Cyberpunk 2077 Shows Off New Perks In Phantom Liberty Trailer

A mercenary on a red motorcycle catches gunfire from a car.

Image: CD Projekt Red

Cyberpunk 2077‘s Phantom Liberty expansion will deliver an entirely new storyline featuring actor Idris Elba when it arrives on September 26. Just as exciting, however, are all the overhauled systems, mechanics, and features of the world arriving alongside it in a free version 2.0 update. CD Projekt Red showed some of them in action in the DLC’s latest trailer.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

Shown during the 2023 Gamescom Opening Night showcase, the aptly titled “New Ways to Play” teaser previewed redesigned skill trees, improved police chases, and vehicle combat. Whether players buy the $30 Phantom Liberty expansion or not, everyone who owns Cyberpunk 2077 will get to access these new features as long as they’re playing on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, or PC (the 2.0 update is only for “next-gen” consoles).

Here’s a look at the trailer:

Near the beginning it shows protagonist V jumping off a motorcycle into a group of enemies and hitting them with a shockwave that erupts as a giant hammer smashes the concrete. A bunch of brand-new perks include “finisher” for decapitating someone, “bullet deflect” to bat away incoming enemy fire, “opportunist” for lethal takedowns, and a dash ability to close in on distant opponents. There’s also a whole set of Relic perks, including a blink ability called “spatial mapping,” and a “limiter removal” that shows V punching a guy until his body explodes. It’s all got the feel of a sci-fi Dishonored mixed with Mortal Kombat.

Gif: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

The new police chases and vehicle combat are eqaully impressive looking. V can shoot out the windows with her firearm or hack enemy vehicles to send them spiraling out of control or make them blow up altogether. Police, meanwhile, try to run her off the road, set up barricades, and eventually surround her, only for her to unleash built-in Gatling guns and spin around in a grisly circle of carnage. It’s the Cyberpunk fans had hoped for from the original trailers years ago, but which didn’t materialize in the broken game that launched in 2020.

That game has already markedly improved, and is arguably in a great spot now, even if the underlying story, structure, and vision can still be underwhelming. Phantom Liberty and the free 2.0 update look like they could radically transform the game once again into something closer to the cyberpunk Grand Theft Auto that players dreamed about.

          

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by pbnbigesdi Posted on

Cyberpunk 2077 Cinematic Trailer Is A Phantom Liberty Primer

Solomon Reed is shown sitting in a subway and looking out the window.

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

Cyberpunk 2077’s lone expansion, Phantom Liberty, is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on September 26, and it brings some new characters to the game’s gritty world. These include Idris Elba’s Solomon Reed, a spy who’s been in Night City for years under direct order from the President. However, he obviously had a life before we meet him in the add-on’s story, and CD Projekt Red has released a new cinematic trailer that gives you a glimpse into his life seven years prior to the events of Phantom Liberty.

Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right

While there are no spoilers for the events of Phantom Liberty, this trailer does show a key event in Solomon’s past, as well as that of Songbird, the netrunner who helps V throughout the expansion. So if you want to wait to be told about this event (which you won’t actually see in the game), this is your spoiler warning. However, showing is always better than telling, so if you’d like to see a bit of Elba’s performance and Christine Minji Chang as Songbird, read on.

The cinematic shows Solomon getting on a train leaving Night City. He’s seemingly nearing the end of an op, with Songbird in his ear ensuring he makes his exit safely. As they talk about taking some time off from being government spies, the tone of the scene shifts from relief to suspense, and we see a big moment between these two that gets explored later in Phantom Liberty. What happens next is better seen than read, so check out the trailer below:

CD Projekt Red

Phantom Liberty is launching on September 26, but the 2.0 update that brings some major systemic changes like new skill trees, car combat, and enemy tactics will launch for all players on September 21. For more on that, check out our impressions, and for more on Phantom Liberty, keep an eye out for Kotaku’s full review on September 20, 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

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Elon Musk Brought A Gun To A Cyberpunk 2077 Recording Session

During Cyberpunk 2077′s development, Elon Musk begged developer CD Projekt Red to give him a cameo by interrupting ex-girlfriend (and mother of at least three of Musk’s at least 11 children) Grimes’ voice acting sessions with a gun, Walter Isaac’s new biography Elon Musk reveals.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

Grimes was recording lines for Lizzy Wizzy, a bioengineered pop star and murder bot in the action-adventure role-playing game, Isaacson writes, before Musk “showed up at the studio wielding a two-hundred-year-old gun.” I’d guess that this vintage gun is the replica flintlock pistol Musk keeps on his bedside table, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have as many two-hundred-year-old guns as he has children.

“The studio guys were like sweating,” Grimes told Isaacson. However, ultimately, CD Projekt Red rewarded Musk with a small cameo.

“I told them that I was armed but not dangerous,” Musk said to Isaacson about the incident.

The biography suggests Musk fixated on Cyberpunk partly because the game’s prevalent cybernetic implants reminded him of his company Neuralink, which is dedicated to brain-computer interfaces (and was recently FDA-approved for human trials), and partly because he thought the game looked “like the future.”

Read More: Amber Heard Spent Two Months Designing Overwatch Mercy Cosplay For Ex Elon Musk

While discussing designs for the unreleased Tesla Cybertruck, first announced in 2019, Musk routinely referenced the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer, alongside “the car from the video game Halo,” and Blade Runner (1982).

“His son Saxon […] had recently asked an offbeat question that resonated: ‘Why doesn’t the future look like the future?’” Isaacson writes. “Musk would quote Saxon’s question repeatedly.”

“He’s not good at reading the room,” Grimes said. “My favorite version of E is the one who’s down for Burning Man and will sleep on a couch, eat canned soup, and be chill.” Put the gun down, man.

 

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Cyberpunk 2077’s Edgerunners Easter Egg Brings The Waterworks

Cyberpunk 2077‘s massive 2.0 update introduced a bunch of additions and changes to the open-world first-person shooter RPG. Alongside new combat enhancements and a revamped police system that makes cops far more aggressive when hunting you down for committing crimes, the latest patch also completely overhauls cyberware and perks. It almost feels like an entirely new game that just so happens to include some new Easter eggs for the fantastic—and heartbreaking—Edgerunners anime. Prepare to cry, y’all, this one’s a doozy. Oh, and be warned: There are some Edgerunners spoilers down below.

Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right

Read More: Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 Update Feels Like A Different Game

Produced by Studio Trigger (Kill la Kill), Edgerunners takes place about a year before the events of Cyberpunk 2077. Following a punky David “Dee” Martinez, the 10 episode anime shows Dee devolve from an ambitious kid to a cold mercenary. He makes friends with a group of other talented hired guns, but like most stories in the Cyberpunk universe, the troupe’s journey ends in brutal tragedy. By the time the credits roll, only one person of the main crew is alive. And now, thanks to the 2.0 update, we can wallow in that sorrow once more.

As spotted by Redditor FirmAd6452 (via GamesRadar), Cyberpunk 2077 features murals for all the important folks in Dee’s life. Dee’s there, of course, but so is his mom Gloria, tech specialist Pilar, merc bruiser Dorio, and Edgerunners gang leader Maine—all of whom died throughout the anime’s narrative. The last mural is dedicated to best girl—and fan fave—Rebecca, who was crushed to death by the cyberjerk Adam Smasher in the final episode. The traitor Kiwi, who conspired with the anime’s antagonist to catch a member of the crew, has a mural as well, but we don’t talk about her around here.

Each of these holographic tributes is located in the Westbrook District’s North Oak Columbarium, a series of structures that holds the ashes of Night City residents. Under the murals are lines of text seemingly written from the perspective of Lucy, Dee’s girlfriend and the sole survivor of Edgerunners. Dee’s tribute, for instance, reads, “You didn’t take me to the moon, but you were there with me,” referencing the second episode in which the couple venture to the moon together. Meanwhile, Rebecca’s posits, “I regret not finishing our conversation,” calling attention to the final episode which sees Adam Smasher violently interrupting the moment the two ladies were having. I’m not crying, you’re crying. Again, there’s a line for Kiwi, too, but, traitors never prosper.

Read More: Cyberpunk 2077 – Phantom Liberty: The Kotaku Review

I wasn’t prepared to think about Edgerunners again, especially with how fucked up things ended. This new Easter egg isn’t even the only one that references the anime. There are skills within the retweaked perk trees named after the characters, and Dee’s iconic yellow jacket if you want V to cosplay as him. So, although CD Projekt Red has no plans for a sequel to the anime, at least these characters will live on in Cyberpunk 2077. It’s a terrible day for rain…

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Cyberpunk 2077 Now Contains A Hidden Doom Clone

Cyberpunk 2077 players have discovered a new arcade cab hidden in an abandoned church just outside Night City. This new arcade machine, added as part of Cyberpunk 2077’s free 2.0 update, lets you play a Doom-like retro shooter starring Keanu Reeves’ character, Johnny Silverhand.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 update and its massive Phantom Liberty expansion have added a lot of new content and features to the already-huge first-person RPG. But who cares about that stuff? (Editor’s note: A lot of people, actually.) Personally, I’m more excited to see that even in the horrible dystopian future of Cyberpunk 2077 people are still making and playing Doom clones. Some things never change, I guess.

To play this new arcade machine, you’ll need to go into the badlands outside Night City and head south to find a lone, abandoned church just north of a protein farm, which is also a fast-travel point. So if you’ve already unlocked the farm for fast travel, feel free to zip over to save yourself a drive into the badlands.

Regardless of how you get there, enter the church, and on the right you’ll find an Arasaka Tower 3D playable arcade machine.

Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

Sam Bram II / CD Projekt Red

Arasaka Tower 3D is very clearly an homage to classic id Software shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. You play long-dead rockerboy Johnny Silverhand fresh off his historic bombing of one of the world’s most powerful megacorps’ headquarters as he tries to escape the tower, blasting numerous guards as he ambles—surprisingly slowly—toward freedom. Aside from the lack of speed the gameplay looks surprisingly retro, including the fact that you can’t look up or down, as was the case in many classic ‘90s shooters. The full game is about 10 minutes long or so and includes five levels complete with secret doors.

Read More: Every Change In Cyberpunk 2077‘s Massive 2.0 Update

Do you think people in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe have modded Arasaka Tower 3D to death and got it running on ATMs and other weird devices, like how Doom is playable on just about anything in our world today? I hope so. I hope some nerds have made it fully open-source at this point and created whole new levels for it, too.

I guess once you’re done playing Araska Tower 3D you can go and play the rest of Cyberpunk 2077, including the new expansion. I hear it’s like Doom but you can look up and down now. Wild stuff!

Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

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Failing Cyberpunk DLC’s First Mission Unlocks A Secret Ending

V stands in front of a red background.

Image: CD Projekt Red

Cyberpunk 2077 often rewards players for exploring Night City off the beaten path, but not so early in its just-launched Phantom Liberty expansion. Failing one of the DLC’s early objectives won’t just lead to a game over, it will fail the expansion’s entire questline for you.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

That discovery recently made the rounds online in a clip shared by Cyberpunk obsessive Synth Potato. As the starting “Dog Eat Dog” mission transitions to “Hole in the Sky,” players are tasked with rescuing a high-value target from certain doom. If they choose to ignore it or take too long to get there the mission becomes a failure, complete with a special mini-epilogue from Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Silverhand. Basically all of the Phantom Liberty main storyline quests then become locked off. Oops.

Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

A spoiler warning is displayed.

The VIP in question in “Hole in the Sky” is of course NUSA President Myers. The first part of the mission involves rushing to her crash site. That should be the easiest part, but that apparently wasn’t the case for Synth Potato’s brother. Instead, he drove like a maniac and never reached the objective, accidentally unlocking one of the expansion’s “secret endings” in the process.

“You can straight up fail Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty’s introduction and lose access to the entire DLC’s main quest if you choose to ignore the objective and let Myers die with a special cutscene and line delivery from Johnny if you do so!” Synth Potato tweeted yesterday. “Shout out to my brother for driving like an idiot and finding this lmao Insane attention to detail and an awesome Easter egg.”

Read More: 17 Essential Cyberpunk 2077 Side-Quests To Find In Night City

This failed ending shows V waking up from a blackout, on the ground in Dogtown. “Your presidential rescue op. Miserable failure,” Johnny Silverhand says. “Honestly though, good fucking riddance.” He then suggests the two of you go on living life, starting by getting a drink.

Thankfully, anyone who accidently gets this ending can still reload their last autosave to go back and try to complete the mission successfully to continue on the Phantom Liberty questline. As Synth Potato points out though, it’s a nice little alternate outcome that adds to what makes the revived, more complete Cyberpunk 2077 experience so rich.

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Cyberpunk 2077’s Next Update Fixes Corrupted PS5 Saves And More

V looks in a mirror in Cyberpunk 2077.

Image: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty DLC expansion has completely revived the open-world RPG, and, for many, finally turned it into the immersive sci-fi blockbuster they’d been dreaming of based on all those E3 trailers. But more fixes are still on the way. An upcoming 2.01 patch will address corrupted saves on PlayStation 5 and other issues.

The Week In Games: What’s Coming Out Beyond Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

CD Projekt Red previewed some of the patch notes for the smaller hotfix on Friday, September 29, noting that the actual update will include even more changes once it finally arrives. In addition to solving the corrupted save issue on PS5, the studio is also promising improved framerate performance in Dogtown, Phantom Liberty’s big new area, on both PC and console. A bunch of mission bugs are also getting taken care of.

Here’s everything in the preview for patch 2.01:

  • The distorted effect caused by selecting a specific dialogue option when talking to Johnny at the end of Automatic Love will no longer persist on the screen.
  • V will no longer die in The Heist by falling through the elevator when riding to the 42nd floor with low FPS.
  • Fixed an issue where the UI could show controller inputs when playing with keyboard and mouse.
  • Made it possible to properly switch to arms cyberware by cycling through weapons.
  • Gig: Breaking News will be properly triggered after approaching the quest area.
  • Vehicle radio volume will be adjusted so it’s not too quiet when compared to other sounds in the game.
  • Addressed the issue of corrupted saves on PlayStation by increasing the maximum save file size limit. Note: this won’t fix the saves corrupted before the update. If you’re experiencing the issue, keep a working save (e.g. resave it as manual save) till 2.01 arrives.
  • Performance improvements for both PC and consoles, especially in the Dogtown area.

Some PS5 players began to report issues with their save files shortly after beginning Phantom Liberty. The problem seemed to target those who went into the expansion with save files from before the 2.0 update (versus players who started completely new playthroughs). The save data apparently started to become damaged after the second mission “Hole in the Sky,” with no clear workarounds beyond loading earlier save files and trying again. Fortunately, it sounds like the issue will be taken care of soon, though CD Projekt Red points out that players will want to make sure you hold on to a “working save” until 2.01 releases “soon.”

Despite Cyberpunk 2077 shooting back up the sales charts and becoming one of the most played games on Steam again, CD Projekt Red has confirmed that these last batch of updates will conclude its post-launch support for the game. The studio is currently pivoting resources back to its next open-world Witcher game, with a smaller team beginning early concept work on Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel.

                   

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Every Change In Cyberpunk 2077’s New Phantom Liberty 2.01 Patch

A TV show host in a gold jacket holds his arms open.

Image: CD Projekt Red

CD Projekt Red said it plans to move on from Cyberpunk 2077 now that its big Phantom Liberty DLC and 2.0 systems overhaul are out, but it still has a few things left to patch. A new 2.01 update that went live on October 5 fixed corrupted save issues on PlayStation 5 and a bunch of other issues, including a wrecked cop car that used to haunt the streets of Night City.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

Out today on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, Cyberpunk 2077‘s developers write that patch 2.01, “fixes the most common issues players have encountered and improves overall performance on all platforms, especially in Dogtown.” A new region added in Phantom Liberty, Dogtown is bustling with dense detail that occasionally made players’ framerates take a hit. It sounds like that will be less of a problem now.

Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

The company is also saying a corrupted PS5 save issue that players began to report after version 2.0 went live has also been solved. “Addressed the issue of corrupted saves on PlayStation by increasing the maximum save file size limit,” the patch notes read. This will prevent new save files from being corrupted in the future, but won’t fix the ones that are already broken, so if you were encountering the issue you’ll have to start from a file that was still working.

The rest of the update is full of the hyper-specfic bug fixes that underline all of the fascinating and occasionally broken things that can crop up in an open-world sci-fi RPG. A lot of the changes seem to revolve around cars, which received a major upgrade in 2.0, including more robust police chases and highspeed shootouts. For instance, patch 2.01, “fixed an issue that could cause all traffic to disappear after completing the [Moving Heat] quest.”

It also stopped several cars from spawning underground, including Flavio’s in the “Going-Away Party” gig, and a Militech SUV in the “Lord Giveth and Taketh Away” gig. But my favorite change by far relates to a busted cop car that was apparently roaming around like a ghost with unfinished business. “A wrecked NCPD cruiser without wheels won’t be patrolling the streets of Night City anymore,” CD Projekt Red writes. Pouring one out for the headless pigs.

Here’s the full 2.01 patch notes:

Phantom Liberty-specific

  • Balls to the Wall – When talking to Paco, repeating the blue dialogue option from the Corpo lifepath will no longer block progress.
  • Dog Eat Dog – Fixed an issue where it was possible to earn multiple Relic points by triggering the first meeting with Songbird more than once.
  • Firestarter – Fixed an issue that could cause V to get stuck in the wall or roof after performing a Finisher on Kurt Hansen.

Moving Heat

  • Fixed an issue that could cause all traffic to disappear after completing the quest.
  • Fixed an issue where triggering combat in the garage in specific scenarios could cause various disruptions to quest flow.
  • New Person, Same Old Mistakes – Fixed an issue where the gate to Bill’s hot dog stand was closed.

Somewhat Damaged

  • Fixed an issue preventing the player from scanning the Neural Network system.
  • Various fixes for devices in the bunker.
  • The Killing Moon – Fixed an issue that caused the doors leading to the shuttle to not open.

You Know My Name

  • Fixed an issue where V could remain connected to the sniper nest, blocking quest progress, after repeatedly switching cameras at the end of the sequence.
  • Reed will now wear his party outfit during the dialogue with Songbird.
  • Addressed an issue where some phone calls necessary to continue the main story began with a delay.
  • Various visual fixes for animations, lighting, scenes, VFX, and more.
  • Performance improvements for both PC and consoles, especially in the Dogtown area.

Quests & Open World

  • Automatic Love – The distortion effect caused by talking to Johnny and selecting a specific dialogue option at the end of the quest will no longer persist on the screen.
  • Ghost Town – Fixed an issue where the quest could get stuck on the “Defeat Nash and his people” objective if the game was saved during combat prior to Update 2.0.

Gig: Breaking News

  • Fixed an issue where Ted Fox’s car didn’t spawn.
  • Fixed an issue where the gig wouldn’t trigger after approaching the quest area.
  • Gig: Going-Away Party – Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to get in the car with Flavio because it spawned underground.
  • Gig: The Lord Giveth and Taketh Away – Fixed an issue where the Militech SUV spawned underground.

Killing in the Name

  • Fixed an issue where leaving the quest unfinished could block clue scanning, preventing the player from progressing in many quests.
  • Fixed an issue where the Bartmoss Collective website wasn’t visible in some cases.
  • Playing for Time – Fixed an issue where healing and radio icons disappeared from the HUD after the car chase with Takemura.
  • Space Oddity – Fixed an issue where the quest didn’t activate if the location was approached prior to Update 2.0.

The Heist

  • Fixed an issue where Jackie wasn’t present in front of the Afterlife.
  • Fixed an issue where, when riding the elevator to the 42nd floor with low FPS, V could fall through the floor and die.
  • The Prophet’s Song – Fixed an issue where completing the quest could cause the police system to turn a blind eye to V’s crimes.
  • The Ripperdoc – Fixed an issue where, if the player got into the driver’s seat from the passenger seat, Jackie would return to the noodle stand and refuse to drive to the ripperdoc.
  • Fixed an issue where NCPD Scanner Hustles could remain uncompleted even after looting the necessary containers.
  • Fixed an issue where some Iconic weapons wouldn’t appear on wall of the Stash in V’s apartment.
  • Lowered the value of the Attribute check required to enter the area where the Thermal Katana can be looted.

Gameplay

  • Made it possible to properly switch to Arm cyberware by cycling through weapons.
  • Addressed an issue that could cause V to become invulnerable to all damage.
  • A wrecked NCPD cruiser without wheels won’t be patrolling the streets of Night City anymore.
  • Fixed an issue where some obsolete mods in the Inventory and Stash weren’t properly exchanged for a new weapon mod.
  • Fixed an issue where weapons obtained pre-Update 2.0 could have a Tier that’s too high when compared to the player’s level.
  • Removed various obsolete Crafting Specs.
  • Disassembling a Budget Arms Slaught-O-Matic will now give 1 crafting component.

PC-specific

  • Fixed an issue where the UI could show controller inputs when playing on keyboard and mouse.
  • Players unable to get achievements due to an issue that prevented Phantom Liberty achievements from unlocking on PC before a backend fix implemented on the day of the release will have them retroactively unlocked on GOG and Steam after loading a save from that playthrough. For the Epic Games Store, the issue is still under investigation.
  • Fixed an issue where, after installing Update 2.0 but not the expansion on GOG, a pop-up saying “Phantom Liberty downloaded – please return to the main menu to access new content” could appear in the in-game menu.
  • Improved image quality of DLSS Ray Reconstruction in the Ultra Performance setting.

Console-specific

  • Addressed the issue of corrupted saves on PlayStation by increasing the maximum save file size limit. Note: this won’t fix saves corrupted before the update.
  • Fixed an issue where launching the game without an internet connection would prompt the player to log into GOG My Rewards again.

Miscellaneous

  • Various crash fixes on PC and consoles.
  • Vehicle radio volume has been adjusted so it’s no longer too quiet compared to other sounds in the game. If you’ve turned down the volume of other sounds in order to better hear the radio, you may want to re-adjust the volume before you continue playing.
  • Added sounds for the Basilisk that were missing.
  • Fixed an issue where the player could earn an infinite score in Trauma Drama by shooting at enemies dropping from a helicopter repeatedly.
  • Growl FM and Dark Star websites will now be visible when playing without Phantom Liberty.
  • Fixed an issue where disconnecting the internet didn’t result in an error message being displayed in My Rewards and Cross Progression tabs.
  • The song History by Gazelle Twin and Trash Generation will now be disabled when the “Disable Copyrighted Music” option is turned on.
  • Fixed an issue where hair didn’t cast shadows when Ray Tracing was enabled.
  • Players who pre-ordered Phantom Liberty but didn’t get the Quadra Sport R-7 “Vigilante” will now receive it.
  • Several improvements and changes to Ukrainian localization, including fixes for lines where the translation lost its original meaning.

REDmod

  • Fixed an issue where tweak mods would not compile in REDmod.
  • Added Phantom Liberty support to REDmod.
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Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel In Early Design Stage, Likely Years Away

A screenshot shows Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 sitting in a café.

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red

Cyberpunk 2077’s first (and only) DLC expansion, Phantom Liberty, was just recently released for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC. But developer CD Projekt Red is already sharing more details about Cyberpunk 2077’s big-budget sequel, currently known as Project Orion. However, it sounds like it’s still years and years away at this point.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

CDPR’s massive open-world RPG, Cyberpunk 2077, launched at the end of 2020 and was quite a mess. The game suffered from numerous problems, glitches, and other issues. Things were so bad that players demanded refunds and Sony yanked the game from the PlayStation store just a week after its launch. Over the last two years, though, thanks to a popular anime and lots of updates, the dystopian RPG became more popular than ever and less buggy overall. Some might argue the game’s core problems can’t be fixed, but CDPR did enough to help right the ship—and the game’s recent 2.0 update and DLC helped make the game even more popular—to turn around a story that started quite poorly. And now, CDPR isn’t looking back, but looking forward to Project Orion, its tentative Cyberpunk sequel.

Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

CD Projekt Red

On October 5, during a presentation for investors, CDPR shared more details on Project Orion. During the event, the company’s chief creative officer Adam Badowski explained the sequel is still in the “conceptual design” phase at the moment, meaning it is likely years away from release. Badowski also told investors that the sequel will be designed by a team of “veterans who were responsible for fine-tuning” Cyberpunk 2077 and its recent DLC, Phantom Liberty.

According to the CCO, Project Orion will be developed by teams located in Vancouver, Boston, and Poland. Badowski says that the target is for half of the devs to work out of Poland and the other half to be located in North America.

Project Orion was first announced in October 2022 alongside five other CDPR projects, including a new The Witcher trilogy and the just-released Phantom Liberty expansion.

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by pbnbigesdi Posted on

CDPR Spent $120 Million On Saving Cyberpunk 2077’s Reputation

Cyberpunk 2077’s highly acclaimed and massive expansion, Phantom Liberty, almost feels like its own game. That’s probably because the developers behind the expansion spent over $60 million on developing Phantom Liberty and $21 million on marketing it, bringing the total cost of producing the DLC to about half of what it cost to develop the entire Cyberpunk 2077 base game.

Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right

After launching in a pretty awful state in 2020, CDProjeckt Red’s massive open-world RPG Cyberpunk 2077 has received numerous updates, bug fixes, and even a popular Netflix anime. All of this helped the futuristic RPG become more popular than ever. And while some say the game’s core problems can’t be fixed, CDPR hasn’t given up on Cyberpunk 2077. The RPG’s only planned DLC, Phantom Liberty (and the free 2.0 update) released on September 26 to rave reviews, and fans declaring the game “saved.” But building something like Phantom Liberty isn’t cheap.

On October 5, during an investor’s presentation, CDPR revealed the total budget for Phantom Liberty. Its costs were split between zł275 million on “direct production expenditures” and another zł95 million on “marketing campaign costs.” If we do some converting, that equals out to just about $63 million and $21 million in USD, respectively, or roughly $84 million total.

Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

CD Projekt Red

As a point of comparison, it reportedly cost $174 million to develop Cyberpunk 2077. That number gets ever larger when you factor in the $142 million CDPR spent on marketing the dystopian RPG. Looking at these numbers, it’s almost impressive how little money CDPR spent on marketing the new DLC compared to the main game.

No matter how you slice it, spending nearly $85 million on developing and marketing a single expansion is wild and a sign of just how expensive game development is these days. It’s also a great example of how big, expensive games aren’t allowed to be flops.

Cyberpunk 2077 had to be a beloved hit, no matter the cost

During the presentation, the translator suggests that CDPR spent zł178 million or about $40 million USD on bringing the game to next-gen consoles and building the sweeping 2.0 update. This would suggest CDPR spent almost $125 million on fixing Cyberpunk 2077’s image and saving its reputation. However, a CDPR representative has contacted Kotaku saying that this 178 million figure in fact is mostly made up of funds spent on the base game

However, based on how well Cyberpunk 2077 and its new expansion are selling after the update—CDPR claims there was a “surge” of sales following update 2.0—the company is likely going to wind up making a lot of money off the game. CDPR pointed out during the investor presentation that it is “confident” that the DLC and its main game will be “big sellers” for a long time, pointing toward the continued sales of The Witcher 3 and its DLC years after launch.

With the development of the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel starting and news of a live-action spin-off in the works, it makes sense that CDPR would be willing to invest so much money into making sure Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy amounted to more than a failed launch and bad console ports. It needed the game to be a huge hit with millions of fans. And it got there, even if it cost a lot of money in the end.

Update 10/6/23 11:30 a.m. ET:  This article’s headline has been altered, and additional details added, in response to CDPR’s clarification over what appears to have been a translation error during its investor day presentation.

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by pbnbigesdi Posted on
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