Cyberpunk 2077 is a PS1 RPG in this stunning Dreams demake

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Cyberpunk 2077 (opens in new tab) is shaping up to be one of the prettiest and most ambitious RPGs since, well, The Witcher 3. But what if we turned the dial from 11 down to, say, one – as in PlayStation One. Well, we’d probably wind up with something like this small but nevertheless stunning Dreams-powered PS1 demake of Cyberpunk 2077 from YouTuber and Dreams creator Bearly Regal (opens in new tab). You can watch the teaser for the demake in the video above, after which Bearly Regal delves into its creation.

This demake is a shot-for-shot replica of one of the scenes from the 48-minute Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay reveal (opens in new tab) released in August 2018. The scene in question picks up around 12 minutes in: V strolls through a bustling underground market before entering the city proper. Where the actual gameplay reveal focuses on the city’s crowd systems, Bearly Regal honed in on the underground market to create more of a vertical slice of the game’s environment. Thanks to some clever visual tricks and a lot of pixel painting, it looks spot-on.

To create 3D objects that would work at a PS1-grade resolution, for instance, Bearly Regal used rotating sprites that follow the player’s camera, not unlike the ones seen in games like the original Doom. This creates an illusion of depth and movement, and it holds up surprisingly well. The same technique was applied to the demake’s few NPCs, one of which is even animated. 

Bearly Regal said the demake teaser took him nearly 50 hours to create, and it wasn’t even his first attempt at retro-fying Cyberpunk 2077. A huge chunk of that time went into recreating environmental pieces like the neon signs and carts seen in the market, not to mention finding workarounds for the project’s technical limitations. The result is exceedingly cool, so props to Bearly Regal for putting it together. Check out his Dreams demake (opens in new tab) of Death Stranding (opens in new tab) if you want to see more art like this. 

Speaking of demakes: Why wait for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake when you can play it in Dreams right now? (opens in new tab)