This Cyberpunk 2077 inspired Minecraft city might break your PC

Minecraft builders Elysium Fire first teased their Cyberpunk inspired city over a year ago, and now it's available to download in all its blocky neon glory. But beware—As beautiful as this city looks, it's a beastly build. If you're planning on running it, keep in mind that it might not only blow your mind but also your PC (see what I did there). Looks like a glimpse into the future has its price.

If you can manage to run it, it's one heck of a build and checks every box for a futuristic city. It's got mega skyscrapers, eye-melting neon signs, a giant virtual phoenix—the whole nine yards.

Chatting with Elysium Fire founder, Jeremy Sanchez, over email, he tells me that a total of fifteen people worked on the map. It took them 18 months to build the map alone, but creating the video and further post-production work took the team a further 6 months, letting the total project hit the 2-year mark.

Sanchez also tells me that with the right PC settings, you'll have less chance of the build crashing on your PC. Tweaking the settings like decreasing the render distance and removing shaders will help load it. "My old configuration ran the build correctly," Sanchez says. "It was an i5 generation with an Nvidia GTX MSI 970."

If your PC can handle it, you should go all out with the shaders, as you will get some impressive results. Sanchez also highlights that their Cyberpunk build got picked up by Nvidia's Minecraft RTX patch, which means you can enjoy the city with added ray-tracing, leading to stunning effects. What better way to test the power of your PC than a ridiculously heavy build with Minecraft RTX turned on?

Elysium Fire's city isn't an exact replica of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City, but it was never meant to be. When building the Cyberpunk project, Sanchez says the team didn't have any reference images for CD Projekt Red's metropolis and drew inspiration from a number of different sources instead.

"We improvised some designs and we were inspired by artwork found on the internet," Sanchez says. "But, for the most part, the constructions came straight from our imagination and we were inspired by the perspectives and the play of light offered by the shaders."

As impressive as this Cyberpunk city is, it's just one out of many builds that Elysium Fire is known for. The team has also created one of the most popular Minecraft fantasy cities Novigrad (not that Novigrad, but it's similar), and is known for creating dynamic maps like The Titans Attack. You can check out all of Elysium Fire's projects on their Planet Minecraft profile.

Rachel had been bouncing around different gaming websites as a freelancer and staff writer for three years before settling at PC Gamer back in 2019. She mainly writes reviews, previews, and features, but on rare occasions will switch it up with news and guides. When she's not taking hundreds of screenshots of the latest indie darling, you can find her nurturing her parsnip empire in Stardew Valley and planning an axolotl uprising in Minecraft. She loves 'stop and smell the roses' games—her proudest gaming moment being the one time she kept her virtual potted plants alive for over a year.