With a new strategy update for the studio outlining that CD Projekt has "decided to reconsider" its plans for a multiplayer focused Cyberpunk 2077 -- which was assumed to be its next big project. The announcement (as vague as it sounds) is part of a new approach to multiplayer for the studio which is to bring online functionality "into all of our franchises one day".

With CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński saying, "Previously we hinted that our next triple-A would be a multiplayer Cyberpunk game, but we have decided to reconsider this plan." Adding, "We are building an online technology that can be seamlessly integrated into development of our future games."



From that we can assume that the core engine, which is still some distance away from living up to its single-player promise may not be in a state ready for a GTA Online style overhaul. And that it's continued development will see online functionality added across all future titles. The studio is also looking to develop multiple AAA-sized projects in parallel which points to the possibility of more Witcher and more Cyberpunk in the future.

The video also re-confirms the studio's commitment to single-player story-driven experiences, with Kiciński clarifying, "What is changing is our long-term approach to online. By this, we mean ensuring we are properly prepared to implement online elements in our games where they make sense. We don't have to go overboard, or lose our singleplayer DNA. We want to take thoughtful steps to build robust online capabilities."

In related new CD Projekt Red has acquired Canadian studio Digital Scapes, which specialises in multiplayer and will now be called CD Projekt Red Vancouver. The studio had already been working closely with CDPR for a couple of years now on Cyberpunk 2077.

Which really puts the release state of the game into perspective as the Patch Notes for Cyberpunk 2077's latest update has to be one of the biggest lists of changes in recent memory. Most of which relate to fixing issues and glitches and NPC behaviour in quests and things like falling through the map because collision seemingly streams in after assets. It's a massive list.

Head Here to take a scroll and see for yourself.

It's a list of changes so long that trying to post it all here lagged our back-end with the sheer amount of formatting. It's close to 500 changes and on GOG a sizable 33GB in patchy patch-ness.

In terms of what it covers, basically everything: gameplay, quests, open world, cinematics, environments, graphics, audio, animation, UI, performance, and PC and console-specific changes. A lot of the updates naturally focus on game breaking bugs and progress stoppers. Plus, some miscellaneous things like ray-tracing now available on AMD cards.

No doubt this is the sort of major update the game needs, though in terms of the stuff Cyberpunk 2077 needs (that is overhauls and new mechanics and systems) to be able to sit among the greats the list above is pretty bare outside of changes to vehicle handling and police spawning a bit further out than "right behind you".

It's now been a few months since the release of Cyberpunk 2077, developer CD Projekt RED's highly anticipated but flawed epic. Which means many out there, including those that have played through the campaign, are waiting to see what steps will be taken to improve the game. And with the next major update, Patch 1.2, coming soon -- we've now got a preview outlining what's in store.

With the preview taking on the form of an in-universe N54 News broadcast. The first major change addresses police response in the game -- which was, well, pretty bad at launch with police spawning directly behind players. As per the video and note from CDPR below -- NCPD behaviour will now be a lot more realistic, with the added help of drones.

“This is an important step in addressing the behavior of the police in our game. It should decrease the problem of NPCs spawning behind players' backs and create an impression that it takes some time for the police to arrive at the crime scene after the crime has been reported. We've also added a recon "drone" unit to create the feeling of the police assessing the situation.” — Patryk, Lead Gameplay Designer & Łukasz, Technical Design Coordinator, CD PROJEKT RED

As per above this is something that will improve over time, and is an important step in getting that side of the experience to where it should be. The next update is pretty straight-forward in that is covers steering sensitivity for smoother and less floaty driving.

"Analyzing feedback on our driving model suggested a lot of players were having issues with the speed of the steering. Most complaints came from players using keyboards on PC or were on platforms with lower frame rates, and centered around how hard it was to keep cars off the sidewalks and such.

We have added a Steering Sensitivity slider to the Options menu. This allows the steering speed for all vehicles and all input devices to be slowed down, without affecting the maximum turn radius.

When experiencing lower frame rates, our cars were harder to control. We traced this to some code that wasn't handling extreme changes in frame rate properly. The steering speed is now very consistent from 20 to 60+ FPS.

Last, we looked at a bunch of tweaks to individual cars and adjusted some of them that were too twitchy in low frame rates, including the player's Archer Hella." — Séamus, Senior Vehicle Programmer, CD PROJEKT RED

Also coming is the ability to get your vehicle back on the road once stuck -- which is definitely welcome. Another quality of life addition is the ability to toggle how the dodge/dash movement works for those that dash when they don't mean to.

All in all, outside of the police behaviour, the preview does feel a little light when it comes to bug fixing and implementing missing features or fundamental open-world changes. Cyberpunk 2077 is still missing from the PlayStation digital storefront too -- so it remains to be seen how Patch 1.2 addresses console performance and overall stability.

Head here for the full Patch 1.2 preview.

Presented by NVIDIA

A virtual tour through Night City, as powered by NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 series of graphics cards, where impressive real-time ray-tracing, DLSS rendering, neon lighting, rule the streets. Alongside corpos and gangs.

A taste of our look at all seven Night City districts. From Watson to Westbrook to Heywood to the Badlands.



Cyberpunk 2077 – A Tour Through Night City

No doubt CD Projekt Red is working hard to improve the many issues plaguing Cyberpunk 2077, namely performance on previous-gen consoles and the many, many, bugs and glitches. The big January Patch 1.1 is here, with CDPR noting it "lays the groundwork for the upcoming patches".

Meaning it doesn't add anything new like improved traffic AI or the ability to preview clothing before you buy a new shiny pair of future pants. But, in getting the new Patch out players have noted that it can potentially break progression -- tied to the Down in the Street quest where Goro Takemura calls the player. In that he doesn't. CDPR have provided the following workaround in lieu of a Hotfix which is coming.

We're working on the issue where the conversation with Takemura may not start during the quest "Down on the Street" for @CyberpunkGame and plan to release a Hotfix to address it as soon as possible.
In the meantime, here's a potential workaround👇https://t.co/ujjxb8snGu

— CD PROJEKT RED CS (@CDPRED_Support) January 25, 2021

Here are the full Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.1 details.

In this update we focused on various stability improvements, which you can find outlined in the patch notes below. We will continue this work in patch 1.2 and other upcoming updates. At the same time we will keep fixing the bugs you encounter and listening to your feedback on how to improve the overall game experience.

Stability

Various stability improvements including:

• Memory usage improvements in various systems within the game: characters, interactions, navigation, in-game videos (news, tv, etc.), foliage, laser effects, minimap, devices, AI, street traffic, environmental damage system, GPU-related, and more.
  
• Various crash fixes (related to, among others, loading saves, game opening/closing and Point of No Return).

Quests/Open World

• Fixed an issue where calls from Delamain would end immediately and seem like they cannot be picked up in Epistrophy.
  
• Fixed an issue where players would not receive calls from Delamain when approaching relevant vehicles in Epistrophy.
  
• Fixed an issue where the objective could get stuck on "Answer the call from Mr. Hands" in M'ap Tann Pèlen.
  
• Fixed an issue where Judy could teleport underground in Pyramid Song.
  
• Fixed an issue where it would be impossible to talk to Zen Master in Poem of The Atoms.
  
• Fixed an issue where Takemura wouldn't call in Down on the Street.
  
• Fixed an issue where Jackie could disappear in The Pickup.
  
• Fixed an issue where it could be impossible to get out of the car in The Beast in Me: The Big Race.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could stop receiving calls and messages after moving too far away from A Day In The Life area.
  
• Fixed an issue where opening the package wouldn't update Space Oddity.
  
• Retro-fixed the saves affected by a rare issue where speaking to Judy in Automatic Love would be impossible due to an invisible wall. The underlying issue is under investigation.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from collecting the reward in Gig: Freedom of the Press. The quest will auto-complete for those who could not collect the reward previously, and the reward will be provided automatically.
  
• Fixed an issue where Delamain would remain silent throughout Epistrophy if the player initially refused to help him.

UI

• Fixed an issue where prompt for exiting braindance could be missing.
  
• Removed an invalid item from loot.

Visual

• Fixed an issue where a grenade's trajectory could be displayed in photo mode.
  
• Fixed particles' hue appearing pink when viewed close up.
  
• Fixed cars spawning incorrectly in Reported Crime: Welcome to Night City.

Achievements

• Fixed an issue where completing one of theassaults in progress in Santo Domingo would sometimes not contribute towards progression for The Jungle achievement, preventing its completion.

Miscellaneous

• Addressed the issue responsible for saves getting oversized (related to the modifier indicating if the item is crafted), and trimmed the excess size from already existing saves (note: this won’t fix PC save files corrupted before 1.06 update).
  
• Fixed an issue where input could stop registering upon opening the weapon wheel and performing an action.
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Continue" button in the Main Menu could load an end game save.

PlayStation-specific

• Performance optimization of crowds on PlayStation 4 Pro and PlayStation 5.
  
• Various crash fixes on PlayStation 4.

Xbox-specific

• Improved memory usage for character creation, mirrors, scanning, camera remote control, menus (inventory, map) on Xbox One, Xbox One X and Xbox One S.

PC-specific

• It will now be possible to obtain achievements while in Steam offline mode. Note: Offline mode needs to be enabled before starting the game. This change does not work retroactively.
  
• Addressed the game startup crashes related to loading cache on NVIDIA graphics cards.

Stadia-specific

• Concert audio should no longer be inaudible in Never Fade Away.
  
• Fixed corrupted textures on several melee weapons.
  
• Tweaked default deadzone settings to be more responsive. Note: the change will not affect settings unless they’re set to default.

As per above the specifics are in-line with the post-launch Hotfix updates the game received, pointing to a long road ahead for Cyberpunk 2077 becoming the game it should be.

Presented by NVIDIA.

NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Super Sampling or DLSS became one of the most talked about bits of tech in 2020, and for good reason. As seen in Cyberpunk 2077 and its stunning futuristic Night City, it’s the sort of thing that will drive the future of games.

Powered by a suite of ray-tracing effects covering reflections, global illumination, shadows, and more, seeing Cyberpunk 2077 in motion is, well, next level. Being able to walk from an apartment building onto a busy Heywood intersection and not only have that be seamless and devoid of a loading screen but feel real is something else. There’s no doubt that what CDPR has pulled off here is nothing short of a technical feat, and in partnering with NVIDIA the results can be seen the moment you fire up the game on the latest GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics card.

The magic though, lies with DLSS -- NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Super Sampling, AI-based rendering that not only improves performance at higher resolutions (with or without ray-tracing), but presents an image as crisp and detailed as its natively rendered counterpart. What makes the DLSS implementation in Cyberpunk 2077 so incredible is not that graphics hardware might struggle to keep up when it's turned off, but that it allows the game to look this good in the first place.

Click Here For Our Deep Dive Into Cyberpunk 2077 and DLSS

Called the Arasaka Appearance Updater (available now via Nexus Mods) it lets you do that thing we all thought we could do in Cyberpunk 2077 - change V's appearance after the initial character creation screen. As a standalone tool it lets you update your V's hairstyle and even facial features via simple click of a few buttons.

How it works is that it reads your latest save file and then lets you change things up -- and then updates the save file so you can see the changes in-game.


Props to its creator 'homes432' for giving it an in-universe feel too and the very cool title 'Arasaka Appearance Updater'.

Of course as a mod it's wise to back up your saves before making any changes. With Cyberpunk 2077 coming up to two weeks since its launch no doubt this is one of those nice to have features players want to see added in-game. In our full review we mentioned the lack of an in-game futuristic hair-dresser as one of a few missing features that really should have been there. CD Projekt Red is currently addressing issues relating to bugs and other things -- but we wouldn't be surprised if this feature is added into the game in one of the major patches due in January and February.

To call the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 rocky would be an understatement, especially in light of the game's performance on baseline consoles. As per our review in progress and now this, our final(?) word on Night City - we played through CD Projekt Red's highly anticipated RPG on a high-end PC.

Which definitely adds context, especially when you factor in we did so using the latest in NVIDIA GeForce RTX hardware with cutting edge features like real-time ray-tracing and DLSS enabled. A snippet.

That little note above is not there to merely add context to this review, but to highlight how an experience can change based on the platform on which it is experienced. In the case of CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, you could say that our review setup is something of a best-case scenario - the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX hardware, a vibrant 4K LG OLED display, immersive sound in the form of studio-grade speakers, and a brand-new controller.

This is not to say you need the above to get the most out of Cyberpunk 2077 on PC -- it scales well across a wide range of hardware configuration -- it’s simply, again, context. As per our review in progress we noted that stepping onto the streets of Night City for the first time can be overwhelming due to the sheer level of detail on display. On a high-end rig it is… breathtaking.

Even so there's a sense of unfinished business found throughout Cyberpunk 2077, not only in terms of V's journey and his or her relationship with Johnny Silverhand. Unfinished in the sense of bugs, glitches, and missing features found in an otherwise stellar and ground-breaking visual and narrative achievement.

Our Full Cyberpunk 2077 Review

Sponsored Post

With a story taking place in and around Night City, in Cyberpunk 2077 you take control of V, an agnostic avatar with the “V” name perhaps being ironical to the devs, but importantly you still craft who you are based on dynamic RPG rules, and in Cyberpunk 2077 this aspect alone is a bit different.

Choose Your Upbringing

---

We mentioned The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and all previous entries from series-handler, and best New Kid on the self-management Gaming Block, or the “Donny” of gaming, CD Projekt RED. What’s different this time around is in antithesis to how the studio lauded their previous efforts -- “The World Doesn’t Need a Hero, it Needs a Professional”. That marketing line rang truest in The Witcher, because you played as an established character with a full backstory. In Cyberpunk, however, you are master of your origins domain.

In the truest RPG sense, you create your character; male, female, binary, fluid… the choice is yours. But expansive to this oldest of gaming options for the truly hardcore out there, is a prefabricated starting point. You can choose between three distinct cultural allegiances. And these will reflect your starting point in the game. If you consider another very popular RPG series, The Elder Scrolls, your intro regardless of allegiance was always the same. Your story started *here*. In Cyberpunk 2077, depending on said allegiance you start elsewhere, and your path to becoming a Cyberpunk in the year 2077 is unique and different not only based on all of the above, but also on decisions you make along the way. In many ways, this opens the massive game up to replayability -- a slice of design brilliance that will no doubt keep eager Nomads, Street Kids or Corpos coming back for more.

Head Here For Cyberpunk 2077 - Role-Playing in the Future

Corrupt save file, three words you don't want to see when firing up a massive open-world RPG on PC -- though that's exactly what's happening for some players. As acknowledged by CD Projekt Red, the issue stems from too many crafting materials and items for some Cyberpunk 2077 players - with saves corrupting when they go over 8mb in size.

As per this post on GOG, the size limitation might be increased in a future patch but corrupt saves look to be exactly that -- with CDPR urging those affected to "please use an older save file to continue playing and try to keep a lower amount of items and crafting materials". Another wrinkle in the very troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077, though as the Hotfix 1.05 patch notes demonstrate -- the game's many bugs and glitches are slowly being ironed out.

A pretty extensive list, here's the full list of changes.

Quests

• Jackie will no longer disappear in The Pickup or The Heist.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing players from landing the helicopter in Love like Fire.
  
• Fixed an issue with Takemura not calling in Play it Safe.
  
• It's no longer possible to trigger the same dialogue twice in Big in Japan.
  
• Fixed an issue with Delamain appearing upside down at the end of Don't Lose Your Mind.
  
• Saul now correctly reaches the van in Riders on the Storm.
  
• Fast travelling before the encounter with Tyger Claws no longer breaks progression in I Fought the Law.
  
• Fixed an issue blocking progress in Ghost Town if an autosave made upon Raffen Shiv's arrival was loaded.
  
• Fixed an issue with not receiving new calls or messages if Happy Together failed as a result of combat.
  
• Elizabeth Peralez stops being excessively insistent with her calls after her job offer is refused.
  
• The scene with Misty and Jackie now starts properly after leaving Viktor's clinic.
  
• Wakako's dialogues no longer get blocked after finishing Search and Destroy.
  
• Walking away from Stefan in Sweet Dreams shouldn't prevent other characters from calling you anymore.
  
• Brick’s detonator should now be properly interactable for players to disarm. Or set off. Your call.
  
• Elevator doors should now correctly open in The Heist.
  
• Saul now correctly gets out of cars in Riders on the Storm.
  
• Fixed an issue with not receiving new calls or messages after running too far away from Frank in War Pigs.
  
• Jackie now correctly leaves the factory after the combat is finished in The Pickup.
  
• Fixed an issue with Militech reinforcements not spawning if driving through the gate too fast in Forward to Death.
  
• Skipping time while in the club in Violence no longer results in issues with progression.
  
• Fixed issues with starting Gig: Getting Warmer...
  
• Fixed an issue with not receiving new calls or messages after Pyramid Song has been abandoned midway.
  
• Fixed an issue whereby Delamain core could be already broken when player enters the Core room in Don't Lose Your Mind.
  
• Fixed issues with Delamain not appearing or doing nothing outside the Afterlife in The Heist.
  
• Fixed an issue with objective getting stuck on "Talk to Viktor" in The Ripperdoc.
  
• Fixed an issue whereby it was impossible to talk to the bouncer in front of Lizzie's in The Information.
  
• Added description for Don't Lose Your Mind in the Journal.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing player from saving, using fast travels, and talking to other NPCs after reloading a save with an active call with Frank in War Pigs.
  
• Fixed an issue with Panam not calling about any other matter until I'll Fly Away is completed.
  
• Fixed an issue with Dum Dum following V after The Pickup is finished.

Gameplay

• Improved the reaction times of NPCs taking cover.
  
• Corrected the number of shots needed to kill civilians from a distance while in combat.

Visual

• Fixed an issue with Delamain's image displayed on top of the current caller during phone calls.
  
• V's mouth doesn't stay open after entering the space lock in Where is My Mind.
  
• Fixed some UI overlap issues.
  
• V appears more modest in the inventory preview after the half year montage ;)
  
• NPCs are faster to appear in the quest area during Stadium Love.
  
• Added some warmth to HDR.
  
• Fixed T-posing NPCs in Suspected Organized Crime Activity: Just Say No and Gig: Hot Merchandise.
  
• Fixed an issue whereby after a braindance it was possible to be stuck in 3rd person view with no head.
  
• Silencer icons are no longer displayed with no image in the inventory.

UI

• Fixed an issue with weapon crosshair persisting on screen.
  
• The inventory menu no longer closes immediately after opening it for the first time after leaving a car.
  
• Fixed an issue whereby upon accessing a fast travel terminal the button shown on the top right corner prompting to open the quest journal would not work.

Performance & Stability

• Multiple stability improvements, including crash fixes.

Miscellaneous

• Offscreen explosions make noise now.

PC-specific

• [AMD SMT] Optimized default core/thread utilization for 4-core and 6-core AMD Ryzen(tm) processors. 8-core, 12-core and 16-core processors remain unchanged and behaving as intended. This change was implemented in cooperation with AMD and based on tests on both sides indicating that performance improvement occurs only on CPUs with 6 cores and less.
  
• Fixed an issue with the way Raw Input is collected.
  
• Removed the use of AVX instruction set thus fixing crashes occurring at the end of the Prologue on processors not supporting AVX.
  
• Removed debug console to prevent functions that could lead to crashes or blocked quests. This doesn't mean we don't want to support the modding community. Stay tuned for more info on that.
  
• Ray traced reflections should no longer seem too bright in comparison to the environment.
  
• Fixed an issue with Steam Overlay crash on game shutdown.
  
• Removed the memory_pool_budgets.csv file. which was not connected with the final version of the game and had no influence on it (it was a leftover file used during the development to estimate memory usage. It had no effect on how much memory was actually allocated). Perceived performance increase after editing the file may have been related to restarting the game.

Console-specific

• Improved image sharpness with Chromatic Aberration and Film Grain on.
  
• Settings should no longer reset to default after several game session restarts.
  
• Fixed visual issues occurring during the transition between The Heist and Love Like Fire.
  
• Corrected the look of several vehicles.
  
• [Xbox] Entering combat while Synaptic Accelerator is active no longer ends in player health bar not being displayed.
  
• [Xbox] Game no longer becomes unresponsive when signing out from a profile when the controller disconnection message is visible.
  
• Telemetry consent request will appear once more due to an earlier issue with settings reset.
  
• Fixed an issue whereby it was possible to fall down the elevator shaft in Megabuilding H8 in Automatic Love.

A huge move, but Sony has removed Cyberpunk 2077 from its online store, but even more poignant, offering discounts to anyone who purchased the game digitally, based off the series of problems it, developer CD Projekt RED and punters have had with the game on PS4 and Xbox One, or "last-gen", consoles since release.

CDPR has aligned itself with Microsoft in the lead up to the hotly anticipated game's launch, so there's no telling if the Xbox version of the game in a digital sense will offer the same refund option until it's last-gen ready, but this move from Sony is actually fairly significant.

SIE strives to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, therefore we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased Cyberpunk 2077 via PlayStation Store. SIE will also be removing Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store until further notice.

Once we have confirmed that you purchased Cyberpunk 2077 via PlayStation Store, we will begin processing your refund. Please note that completion of the refund may vary based on your payment method and financial institution.

It's been an uphill battle for the most talked about game of at least this year, however, it definitely has legs as we've played it on high-end PC and found only a handful of problems. This doesn't help the consolers out there, but given the power of next-gen when a new patch comes it'll likely bring it in line with a moderate PC build. For all the last-geners though... we can't be sure what your future holds.

For PC StreetKids, here's our review in progress.

When it comes to the base PS4 and Xbox One versions of Cyberpunk 2077, the game was clearly unfinished. From reports of poor frame-rates to other technical issues it's been described by many as a mess. Especially when compared to the PC version and the game running on next-gen consoles in backwards compatibility mode. Overnight developer CD Projekt Red acknowledged the issues and outlines its plans to, well, fix the game.

pic.twitter.com/jtF5WKCiro

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) December 14, 2020

Here's the statement in full.

Dear gamers,

First of all, we would like to start by apologizing to you for not showing the game on base last-gen consoles before it premiered and, in consequence, not allowing you to make a more informed decision about your purchase. We should have paid more attention to making it play better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Second, we will fix bugs and crashes, and improve the overall experience. The first round of updates has just been released and the next one is coming within the next 7 days. Expect more, as we will update frequently whenever new improvements are ready. After the holidays, will continue working will release two large patches starting with Patch #1 in January. This will be followed by Patch #2 in February. Together these should fix the most prominent problems gamers are facing on last-gen consoles. We will be informing you about the contents of each patch ahead of their release. They won't make the game on last-gen look like its running on a high-spec PC or next-gen console, but it will be closer to that experience than it is now.

Finally, we would always like everyone who buys our games to be satisfied with their purchase. We would appreciate it if you would give us a chance, but if you are not pleased with the game on your console and don't want to wait for updates, you can opt to refund your copy. For copies purchased digitally, please use the refund system of PSN or Xbox respectively. For boxed versions, please first try to get a refund at the store where you bought the game. Should this not be possible, please contact us at helpmerefund@cdprojektred.com and we will do our best to help you. Starting from today, you can contact us for a week up until December 21st, 2020.

Humbly
Marcin Iwiński, Adam Kiciński, Adam Badowski, Michal Nowakowski, Pio Nielubowicz, Piotr Karowski

PS. PC gamers will also be getting regular updates and fixes improving the game.

As per above the studio is committing to fixing the bugs and issues surrounding the game, which exist on all platforms, with major patches coming in January and February. Refunds are also being offered for those (understandably) upset with the situation. As one of the most highly anticipated releases of all time, it certainly feels like Cyberpunk 2077 was simply not ready for release and needed more time for polish.

Launching a major title across multiple platforms (and now multiple generations of consoles thanks to backwards compatibility) has resulted in a mixed reception for the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 when it comes to performance. On the high-end, as per our review in progress, seeing Night City in motion powered by an RTX 30 series GPU is nothing short of stunning. The flip-side to this though, the baseline PS4 and Xbox One consoles are struggling to keep up.

As per this video from Digital Foundry comparing the launch version of the game on the PS4 and PS4 Pro, it's definitely a cause for concern. Especially when put up against this next-gen Xbox Series X and S and PS5 breakdown which shows that the game runs a lot better on next-gen hardware even without specific patches.

Regardless of platform though, the massive open-world adventure has its share of bugs, which developer CD Projekt Red is looking to address. As per the Hotfix 1.04 Patch Notes it looks like Cyberpunk 2077 will be getting a string of updates focusing on bugs, glitches, and improving performance. And on that note this first Hotfix is actually pretty extensive.

New hotfix to Cyberpunk 2077 is now live on all platforms. Here is the list of changes:

Quests

• Fixed an issue with completing the final objective in Gig: Freedom of the Press.
  
• Fixed an issue with starting conversation with Johnny at the end in Life During Wartime.
  
• Corrected a rare issue with NPCs no longer calling V if A Like Supreme quest was abandoned mid-way.
  
• Fixed an issue with Nix not going into his default state in Spellbound and KOLD MIRAGE.
  
• Fixed issues blocking progress in I Fought The Law if the quest area is left.
  
• Fixed inability to find Delamain in Epistrophy.
  
• Fixed issues related to remaining in the second phase of the quest after finishing Pacifica fight with Ozob if played after Finals.
  
• Fixed an issue with Nomads no longer present if V leaves the quest area mid-combat in With a Little Help from My Friends/Queen of the Highway.
  
• Adjusted mappings and re-enabled quest tracker in M'ap Tann Pèlen/I Walk the Line/Transmission.
  
• Fixed constraints on freedom to get up and sit down if neither blueline condition is met in Violence.
  
• Fixed issues with time and space resulting from leaving the quest area or abandoning the quest in Following the River.
  
• Fixed an issue with conversation with Johnny not starting after leaving the hotel in Tapeworm.
  
• Fixed an issue with quest being blocked upon leaving the quest area before climbing the hill in Following the River.
  
• Fixed the objective “Go into booth 9” not completing if the room’s entered too fast in Automatic Love.
  
• Fixed Jackie’s issues with sitting still in The Ripperdoc.
  
• Other quest fixes

Gameplay

• Fixed the preview in weapon crafting.

Visual

• Reduced vehicle appearance pop-in.
  
• Speeded up switching first person perspective to third person perspective in a vehicle.
  
• Fixed issues with animations missing from important quest NPCs during cinematics.

Performance & Stability

• Improved stability, including various crash fixes.

Miscellaneous

• Modified the flashing effect on braindances to reduce the risk of inducing epileptic symptoms. The effect has been smoothed out and the flashes reduced in frequency and magnitude.
  
• Removed copyrighted songs incorrectly present in the game with "Disable Copyrighted Music" feature toggled on.

PC-specific

• Switching language to default in the in-game settings now correctly sets it to the language of your Steam client.

Console-specific

• Improved reflections quality on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 to eliminate the smudge effect.
  
• Fixed “The Wasteland” achievement being stuck on 97% after completing all relevant missions in The Badlands on Xbox.
  
• Fixed an issue with missing PT-BR VO for Xbox players in Americas.

Yeah, it's finally here - CD Projekt RED's highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077. And although our full review is still in the works (you can check out our in progress thoughts here), there's no denying that getting to experience the retro future cool of Night City is, well, breathtaking.

As per our Cyberpunk Review In Progress.

Night City is quite unlike anything we’ve ever seen, with detail and a sense of scale that is truly awe-inspiring.

A sensory feast of towering buildings, people, animated billboards, vehicles, shops, back alleys, and more. The auditory mind isn’t entirely equipped, honestly, in our modern mindset to understand it. But, damn it’s rad. Night City and its districts present a futuristic megalopolis that stands as one of the greatest achievements in videogame history -- where art, interactivity and technology come together in such a way as to make the impossible, well, possible. The other ingredient is history, lore and a world that drips in detail -- often literally. With steam and puddles and rain pouring over business signs and branding, and characters that have a lifetime of story to impart.

And just to make the long-awaited release that little bit more for reals, here's the launch trailer.



So then, have you fired it up yet? What are you playing on? And let us know your thoughts so far.

It’s hard to quantify the hype surrounding the release of Cyberpunk 2077, out later this week on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. With the release of The Witcher 3 back in 2015, developer CD Projekt Red became a studio synonymous with greatness - a fact bolstered by that game’s excellent expansions. And so, here it is - Night City. Although we’re far from finishing V’s journey - we’re more than happy to present our Review In Progress.

And how, even with what we’ve seen to date, nothing can prepare you for sheer detail and awe that comes from visiting Night City.

Being overwhelmed can have a negative connotation when viewed purely from the perspective of, well, digital stuff. And that is a large world to explore; an expansive story to experience; a map littered with characters and activities and quests and things to do. Icons everywhere -- where being pulled in so many directions, whilst still trying to figure out mechanics, means that even after a dozen or so hours there’s a sense that you’re still in ‘Intro Mode’.

That moment -- the one alluded to above -- is how you begin your Cyberpunk 2077 adventure. And the ensuing hours thereafter, well, they’re indeed overwhelming (though not for the reasons mentioned above). Instead it's a feeling akin to visiting a new sprawling city for the first time. Where your eyes and brain activate their own organic form of CyberWare™ in order to process the sights, sounds, signage, vehicles, people and fashion. The bustle. Night City is quite unlike anything we’ve ever seen, with detail and a sense of scale that is truly awe-inspiring.

Click Here for Our Cyberpunk 2077 Review In Progress

Sounds odd highlighting features like this having worked in this business from as far back as almost only being able to use screens given to us by publishers and devs (PC excluded, obvs), but the old Photo Mode has become a big deal in modern gaming, and now there's a one-upmanship component to its addition to games, with titles like Marvel's Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima and the more recent Assassin's Creeds, among many others, serving up options galore and a way to share your experiences in as creative and freeform ways as you like.

Today's video ahead of the game being finally in everyone's hands on the 10th of December gives extra value to the mode in that the OTT nature of a retrofuture open-world game with unprecedented freedom, can now be captured in the most awesome way possible. But seriously, enough from us, just watch the video embedded below.

This is nothing short of amazing, with creator Duren putting their formidable WoW Machinima skills to great use. Recreating the now iconic Cyberpunk 2077 trailer from E3 2018 using World of Warcraft characters, assets, and more.

And we say amazing because the level of detail makes this one of the most impressive bits of crossover you're likely to see. Cyberpunk Night Elves and Orcs? Dwarven mechanical goodness as a part of a futuristic Night City in Azeroth? Hell yes!

Check it out.



This recreation of the E3 2018 trailer uses the more sci-fi elements of World of Warcraft in such a way as to make a high-fantasy version of the game - with Blizzard's own iconic art direction - something we'd love to see more of. Maybe there's an alternate universe where this version of the game exists.

Anyway, chalk this up as one of the best fan-made creations of 2020. And there's so much here we're probably going to end up watching this as many times as we did the original Cyberpunk 2077 trailer.

Though it's worth noting that on PlayStation 5 hardware - as with the recent Xbox Series X gameplay - you're basically getting the backwards compatible PlayStation 4 Pro version. Anyway, Cyberpunk 2077 looks good no matter the platform, and this little compilation of gameplay is a great showcase for the stunning Night City.



In the introduction we also get word that the Day One patch for Cyberpunk 2077 across all platforms will be substantial - in that it will squash bugs and improve the visual quality and performance on both console and PC. In terms of PC though, it's clear that the PS4 and Xbox One versions fall behind what's possible on a high-end rig (one featuring an RTX 3070 or RTX 3080) -- as the latest PC deep dive presented a true next-gen look at the game thanks to fancy ray-tracing effects.

In fact the PS4 video above features the same car-chase sequence glimpsed in this NVIDIA video -- and, yeah, the difference is pretty huge.

But, as mentioned above -- this video is proof that Cyberpunk 2077 looks good no matter the platform, and that December 10 is only a couple of weeks away.

Yesterday we got one hell of an impressive gameplay trailer for Cyberpunk 2077, and with the release now weeks away - NVIDIA has released a new developer interview with the team at CD Projekt Red to talk about the game, Night City, and its use of ray-tracing. Let's just say that with RTX On, Cyberpunk 2077 looks absolutely stunning.

As per the details all footage we see features DXR ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS -- the AI rendering tech pioneered by NVIDIA that has become something of a must for being able to play anything with these sorts of visuals at a solid frame-rate. Though on that note it's safe to say we haven't seen an open-world that looks anywhere near like this before.



It's a blink and you'll miss it thing but the final shot in the video above, a gun-fight sequence whilst driving through the rain. With the muzzle flashes and the reflective surface of the van showcasing the speeding street behind the player, yeah, wow.

In terms of the next-gen effect that is ray-tracing, Cyberpunk 2077 makes full use of DXR ray-traced reflections, diffuse illumination, ambient occlusion and shadows - something that, once turned on, took an already mind-blowing city to "the next level" - according to senior level designer Miles Tost.

So then, what will you need to get the game to look as good as what we see in this video? NVIDIA has broken it down as follows -- with DLSS being the key across all ray-tracing and high specs.


As per above the minimum for 1080p ray-tracing is the RTX 2060, with 1440p Ultra settings requiring a GeForce RTX 3070 or RTX 2080 Ti. Bump things up to 4K Ultra leaves only the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090. Covering the range of RTX offerings, by supporting the RTX 2060 it looks like Cyberpunk will scale well across all NVIDIA GPUs.

Interestingly the official Cyberpunk 2077 account updated the spec list to include the new AMD Radeon 6000 series -- with the 6800 XT listed for 4K Ultra settings - though that's without ray-tracing.

You asked, we deliver!

Check out the >>UPDATED<< system requirements for #Cyberpunk2077!

Below you'll find recommended configurations for 1080p low, 1080p high, 1440p ultra and 4K ultra settings, as well as ray tracing setups! pic.twitter.com/kzXhEbiuHE

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) November 20, 2020

Which, again, kind of confirms that without a DLSS equivalent the performance would probably be unplayable there.

We're now weeks away from the release of Cyberpunk 2077 and to celebrate CD Projekt Red has put together a stunning new video giving us all that one last overview of Night City, combat, dialogue choices, skill trees, and choosing the right jacket and ride. Plus, some spoiler-y stuff on how Johnny Silverhand/Keanu Reeves joins the fight.

That said, the visuals here look incredible. No doubt this is what the game will look like when running on a high-end rig. Say, one powered by the RTX 3080.



It doesn't stop there though as the final episode of Night City Wire has also been released with some very cool behind the scenes Johnny Silverhand stuff with man of the moment Keanu Reeves -- and some insight into the game's soundtrack. Analogue synths baby.



Cyberpunk 2077, is coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, on December 10.