I've been playing and enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 on a base PS4 for dozens of hours (all with 1.04 patch). The game, when it works, is actually amazing. The gameplay mechanics are varied, well-crafted and make me look forward for a second (and eventually third) playthrough. However, there're issues. The bugs, hard crashes and frame rate drops are obvious problems and the community should expect them to be solved. But even without them, there are MAJOR VISUAL PROBLEMS that leave much to be desired.
1 - THE GARINY LOOK
There is a very prominent grainy look throughout nearly the entire game and It is one of the most distracting visual problem in my opinion. It undermines the textures and overall visuals of the game in a way that I haven't seen on any PS4 game so far. It's especially disruptive in shadowed places (the effect is quite drastic in tunnels) and reflective surfaces. Apparently, it has to do with the lighting engine and/or screen space reflections. Regardless, it must be fixed for the game to be able to look good.
2 - RESOLUTION
Of course, the higher the resolution, the better. But the resolution the game presents itself in on the base PS4 is just unacceptable. It's understandable that it is challenging to render the most demanding open world action scenes in 1080p, but even some relatively simple indoors gameplay fails to reach a decent resolution. If you've been playing on a base PS4, take a look at some side-by-side comparison videos on YouTube to see just how much the PS4 players are missing due to the resolution gap compared to the 1080p we would usually get. Right from the opening nomad sequence in the garage, it's clear that the resolution the base PS4 renders the game in is a shadow of what the game actually is or should be. IT'S JUST TO BLURRY and falls short of what other very demanding games have been able to show on the console. And again, the resolutions are surprisingly low even in simple indoors gameplay.
The city fells like the most important character of the game and we don't get to properly appreciate it on the kind of blurry and grainy visual the base PS4 shows us. It's very bellow what we've come to expect from this generation of consoles and falls behind the achievements of other games that were able to construct beautiful worlds for gamers to explore on the same hardware. In the rare moments that for some reason the game appears to render in better quality, it's an amazing (short) experience.
It's obvious that the PS4 won't render it in 4K - 60 fps, with ray-traced quality lighting, huge NPC counts and super high draw distances, but FOR THE GAME TO LOOK AND PLAY AS PLAYERS SHOUD EXPECT FROM THE PS4 GENERATION, IT SHOULD AT LEAST PLAY AT NO LESS THAN 900p - 24fps on the most demanding open world scenarios
Because I'm loving Night City and the whole game so much, I took the time to write this. If it were another game, I'd just get a refund but a REALLY REALLY want to play this game with the more RESONABLE VISUALS I've come to expect from the PS4 (and of course with no bugs or super low frame rates). It could be the case that beond optimization and quality improvements on the engine side, the game needs simplified geometry or a new approach to anti-aliasing (I obviously don't really know). I just hope CD PROJECT RED puts in the work and take a DEEP LOOK, from the engine to the actual game, on what's not working properly technical-wise and deliver a game with proper visuals and performance.
And again, FOR THE GAME TO LOOK AND PLAY AS PLAYERS SHOUD EXPECT FROM THE PS4 GENERATION, IT SHOULD PLAY AT NO LESS THAN 900p - 24fps
1 - THE GARINY LOOK
There is a very prominent grainy look throughout nearly the entire game and It is one of the most distracting visual problem in my opinion. It undermines the textures and overall visuals of the game in a way that I haven't seen on any PS4 game so far. It's especially disruptive in shadowed places (the effect is quite drastic in tunnels) and reflective surfaces. Apparently, it has to do with the lighting engine and/or screen space reflections. Regardless, it must be fixed for the game to be able to look good.
2 - RESOLUTION
Of course, the higher the resolution, the better. But the resolution the game presents itself in on the base PS4 is just unacceptable. It's understandable that it is challenging to render the most demanding open world action scenes in 1080p, but even some relatively simple indoors gameplay fails to reach a decent resolution. If you've been playing on a base PS4, take a look at some side-by-side comparison videos on YouTube to see just how much the PS4 players are missing due to the resolution gap compared to the 1080p we would usually get. Right from the opening nomad sequence in the garage, it's clear that the resolution the base PS4 renders the game in is a shadow of what the game actually is or should be. IT'S JUST TO BLURRY and falls short of what other very demanding games have been able to show on the console. And again, the resolutions are surprisingly low even in simple indoors gameplay.
The city fells like the most important character of the game and we don't get to properly appreciate it on the kind of blurry and grainy visual the base PS4 shows us. It's very bellow what we've come to expect from this generation of consoles and falls behind the achievements of other games that were able to construct beautiful worlds for gamers to explore on the same hardware. In the rare moments that for some reason the game appears to render in better quality, it's an amazing (short) experience.
It's obvious that the PS4 won't render it in 4K - 60 fps, with ray-traced quality lighting, huge NPC counts and super high draw distances, but FOR THE GAME TO LOOK AND PLAY AS PLAYERS SHOUD EXPECT FROM THE PS4 GENERATION, IT SHOULD AT LEAST PLAY AT NO LESS THAN 900p - 24fps on the most demanding open world scenarios
Because I'm loving Night City and the whole game so much, I took the time to write this. If it were another game, I'd just get a refund but a REALLY REALLY want to play this game with the more RESONABLE VISUALS I've come to expect from the PS4 (and of course with no bugs or super low frame rates). It could be the case that beond optimization and quality improvements on the engine side, the game needs simplified geometry or a new approach to anti-aliasing (I obviously don't really know). I just hope CD PROJECT RED puts in the work and take a DEEP LOOK, from the engine to the actual game, on what's not working properly technical-wise and deliver a game with proper visuals and performance.
And again, FOR THE GAME TO LOOK AND PLAY AS PLAYERS SHOUD EXPECT FROM THE PS4 GENERATION, IT SHOULD PLAY AT NO LESS THAN 900p - 24fps