Five years after its tumultuous launch, Cyberpunk 2077 remains a lightning rod for both technical innovation and passionate debate among gamers and developers alike. From the bustling neon streets of Night City to the inner workings of its celebrated game engine, the title continues to inspire both awe and experimentation. In the closing days of 2025, a flurry of developments and discussions has reignited interest in how far the game—and the technology powering it—has come since 2020.
On December 25, 2025, Igor Sarzynski, the cinematic director of Cyberpunk 2077, took to social media to address a persistent rumor: that the game's elevators serve as cleverly disguised loading screens. Sarzynski was unequivocal. "No, elevators in Cyberpunk are not 'cleverly concealed loading screens'. You really think you can traverse whole city and enter a huge complex interior with no loading screens but we need to do elevator tricks to load a penthouse?" he declared, as reported by multiple outlets. For Sarzynski, the elevators are there because they make sense in the world of Night City—not because of technical limitations. He added, "This engine is a miracle. I will not accept slander."
Sarzynski's comments underscore a broader truth: the Cyberpunk 2077 engine is indeed capable of remarkable feats. Players can move seamlessly from one end of the city to the other, diving into massive interiors without a single loading screen. According to Sarzynski, if the developers had wanted to make elevator rides transparent, they could have. The inclusion of elevators is a narrative and gameplay choice, not a technical crutch. It's a point of pride for the team at CD Projekt Red, and one that highlights the game's ongoing legacy as a technical showcase.
But it isn't just developers who are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in Cyberpunk 2077. The player community, always eager to experiment, has found new ways to experience the game—sometimes by looking back as much as forward. On December 24, 2025, a player stunned the internet by running Cyberpunk 2077 at 85 frames per second on a 25-year-old CRT monitor, a Samsung Syncmaster 1200NF from the early 2000s. The feat, shared in a 46-second clip, showed Night City rendered with a unique retro flair: smooth driving, intense firefights, and all the CRT trappings of scanlines and flicker-driven clarity.
Of course, the secret sauce wasn't just nostalgia. Under the hood, the game was powered by a cutting-edge RTX 4090 graphics card and a Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, as detailed by Dexerto. The player, known as r/KobraKay87, explained, "Video colors are unedited, only using ingame Reshade to add some slight VHS noise and chroma smear for that extra CRT oomph." It's a testament to both the flexibility of modern PC gaming and the enduring charm of old-school hardware. The experiment also speaks to the game's broad appeal: whether you're chasing photorealistic path tracing or yearning for the lo-fi comfort of a bygone era, Night City welcomes all.
Meanwhile, the official side of CD Projekt Red isn't standing still. The company has confirmed plans for a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, promising multiplayer features and even hinting at the possible return of Keanu Reeves to the franchise. While details remain sparse, the news has fueled speculation and excitement among fans, many of whom still remember the anticipation—and controversy—surrounding the original launch.
But perhaps the most striking testament to Cyberpunk 2077's staying power is the way it has tracked, and sometimes driven, the evolution of gaming hardware itself. In a comprehensive retrospective published on December 24, 2025, NoobFeed chronicled the game's performance journey from the now-legendary RTX 2080 Ti to the modern behemoth that is the RTX 5090.
When Cyberpunk 2077 first hit the shelves, most players were running the game at 1440p resolution. Ray tracing—then a cutting-edge feature—was typically set to ultra, achieving frame rates around 60 fps but often dipping lower in more demanding areas. Turning off ray tracing, however, could boost performance to around 100 fps on the RTX 2080 Ti. Even so, enabling advanced features like ray-traced lighting and shadows came with steep performance penalties. For many, it was a delicate balancing act: sacrifice visual fidelity for smoother gameplay, or accept lower frame rates in exchange for a more immersive world.
At 4K resolution, the RTX 2080 Ti struggled even more. With ultra-performance DLSS enabled, frame rates hovered between 50 and 60 fps, but the internal resolution was so low that image quality suffered. Dropping DLSS to performance mode brought frame rates down to console-like levels—30 to 40 fps—though the visuals remained superior to what most consoles could muster at the time. Path tracing, a feature introduced post-launch, was even tougher to manage. On the RTX 2080 Ti, running path tracing at 1440p with ultra-performance DLSS resulted in about 40 fps, but with a noticeable loss in fine detail and clarity.
Fast forward to today, and the landscape looks dramatically different. With the RTX 5090, players can achieve frame rates of 130 to 140 fps at 1440p with performance DLSS and ultra ray tracing, while GPU usage sits comfortably around 60% and power consumption hovers near 300W. Turning on DLAA and leveraging the latest transformer models pushes GPU usage close to 100%, but frame rates remain steady at 110 to 120 fps, and the visual quality is markedly improved. At 4K, the RTX 5090 delivers approximately 100 fps with extreme ray tracing enabled, though enabling path tracing in highly reflective scenes can still reduce frame rates to around 60 fps.
These improvements are more than just numbers. As NoobFeed points out, the difference in visual fidelity and smoothness is immediately apparent. Ray tracing and path tracing now feel less like luxury features and more like standard expectations for high-end gaming. The evolution isn't just about raw power, either. Advances in upscaling technology, like DLSS and frame generation, have made it possible for more players to enjoy the game's full visual splendor without the trade-offs that once seemed inevitable.
Reflecting on this five-year journey, it's clear that Cyberpunk 2077 has served as both a benchmark and a bellwether for the gaming industry. Ray tracing, once a niche feature, is now commonplace—even if it still doesn't run flawlessly on every piece of hardware. The RTX 5090's leap in performance, while impressive, also comes with increased power demands and larger physical footprints, signaling a trend toward ever-more advanced rendering methods. Neural rendering, though not yet standard, looms on the horizon as the next big leap.
For all the technical wizardry, though, the heart of Cyberpunk 2077 remains its world—and the people, both real and virtual, who inhabit it. Whether you're marveling at the seamless transition from city street to penthouse suite, experimenting with CRT nostalgia, or tweaking settings to eke out every last frame, the game continues to invite exploration, debate, and wonder. As Night City looks to the future, so too does the technology that brings it to life.
