Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.62 Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode & NG+

The new Patch 1.62 Ray Tracing Overdrive Mode for Cyberpunk 2077 has just dropped. There are also some NG+ information and a few other updates for the game. The update released on 11th March brought us new features, such as the all-new path tracing and a juiced-up version of ray tracing. With this patch, ray tracing is way more in-depth, where the light reflections are more realistic. This also dramatically benefits almost everything, such as the shadows and wonky-looking visuals we see in the game sometimes. It makes the game look incredibly realistic; it's a game changer from a technology standpoint.

The Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.62 tracing feature will show up in the setting on PC, but if you don't own a 3090 or a 40 series GPU, your game will probably crash, or it'll show up enabled, and your graphics won't look very good. But if you don't own a 3090 or a 40 series GPU such as 4080 4090 CD, Projekt did add some extra features that are available with any RTX graphics card that use machine learning to give you better visuals: Nvidia DLAA and Intel Xe. These two features cannot be used simultaneously, and DLAA uses Al to improve the visual quality and make the game look better.

The new Intel Xe Super Sampling 1.1 uses machine learning to perform better while maintaining High image quality and using Ray Tracing. Obviously, this update is pretty limited not only to PCs but real high-end PCs with a 40 series GPU. Some of the features are still available for other RTX cards, but still, a small portion of players, so as great as the improvements are, most people are not going to experience them. 

The last we heard about the Cyberpunk 2077 NG+ was from the Level Design Lead Miles Tost, who went on a bit of a rant about NG+ on Twitter. He also said it's not like we're working on only one thing at a time; resources are finite even for big companies, and we have much stuff cooking. They may have an even more full schedule since the time of that tweet since the success with Edge Runners seems to have enabled them to push forward with all these new projects. Besides that, the CD Projekt Red developers haven't given any additional updates regarding NG+.

If you're really hopeful, you can hope for a surprise NG+ released with the DLC, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition had an NG+ update released as a free DLC, which could be the case here, too. Maybe they will sneak in a little NG+ update along with the Phantom Liberty DLC or Patch 1.7 or just release it later. Last we heard, Cyberpunk 2077 NG+ did not sound too appealing to the CD Projekt developers. It was also not impossible, even though they had thoroughly explored the possibility of NG+ coming to the game. 

We can only hope that CD Projekt will sneak in an NG+ along with the DLC or Patch 1.7, at least allowing us to respec attribute points. The possibilities for builds in this game are endless, and it's one of the best things Cyberpunk has going for. But having to grind through the game repeatedly to try out new skills is annoying. It's a very long game, so it's a lot to get through to do that. On top of that, if you're on your first playthrough of the game or you're not paying close attention to where you're placing your points, you can completely block off some of the skills that really change the game. And now, your only choice is to play an entirely new playthrough.

Well, for now, we can only speculate. But it's always nice to see frequent updates from CD Projekt on Cyberpunk 2077, and we look forward to Patch 1.7, which will probably include some updates on the possible NG+ content.