CD Projekt Red has been working on an update for Cyberpunk 2077 that will add path tracing capabilities to the game on April 11. Path tracing is essentially "full" ray tracing. Current ray tracing use in most games is a drastically scaled back version of what full ray tracing is capable of.
Path tracing is typically reserved for static renders, or as part of film and TV visual effects where they have render farms to create the desired output. Nvidia put up a blog in March explaining how path tracing is both different and similar to ray tracing. Their blog, while somewhat technical, does a decent job of explaining how much more advanced path tracing is.
Cyberpunk 2077 is about to get the ability to have real-time full path tracing, a step beyond the partial ray tracing seen in most titles. They're calling this new ray tracing option "Overdrive Mode" and should, in theory, provide the most accurate lighting, shadowing, and reflections in any particular game scene.
Here is what Nvidia said in a new blog post, dated April 4, 2023, that talks about this new path tracing mode coming very soon to Cyberpunk 2077.
Previous techniques separately addressed ray-traced shadows, reflections and global illumination for a small number of light sources. Full ray tracing models the properties of light from a virtually unlimited number of emissive sources, delivering physically correct shadows, reflections and global illumination on all objects.
With full ray tracing and RTXDI, now practically all light sources cast physically correct soft shadows, a feat previously unimaginable using previous approaches. Players will experience enhanced shadowing, with better depth, detail and realism.
Cyberpunk 2077 features a full day-night cycle. To upgrade indirect lighting from all emissive sources, including the sun and moon, Global Illumination (GI) needed to be path traced, too. Rendering techniques including Screen Space Reflections, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, and the existing GI solutions were replaced by a single unified algorithm that delivers more accurate lighting of scenes and objects.
With the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode enabled, natural colored lighting bounces multiple times throughout Cyberpunk 2077’s world, creating more realistic indirect lighting and occlusion.​
Cyberpunk 2077 features a full day-night cycle. To upgrade indirect lighting from all emissive sources, including the sun and moon, Global Illumination (GI) needed to be path traced, too. Rendering techniques including Screen Space Reflections, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, and the existing GI solutions were replaced by a single unified algorithm that delivers more accurate lighting of scenes and objects.
With the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode enabled, natural colored lighting bounces multiple times throughout Cyberpunk 2077’s world, creating more realistic indirect lighting and occlusion.​