textures on the NPC models feel truly next-gen, and the ray-traced lighting definitely improves upon the rendering (take a look at any console NPC vs RTX PC rendering) for the character models. With any kind of rim-light or motivated light source, the textures really pop. However, with flatter, diffused daylit situations the RTX effect is much less pronounced.

At the end of the day, clocking in approximately 100 hours in Night City was my equivalent of travelling across international borders. This was all a crazy happenstance where my rig was finally built, and the game to christen it happened to be Cyberpunk 2077, which despite general grievances in news media and game reporting… I found to be compelling story wise with the rich main and side quests, even if the actually AI mechanisms may feel shallow upon closer scrutiny.

I may do another play-through once DLC’s are announced, and may even mod the game itself as well. In the meantime, hopefully this blog post of my first run through Night City bookends this strange chapter of isolation, and I can get back to real-life shooting!

As it stands, if I had to rate my time away in Night City, it would be a solid 8/10.

PC SPECS

  • Intel Core i9 10900KA
  • Corsair Hydro H100i RGB Platinum CPU Cooler, 240mm Radiator
  • ASUS ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming MB
  • ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 Trinity OC
  • Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 32GB (2x16GB), PC4-24000 (3000MHz) DDR4
  • Samsung 1TB SSD, 860 EVO, SATA III
  • Samsung 500GB SSD, 970 EVO Plus, M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen3
  • Seagate 2TB BarraCuda 3.5″ Hard Drive, SATA III, 7200RPM, 256MB Cache
  • Corsair 850W RM850 Gold Power Supply, 80 PLUS Gold
  • Corsair AIRFLOW 4000D White Mid Tower ATX Case, Tempered Glass Window