Analysis finds Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia to be comparable to Xbox Series X, for now

Kyle Bradshaw | Jan 7 2021 - 10:22 am PT

Since the game’s launch, it’s been clear that Stadia’s version of Cyberpunk 2077 runs surprisingly well, and noticeably better than the last-gen versions. Today, the experts at Digital Foundry have formally put Stadia to the test comparing its Cyberpunk 2077 versus the Xbox Series X.

Over the years, Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry has inspected and compared the quality and consistency of numerous games across multiple platforms, generally to determine the best place to play a particular game. Stadia fans may remember their early comparison of Red Dead Redemption 2 on Stadia versus Xbox One X and PC.

Today, Digital Foundry has turned their attention to Stadia’s performance on Cyberpunk 2077. However, instead of comparing against one of the last gen consoles, whose performance on Cyberpunk has been disastrous, the Xbox Series X was used as the basis for comparison.

Before diving into the results, the producers put a heavy qualifier into the video. Specifically, they were unable to play Stadia from a home internet connection, and instead relied on a 200Mbps public WiFi network.

In both resolution and framerate consistency, the Xbox Series X version takes at least a small lead over Stadia’s port. According to their analysis, Cyberpunk’s “Quality” mode uses dynamic resolution which can reach a maximum of 1584p on Stadia and reaches a maximum of 1800p on Series X.

Similarly, Digital Foundry found that both the “High framerate” and “Quality” modes run more smoothly on Xbox Series X than on Stadia. Series X was able to maintain a higher framerate in the high framerate mode — though not always 60fps — as well as keep a consistent 30fps in Quality mode.

However, in terms of the game’s actual details and graphical settings, Digital Foundry noted a very close similarity between Xbox Series X and Stadia, with some aspects like foliage being better on Stadia while shadows were more defined on Series X.

Unfortunately, the results of Digital Foundry’s visual and performance comparison will be short-lived as it’s based on an Xbox Series X running a version of Cyberpunk 2077 optimized for Xbox One series consoles. It remains to be seen whether Stadia will still be competitive with the new generation of consoles once CD Projekt Red releases their next-gen patch.

In the meantime, Digital Foundry comes to the conclusion that the differences in Cyberpunk 2077’s performance between Xbox Series X and Stadia are negligible when considering how inaccessible the Xbox Series X currently is, in terms of both pricing and availability.