➤ Cyberpunk 2077, review on PS4: big trouble on the old gen 🎮

Cyberpunk 2077 was, without any surprise, one of the most anticipated games of 2020. In recent days we had the opportunity to review the PC version which, thanks to the latest generation hardware, showed itself with a technical / visual appearance of great impact. Unfortunately the same thing cannot be said for that console which, as we will see in the Cyberpunk 2077 PS4 version review, showed up at the starting gates in a disastrous way. There are really no other words to describe an experience bordering on unplayable on base consoles and way below promises when it comes to mid gen (we tested the game on both PS4 and PS4 Pro).

CD Projekt has already confirmed that even these "old gen" versions will be supported and improved over time, obviously we will not fail to follow these developments; however, it remains undeniable that at the moment it is a product well below our expectations.

A technical catastrophe

The PC review highlighted the many strengths and minor defects, apart from the deficient AI, of a game developed with this platform as the main reference. Here we will instead deal with the PS4 and PS4 Pro version of Cyberpunk 2077, which as you can imagine or have experienced for yourself is something completely different, and not in a positive way: it can't even reach the lowest standard of technical quality that should be expected even when playing on hardware with its years on its shoulders. It works badly enough to make driving, combat, and what would otherwise be a great game difficult to watch - it's no exaggeration to talk about frame rates so unstable that it feels like you're watching video buffering continuously.

With patch 1.0.2 the drop even reached 10fps and although the following 1.0.4 seemed to have fixed things, that little difference is still overshadowed. from crashes and bugs that invalidate the experience to the point of forcing you to frequently reload the game, or even to turn off the game in the hope that they will be resolved. An attempt is not an act, they say, and right now the patches made by CD Projekt Red do not even reflect this effort. PS4 base is in no way able to maintain the stability of the frame rate, which improves on the Pro version but still takes significant steps backwards while driving, in the open world and in heated firefights. On the base PS4 there is such a delay in the actions that the enemies react to our shots after a few seconds, making it impossible to determine the progress of a shooting or even just to manage it at best.

Cyberpunk 2077, review on PS4: big trouble on the old gen

Regarding the resolution, we discussed it in the article on technical analysis, we have dynamic 900p on base, which often stands at 720p, and dynamic 1188p as usual more tending to a lowering on 972p. Despite this, in the current state of things we are always faced with a drop in performance and despite having vaguely adjusted the stability with the 1.0.4 patch, the price has been a prolonged loading time of the textures: in practice, yes they see many characters with polygonal faces as in the best Picasso in three dimensions. It can get worse, however, as in some cases NPCs are bound to stay in their geometric cocoon and the ambient textures won't even appear if you turn off effects like film grain and motion blur.

We are only faced with a part, albeit an important one, of the problems of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4. A couple of paragraphs above we have mentioned the bugs and how their presence also comes to torture the gaming experience already marred by everything else: you can expect everything, from those understandable and in a certain sense funny like weapons and phones floating in the air or characters walking in the void with all the nonchalance in the world, to others much more annoying that often go against your progression. We are talking about fundamental characters to continue with a mission - yes, even the main one - of which, however, there is no trace, actions made impossible because the selected weapon is not shown despite the fact that V's hands are seen in the act of holding it. Commands like sheltering inside the car during a firefight that don't work and make us a perfect sponge for anyone wanting to do some target practice. And again, characters who play hide and seek with collisions, getting stuck somewhere to never get out and hinder us once again in our intentions. Invisible clothing as much as weapons, which do not show up on a V although in the equipment menu they are considered. Not to mention the annoying pop ups that don't, patch 1.0.4 doesn't fix it at all.

You won't need to advance far to see Cyberpunk 2077 in its true light. Or rather, to notice all those shadows that have been hidden in the marketing campaign: from the very first steps in what should be the city of the future, videogame speaking, Night City presents itself with a low density of traffic and population. If on PC you have had the feeling of a metropolis that is not empty but still less crowded than you might have expected, a look at the console version will make you keep your observations for yourself. In addition to being an evidence in itself, it is also noticeable by the means used to not burden the performance, going to undermine the dive.

Beyond removing the effects of explosions, weapons or even just the smoke, the excessive multiplication of the few passers-by is evident in order to avoid showing too many different models as much as possible. Let's take the example of night clubs, places par excellence quite crowded between strippers and the public: in this case they are barely filled by some character, which gives the idea of being there just to decorate. In that sense, Night City has a very strong setback in his ability to immerse the player, who will have a sense of detachment on many occasions. Cyberpunk 2077 is not just graphics, we agree, but a great part of its fun comes from its atmosphere and attention to detail that deserves to be shown to pay homage to Night City and the adventures that can be experienced there.

If it is possible to overlook some visual rubbish by virtue of the fact that it is still running on an old console like the base PS4 (a little less justified is the Pro version) and it is not even to think of having the same quality as on PC, we can't do it for any technical problems that plague the game. Put more succinctly, we would have accepted to play it at a low level of detail if the performance had proved stable: this is not the case and we can only report the shortcomings. Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 is broken.

Gameplay and storytelling

We will devote a little less space to these two aspects because everything has already been expressed in the PC review. Cyberpunk 2077 is a mammoth game, in terms of spaces and activities, and his Night City is the melting pot par excellence with all its influences in design taken from both the West and the East in the creation of a dystopian city. We would like to say alive but it would not be entirely exact, given the low density of NPCs, however it cannot be denied how especially at night it is a potential sight for the eyes with all those neon lights that seem to want to show the true face of the city, what is concealed during the day. There are as many activities to do as there are ways to approach them and ours or our V are the extension of ourselves, although not as we would have expected from the premises carried out in recent years: we are not faced with an empty character from fill, but rather to one already temperamentally formed, whose path is quite influenced by the lifestyle that we decide at the beginning but who basically perceives himself as a Geralt of the future. That is, in fact, a protagonist with his own character and personality that we can swing between the two poles of white and black. On the one hand, this goes in favor of dubbing, which is very rare for a first-person RPG, on the other hand, it presents an already rather routed character whose future is left in our hands.

Under the profile narrative, CD Projekt Red crafted a memorable storyline and demonstrated Pondsmith's characters at heart, making Cyberpunk 2077 the natural extension of the paper role-playing game. The main mission is treated in detail, as well as many of the secondary ones, however we could not help but notice an important stain that goes to dirty this aspect in general, that is the management of the narrative: it lacks, in simple terms, a level of adaptability based on our actions. Taking the example of Red Dead Redemption 2, in the course of the game we are faced with potential lines of dialogue in relation to what we have done before facing a certain mission. There are not many variables, certainly it would not be possible to take into account every possible nuance, but they still modify the trend taking into account the previous actions. The game remembers what we have done in the world, making us feel part of it.

This does not happen in Cyberpunk 2077, on the contrary, it is rowed in the opposite direction in a quite brutal way: certain characters behave assuming that certain missions or actions have already been done, when in reality it is not so, and this creates a very strong sense. of detachment from the narrative. It deprives the player of an immersion that is everything, for a title of this magnitude, and it is a false step due both to the desire to put too much stuff to be able to manage it properly, and from the fact of making missions and Logically they should be unlocked gradually.

Regarding what can actively be done, be it side missions, occasional events, search for the perfect equipment, firefights because yes, customization of V through grafts, everything is somehow hindered by the quality of artificial intelligence dancing between the all too omniscient and lethargy: in some cases the NPCs know perfectly well where we are without having the opportunity to understand it, while in others they turn out to be too blind and deaf. It goes from the ability to detect the player when he would theoretically be invisible or to total impassivity despite having just killed a partner two meters away. The situation does not improve during the combat phases, which could even be comical if it were not so annoying: there have been times when the AI crashed and the enemies remained stationary despite the bullets that hit them, or a situation in where a whole group of five or six flock to the corridor without crossing the threshold that separates them from the player. Tragicomic situations that, again, undermine the immersion especially when they occur against the bosses, who suddenly turn into passive amoebas ready to welcome any blow directed at them without batting an eyelid.

Comment

Tested version PlayStation 4 Resources4Gaming.com

4.5

Readers (184)

6.1

Your vote

In short, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that has a lot, a lot to offer and it is difficult to resist its call once dragged into the swirling vortex of colors and sensations given by Night City; this while taking into consideration a deficient artificial intelligence and a certain narrative detachment of some situations. Unfortunately, its potential beauty is impossible to experience on the base PS4 and barely tolerable on the PS4 Pro, which while performing better does not meet the expected standards. It is completely unacceptable that the performance on a not so old old gen is so poor, despite the various postponements aimed at optimizing the game on the platforms for which it was originally designed. And the very management of the pre-launch communication was undoubtedly wrong.