We've had our first look at the photo mode for Cyberpunk 2077, the blockbuster in the making videogame that's finally hitting streets this week – and it looks to be the best photo mode any game has ever seen.
Polish developer CD Projekt Red has released the trailer for the Cyberpunk 2077 photo mode – an in-game photography feature possessed by many of the biggest and best videogames, such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and the PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man, which enables you to engage in virtual photography (opens in new tab) using authentic camera and photography techniques and settings.
• Best photography video games (opens in new tab)
Previously, titles like Ghosts of Tsushima (opens in new tab) and Horizon: Zero Dawn vied for the crown of best photo mode in a videogame, but Cyberpunk 2077 looks to be taking things to unprecedented heights. Whether you're purely a virtual shooter, or you're a traditional photographer experimenting with in-game photography for the first time, you'll be blown away by how feature-rich this mode it.
You can choose the type of camera you use (so far the only option we've seen is drone), and as you'd expect you can reposition it, zoom in and out, pan left and right and so on. By further delving into the settings, you can change your field of view (effectively changing the lens for wide-angle or telephoto effects) and add Dutch tilt by rotating the camera.
There's also a dedicated depth of field menu, which enables you to adjust your aperture, turn autofocus on or off, or turn depth of field off entirely if you want an infinite depth of field.
Aside from standard camera settings, there's a raft of Photoshop-like sliders that effectively enable you to edit your shots as you're composing and taking them. You have the expected controls, like exposure, contrast and highlights, and you can also adjust the vignette and turn film grain on or off. Of particular interest to fans of the cyberpunk genre and aesthetic, though, is the slider for chromatic aberration – which gives that grungy, distorted VHS-era effect.
On top of that, you can leave your character in their existing pose (if they're diving through the air during a shootout, for example) or give them a bespoke pose that suits the scene – along with a matching facial expression, and you can also toggle muzzle flash on or off if they are carrying a weapon. If you want a clean shot of your landscape or other characters in the scene, you can even make your player invisible.
Cyberpunk 2077 was already destined to be groundbreaking purely in videogame terms, but it looks like its photo mode is going to be equally game-changing. It hits store shelves on 10 December for PC, Xbox One (opens in new tab), Xbox Series X (opens in new tab), Xbox Series S, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 (opens in new tab) – and we can't wait to play it!
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