Cyberpunk 2077 adds Path-Tracing support with Overdrive mode in April – That’s Gaming

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The technical state in which Cyberpunk 2077 launched may not have been anything to write home about, but with consistent updates over the past few years, CD Projekt RED has managed to bring the game to a point where its impressive visual aspects can finally shine. In April, the game will receive a new update that will improve this even further.

At GDC, Nvidia and CD Projekt RED announced that Cyberpunk 2077 will add the new Overdrive mode on April 11, which will enable path-tracing on PCs powered by DLSS 3, for which support was added to the game earlier this year. And what exactly is path-tracing? In a nutshell, it is a much improved version of ray-tracing (also called full ray-tracing), which allows all light sources to cast physically correct soft shadows, creating more realistic indirect lighting and occlusion.

“This not only gives better visual aspects to players, but also has the promise to revolutionize the entire pipeline of game making,” Nvidia’s senior technology developer engineer Pawel Kozlowski said in a recently published blog post.

Nvidia also says Cyberpunk 2077 will use Shader Execution Reordering to “optimize GPU workloads” and enable “more efficient path-traced lighting.”

Cyberpunk 2077 is available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4 and Xbox One. The first and only expansion, Phantom Liberty, will be released sometime this year for PC and current-generation consoles.