It was a big week for the scantily clad at Kotaku this week, with both GTA 6 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth giving players plenty of skin. We’re also feeling veryexcited about the new Fallout show, but decidedly less enthusiastic about the minimal focus on the actual awards at this week’s Game Awards.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading
These are the week’s most interesting perspectives on the wild, wonderful, and sometimes weird world of video game news.
Grand Theft Auto 6 looks gorgeous. Unless its debut trailer this week was faked, it might end up being one of the best-looking games of this console generation when it comes out in 2025. By that time, my Xbox Series S will be five years old. I shudder to think of that sleek little white box trying to play Rockstar Games’ latest open-world blockbuster. – Ethan Gach Read More
I’ve played about six hours of Ubisoft’s new Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandoraand my big takeaway is that Avatar sickos will love this game, Far Cry Primal fans will get a kick out of Ubisoft returning to this formula, and everyone else, well… uh…dang, the game sure is pretty, huh? – Zack Zwiezen Read More
An intimate moment in GTA 6.Screenshot: Rockstar / Kotaku
Good news, everyone! Unless you’ve been living in a monastery, you’re likely aware that 2023 is the year that video games got horny again. And no, I don’t mean tastefully Hades frisky, I mean Leisure Suit Larry and Night Traplevels of unhinged lust, the likes of which “mainstream” gaming (whatever that means) hasn’t seen since the 1990s. – Jen Glennon Read More
Historically, TV and film adaptations of video games don’t have the greatest track record. The last few years, however, have started turning that around. Pikachu, Sonic, and Mario have all starred in successful movies, and earlier this year The Last of Us got a proper prestige adaptation that certainly left a mark on fans. – Claire Jackson Read More
And so that’s that. The Game Awards 2023 are over. 32 awards were handed out over three and a half hours. You might think, with that much time to spare, the show took its time and truly celebrated all the creators and games nominated for what the show calls “Gaming’s Biggest Night.” Nope. Instead, more so than before, the show sped through them at a rapid pace, making me wonder why it still pretends to be an award show at all. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the best games Square Enix ever produced, and it’s not available anywhere on modern consoles or PC. A remaster is an obvious way to fix that problem, and it seemed like all signs were pointing to one getting announced any day now. So it’s an especially cruel twist of fate that the original game’s director, Yasumi Matsuno, keeps toying with fans’ emotions about whether a remaster is actually happening or not. – Ethan Gach Read More
Cyberpunk 2077 is in a pretty good spot these days. After a dumpster fire of a launch, the next-gen update, 2.0 patch, and Phantom Liberty expansion have gotten CD Projekt Red’s open-world RPG to a respectable state. The 2.1 patch that launched this week adds a nice little bow to the game as its “last big update.” It has long-requested features like a working subway you can take across Night City, and it also lets V, its mercenary protagonist, spend a little time with their lover in their apartment. The results are an adorable stay-at-home date with your paramour, but for as sweet as it is, these hangouts underline something that felt left out of the Cyberpunk 2077 redemption arc: the romance. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
The first trailer for Rockstar’s next Grand Theft Auto game, likely to be named GTA VI, comes out December 5. What can we expect the trailer to reveal? Well, based on Rockstar’s past GTA trailers, which are fantastic, there’s a pattern that can help us predict what we might see during GTA VI’s official debut. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Earlier this week, we asked you all to give us your choice for the best video game sequel. Any sequel would count and everyone was free to suggest any game they wanted, no matter how old, obscure, or divisive. And we tallied up all the answers, crunched the numbers, and figured out your top ten sequels. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Sultry singlets everywhere, oh my!Screenshot: Sega
The secret is out: the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series has great minigames. Whether you enjoy playing retro arcade brawlers like Virtua Fighter, dumping dozens of hours into becoming a real-estate tycoon, or chatting up bodacious babes at the hostess club, Sega’s goofy action series has plenty of pleasant timesinks to wile away the hours. Though it’s still several weeks away, it’s already clear that the upcoming Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is no exception to that rule. – Jen Glennon Read More
From mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
Following some intense controversy surrounding her new snack brand, popular Twitch streamer Pokimane has apologized for an insensitive comment she made to a “rude chatter” during a November 18 livestream. Read More
When you think of Nintendo, you tend to think of family-friendly gaming. You think of Link and Mario and sunshine and smiley stars. The word “adult” doesn’t likely come up when you ponder games on Switch, but that’s seemingly about to change. The company is adding a new 18+ app to its subscription service, Nintendo Switch Online, although only in Japan. Read More
As Cyberpunk 2077 approaches its third anniversary, the beleaguered blockbuster is getting a send-0ff to immortalize its unlikely turnaround. CD Projekt Red announced an Ultimate Edition for the sci-fi RPG on November 21 that includes this year’s Phantom Liberty expansion and the massive 2.0 overhaul patch. There will even be a physical copy for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S owners. Read More
A lawsuit filed last year accused Sony of using its walled-garden video game platform to charge players too much in the PlayStation Store. The London Tribunal has now allowed that lawsuit to move forward, against the PS5 maker’s objections, which could result in payments to players in the UK of up to $7.9 billion if it is ultimately successful. Read More
Buying super special “collector’s editions” of video games can be like heading into treacherous waters. These often-expensive boxes full of goodies (and also a video game) tend to sell out pretty quickly, and then you’re more likely to find them for double the price on reseller sites like eBay or Facebook’s marketplace. But if you’re eyeing the Baldur’s Gate 3 Deluxe Edition set to ship next year, Larian Studios is telling fans not to worry about it selling out, because the team isn’t making it a limited item. Read More
Slow news day? You betcha. But look, it’s Thanksgiving, and there’s a good chance people are cooking and eating just about anything they can find right now. Please, if we can save just one person from trying to cook their Steam Deck, then it will have been worth it. Read More
The white wolf is coming to Destiny 2 by way of some new cosmetics. Bungie teased a crossover with CD Projekt Red’s beloved RPG The Witcher 3 that will add three new armor sets to make players look like protagonist Geralt of Rivia, at least if they’re willing to shell out $20 or more for a single set. The new skins look great, but also arrive at Destiny 2’s lowest point in years. Read More
To avoid what many consider aggressive monetization, Mortal Kombat 1 players are doing everything they can to avoid buying cosmetics in NetherRealms’ latest 2D fighter. The latest exploit involves them utilizing a console date change hack to acquire once-free character skins that are now only available if you buy them. Read More
As Cyberpunk 2077 approaches its third anniversary, the beleaguered blockbuster is getting a send-0ff to immortalize its unlikely turnaround. CD Projekt Red announced an Ultimate Edition for the sci-fi RPG on November 21 that includes this year’s Phantom Liberty expansion and the massive 2.0 overhaul patch. There will even be a physical copy for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S owners.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition will come to “next-gen” consoles and PC on December 5, and give players the chance to experience the open world story and years of fixes and upgrades all in one place for $60.
“This new release is the perfect way to experience every story of the dark future; it also contains the free Update 2.0, which overhauled many of the game’s systems, introducing dynamic skill trees, high-octane vehicle combat, and enhanced enemy and police AI — as well as adding new weapons, vehicles, and clothes,” CDPR wrote in a press release.
Game of the Year editions became something of a joke in the industry many years ago, but if any release deserved to get repackaged that way, it’s Cyberpunk 2077. Once pulled from the PlayStation Store for being so busted on PS4, the game is now pretty close to what players had hoped for based on years of trailers and E3 hype. Phantom Liberty, starring Idris Elba as FIA sleeper agent Solomon Reed, is the type of high-quality expansion fans have come to expect from the studio behind The Witcher 3‘s Hearts of Stone and Blood and WineDLC. The underlying gameplay has also markedly improved.
But the real significance of the new Ultimate Edition is that Cyberpunk 2077‘s definitive 2.0 version will now be the one included on physical discs for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S players. The Xbox version will even include the entire Phantom Liberty expansion incorporated into the base game. (PS5 owners will have to download it during installation.) That means that even in the actual year 2077, when the video game servers will have likely long since shut down, anyone who still has an ancient console and the Ultimate Edition disc will still be able to experience Cyberpunk 2077 in its complete form.
Lots of games have managed to engineer live service-style redemption arcs these days, but very few get to see them memorialized in physical form. Now if only the Netflix spin-off Cyberpunk: Edgerunnerscould get a physical release as well.
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 developingPhantom 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. And Cyberpunk’s costs rise even more when you factor in the fortune CD Projekt Red spent just plugging up the original release’s worst problems after its disastrous launch.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
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.
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
Another interesting number revealed during the presentation is 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. Add that number to the above Phantom Liberty figures and you could feasibly claim CDPR spent almost $125 million on fixing Cyberpunk 2077’s imageand saving its reputation.
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.
Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion have a problem with wasting your time. CD Projekt Red’s open-world RPG has a feature where you have to wait an undetermined amount of time for certain quests to activate, and that persists into Phantom Liberty. Even now, after the epic 2.0 update revamped a bunch of the game, it’s still making players wait around doing nothing, praying for the next mission to pop.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
I suppose you could argue this is a creative choice meant to encourage you to spend time dipping into side missions instead of just barreling through the main quest. Cool, but then you have to wait large chunks of time before you can get back to the quests you actually want to play. The largely excellent new Phantom Liberty expansion has one of the most egregious examples of this yet, and it sounds like a lot of players are struggling with it.
The final mission in one of Phantom Liberty’s two routes is called “The Killing Moon.” Without getting into the specifics, some messy shit goes down and you have to wait for a phone call from Songbird, the skilled netrunner you meet at the beginning of the expansion. While I was playing Phantom Liberty for review, I noticed that this specific wait was probably the longest I’d experienced in my three years of playing Cyberpunk 2077.
I killed time by using the in-game wait feature, knocking off side-quests, and aimlessly sprinting around the map in hopes that she’d finally hit my line. Eventually, I got the quest to proc but it took days, maybe weeks of in-game time. I discussed this moment with other reviewers who experienced the same trouble, but we couldn’t pin down any real throughline as to what finally got Songbird to make the call. It seemed arbitrary.
Now, the expansion is out, and I was watching video producer and writer Sam Greer stream the expansion on her Twitch channel. It took her around 40 minutes to get the quest to activate. This prompted me and other viewers to try and find answers as to what the hold-up was, and it turns out that a lot of people are running into this issue. There are a handfulofReddit threads about “The Killing Moon” and the painful wait to get back into the action.
Some Redditors have suggested that you need to complete the quest “Run This Town,” which you get via a phone call from Mr. Hands, before events will progress, but Greer was able to finally continue “The Killing Moon” without completing that other quest.
Kotaku has reached out to CD Projekt Red about the issue and will update the story should we hear back. But if you’re running into this problem, know you’re not alone, and the quest is likely not bugged. There’s conflicting information on how to actually get it moving again, though.
Next week sees the long-awaited launch of Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt Red’s one and only expansion for the controversial and divisive Cyberpunk 2077. If you’ve got an existing save game, you can jump into the expansion as long as you’ve complete the main game’s Voodoo Boys questline.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
But just because Phantom Liberty’s new, story-driven missions become accessible then doesn’t necessarily mean you should play them right away. The best time to jump into Phantom Liberty is a bit more complicated, and based on how you’re coming into Cyberpunk 2077 years after its initial launch. But no matter what your existing relationship with the game, here’s a breakdown of how and when to dive into this spy thriller of an expansion.
You should play through all of Cyberpunk 2077 before Phantom Liberty
I tackled Phantom Liberty with a near-completionist save. I’d already gotten Cyberpunk 2077’s original ending, made my peace with it, and was able to examine the expansion through the lens of it being a new, standalone story that was complementary to the main quest rather than a part of it. I think this is the ideal way to play through the new expansion for a few reasons, the biggest being that it helps you contextualize Phantom Liberty’s story within the larger narrative of Cyberpunk 2077.
Without getting into spoilers, Phantom Liberty adds a new ending to Cyberpunk 2077, and while it ties into V and Johnny Silverhand’s story, the new conclusion takes a lot of characters, plotlines, and events off the board to make it happen. You won’t see a lot of stories wrap up properly if you opt for Phantom Liberty’s new ending, and if you don’t have the broader understanding of how it fits into things, you might feel a little let down by the lack of closure and clarity in those other storylines. The new ending itself is substantial and stands tall as one of the game’s most interesting finales, but it’s best seen and understood in context.
Plus, seeing companion storylines like Kerry’s, Judy’s, Panam’s, and River’s through to the end elevates the new ending, so if you haven’t yet completed those questlines it will lessen the impact of some moments. Kerry specifically doesn’t show up until Act 3, so if you jump into Phantom Liberty as soon as you can, you will miss out on some of the new ending’s most meaningful moments.
Don’t skip to Phantom Liberty when prompted
If you’re jumping back into Cyberpunk 2077 and starting a new playthrough to see Phantom Liberty, it will give you the option to skip straight to the expansion. While that is convenient and probably a fine option for players with minimal investment in Cyberpunk 2077’s storylines, it will make a story decision for you and you won’t have all those established relationships, nice equipment, etc. If you’re really eager to just hop in and see what’s going on the option is there, and I give CDPR credit for thinking of it, but it’s probably not the experience you want for $30 of your hard-earned money.
Cyberpunk 2077 has certainly had a long, strange journey from being totally busted at launch to reasonably playable today. Debates rage on as to whether it can ever deliver on all the pre-launch hype CD Projekt Red generated, but soon the game will get another chance to impress with the one-two punch of a sweeping version 2.0 update and the September 26 launch of its only paid expansion, Phantom Liberty. But which upcoming features are free, and which will require you to shell out for the DLC? We can finally shed some light on that.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
That’s because today the game’s official Twitter tweeted a graphic that lays out, in no uncertain terms, which changes will be available as part of the game’s 2.0 update, and which will require buying the Phantom Liberty expansion. As of this writing, the 2.0 update doesn’t have a release date, but it will launch before the $30 Phantom Liberty does on September 26. Generally, the patch looks to be mostly systemic and quality-of-life changes, whereas the expansion is bringing new content on top of those sweeping fixes and tweaks.
So, which new features will you get for free, and which are only in the paid DLC? Read on.
Features in the free Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update
All PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S Cyberpunk 2077 players will enjoy the following new features for free, whenever the 2.0 update hits. (Unfortunately the PS4 and Xbox One received their last major patch with last year’s version 1.6 “Edgerunners” update.)
Redesigned skill trees and perks
When we played Phantom Liberty during Summer Game Fest, CD Projekt Red spent time extolling the many coming quality-of-life changes, like a cleaner, more readable UI. But more systemic gameplay changes, including redesigned skill trees and a complete overhaul of the cyberware system, seem like they’ll change the game up in more significant ways.
The redesigned skill trees, based on my time with them in that demo, feel like they’ll help to craft a more defined playstyle for your V. The character I played in the demo was melee-based, with powerful hand-to-hand finishers and the ability to deflect bullets. That’s only one of the planned new skill trees, and it’s unlike anything in the base game right now. Needless to say, you’ll want to respec when the 2.0 update launches.
Just one caveat to note: The new “Relic” skill tree, about which more below, will only be included in the paid expansion.
Revamped cyberware and new capacity system
Now only is your basic character build evolving, but also how you augment it. The revamped Cyberware system allows you to basically put your tech augments into overdrive to make them more powerful, but that will come with drawbacks if you’re not careful. While it won’t quite reach the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime’s portrayal of cyberpsychosis, you can expect some more risk and reward in how you augment V after patch 2.0.
Vehicle combat and car chases
In Cyberpunk 2077 you spend a lot of time driving around Night City, but the base game doesn’t let you do much else with all the cars and bikes you collect. The 2.0 update is adding combat sequences—V can fire a sidearm out the window, or operate a turret built into the car—as well as more car chases in the open world. The game already had a few chases, but only in pre-scripted sequences. This new system seems to make them a naturally occurring event within the world.
Combat AI improvements
Cyberpunk 2077 was pretty much a straightforward shooting gallery most of the time, but the 2.0 update aims to make its combat more dynamic by overhauling enemy AI and tactics. This will include things like making enemies better at taking cover and giving them new melee attacks that make them more lethal up close.
New police system
The 2.0 update claims it will make the punishment for your crimes more severe than a simple firefight and a possible car chase, with the threat scaling depending on the severity of your crimes. This includes giving cops heavier artiliery to deal with you depending on how bad you’ve been. If you keep racking up violations and reach the maximum “Heat” level (think GTA), you’ll have to face a MaxTac miniboss encounter. If you’ve seen Edgerunners, who already know why that’s very bad news.
UI and UX improvements
Cyberpunk 2077’s original UI is a bit hard to read. It’s stylized to look like a HUD a cybernetic-enhanced mercenary might have, but that’s not exactly easy on our real-life human eyes. The 2.0 update is revamping it to be a bit more sleek, clear, and not as disruptive.
Loot, items, and crafting changes
The 2.0 update is also bringing new loot and equipment, as well as changes to the crafting system which lets you make new weapons, clothes, and other items for you to carry around Night City.
New radio stations (including Community Radio Station Growl FM)
While you’re engaging in all that car combat, Cyberpunk 2077 is also getting new radio stations to listen to, which will also include one made up of songs from the community chosen as part of a contest earlier this year.
CD Projekt Red
Features only in the paid Phantom Liberty DLC
All that 2.0 update stuff sounds pretty good, but that won’t get you all the new content and features. You’ll have to shell out 30 bucks if you want to enjoy the following new additions to Night City.
Dogtown – a dangerous new district
The bulk of Phantom Liberty takes place in Dogtown, a new area near Night City’s Pacifica district. You won’t be able to access the new space without buying the expansion, and you also won’t be able to reach it until you reach the Pacifica section of the main game. So be sure to get that out of the way before September 26.
Brand-new storyline and characters
All those systemic changes are fine and well, but the big draw of Phantom Liberty is the spy thriller storyline featuring Luther and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 actor Idris Elba as new character Solomon Reed. Naturally, this will only be available if you buy the expansion.
New quests, gigs, boss fights, and more
Alongside the main quest, Dogtown will be home to other quests, fights, and other antics for V to get up to in Phantom Liberty.
Vehicles missions and airdrops – ‘endless dynamic events’
With the 2.0 patch’s overhaul to vehicles, naturally Phantom Liberty will be looking to highlight those changes. This will include new missions, including airdrops, which are meant to be endlessly replayable, according to the devs we spoke to at Summer Game Fest. We’ll see about that.
All-new Relic skill tree and abilities
Part of the story in Phantom Liberty centers around a character named Songbird, who claims that she can save V from the Relic in their head that is slowly killing them. Part of this includes unlocking the Relic’s potential, thus opening up a new skill tree that is only upgradable using Relic Points found in Dogtown.
100+ new items – weapons, cyberware, cars, and fashion
If you weren’t already overwhelmed by all the loot and such you can collect in the base game, Phantom Liberty is giving you more loot to put in your pack. This includes new fashion, so I will be serving lewks throughout Dogtown while doing spy shit.
Vehicle missile launchers
No car chase or vehicle combat overhaul is complete without mounting an explosive onto the front of your car.
Level cap increased to 60
Cyberpunk 2077’s level cap right now is 50, so on top of respeccing your V with the new skill trees, you’ll be able to gain another 10 levels while you fight your way through Phantom Liberty’s new story and quests.
It seems like CD Projekt Red is going all out for Phantom Liberty, which makes sense considering that it’s the game’s only planned expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. The studio is working on a sequel as well, but that game is likely a very, very long way away.
The author of The Witcher books, which inspired both the CD Projekt Red game series and the Netflix show of the same name, confirmed that he’s working on a new addition to the novels that tell the story of Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla of Cintria, and Yennefer of Vengerberg. It’ll be the first new Witcher book in 10 years—the last was 2013’s Season of Storms—but it likely won’t feature any of those beloved characters.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
According to fansite Redanian Intelligence, Andrzej Sapkowski was on a Ukrainian podcast called Fantastic Talk(s) and was asked what he was working on. Perhaps the man is preternaturally disposed to knowing when The Witcher discourse machine is chugging along, or maybe he has a special witcher sense, because he decided to just flat-out say that he’s “quite diligently” working on “a new book about witcher.”
“I never say these things with me because you never know,” he reportedly said (Redanian Intelligence does not detail how the interview was translated to English). “Maybe I’ll do something, maybe I won’t. And so far, when I said that I would write something, and then I didn’t write it, people complained as if I had deceived them and as if I had lied.”
“That’s why I don’t like to talk about what I’m doing until I finish doing it. Because until I finish it, I don’t think it exists. But since I always make exceptions for Ukrainians, I will do it this time too,” he continued.
Sapkowski then said that the next book in the Witcher universe could “take a year, but no longer” to finish. Geralt fans who are mourning the loss of Henry Cavill as the White Wolf in the Netflix series (he’s leaving for unknown reasons and being replaced by Liam Hemsworth), shouldn’t get too excited for more Geralt content, however, as Sapkowski has made it clear before that Geralt and Ciri’s story is over and done with.
Could the next book be a prequel, like the upcoming TV series based on Ciri’s crew of violent teenagers, The Rats, that’s currently in development at Netflix? Could it tell the story of another conjunction, another joining of different worlds like that one that kicked off the events of The Witcher, with elves and humans forced to share a continent together? More importantly: Is Sapkowski keeping the CDPR team in the loop? The studio is working on a new Witcher trilogy, after all….
On Wednesday, CD Projekt Red juiced up The Witcher 3 with yet another patch, giving the eight-year-old fantasy role-playing game improved cross-platform progression on consoles, new features for Nintendo Switch, and even better-looking grass for touching purposes.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
The Witcher 3’s version 4.04 patch introduces a hodgepodge of graphical updates and quality-of-life improvements to both console and PC versions of the game, as well as bringing certain specific improvements to the Nintendo Switch. In short, the latest patch improves the Switch’s cross-progression feature making it so that, once logged in to your CD Projekt Red account, you can pick up where you left off in The Witcher 3 on other platforms. The Switch is also getting the Netflix-inspired content other consoles received in the last patch.
Aside from numerous bug fixes like, umm… “mending grass collision,” patch 4.04 has also made it so you don’t have to do so much fussing in menu screens during combat, letting you switch oils and potions right from the game’s radial menu. It’s a welcome change, since oils are vital tools in taking down specific monsters. Now Geralt can bathe his sword in whatever specific concoction will help him defeat the beasties he’s currently battling without you needing to break the flow of combat by opening up the pause menu and fiddling around with witcher’s brew.
These quality-of-life updates come as the second half of the third season of Netflix’s Witcher series—the final season with actor Henry Cavill in the role of Geralt—is almost upon us. In his absence, Liam Hemsworth will take up the Roach-riding mantle, debuting as the Butcher of Blaviken in the show’s fourth season.
The second part of The Witcher’s third season will premiere on the streamer on July 27.
The first episode of The Witcher season 3 begins with a lengthy recap of the previous two seasons: flashes of Henry Cavill in that initial, questionable Geralt wig, Freya Allen as a much-younger, more eyebrow-less Ciri, everyone’s shittier eye contacts, sword fights, magic, and a bit of sex. While watching, I was viscerally reminded of how much ground the series has covered since its 2019 debut—how much better the makeup and styling got, how impressively legible the sword fights are, the undeniable sexiness of most of the cast, and how utterly perfect Cavill is as the eponymous witcher, Geralt of Rivia.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
Netflix’s The Witcher pulls from Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series of the same name (which inspired CD Projekt Red’s game franchise), though there are many creative liberties taken with the twisting, turning, time-traveling books. The show can sometimes be a bit of a mess when it comes to plot, getting mired in the political goings-on instead of laser-focusing on the core trio of Geralt, Ciri, and mage Yennefer, but it shines whenever it gives those three center stage. It’s then that you remember: Cavill was made to play Geralt.
Cavill’s physicality and familiarity with Sapkowski’s universe shine in every moment he’s on screen—he perfectly captures the quiet kindness and probing philosophical mind that Geralt displays so often in the books. Geralt can kill you with his bare hands, but he can also have a riveting debate with you about war and race relations, and Cavill embodies that perfectly. I don’t know if I’d call Cavill an excellent actor, but he is an excellent Geralt.
There’s also a special kind of physicality that Cavill brings to the role that’s largely rooted in his ability to do many of his own stunts. While watching this season, I found myself wondering: “Did Cavill take notes from Tom Cruise while on the set of Mission Impossible: Fallout?” Cruise famously does almost all of his own stunts, continuously pushing the limits of what a Hollywood actor can pull off on-screen, and the payoff is obvious: the Mission Impossible films are the best modern action movies by a country mile.
Netflix
Cavill has been working with stunt coordinator Wolfgang Stegemann since Fallout—the two worked together to choreograph the iconic one-shot fight scene from The Witcher season 1, so the connection isn’t all that far-fetched. And Stegemann told GamesRadar that “it’s beautiful to see an actor who’s doing all the stunts themselves. I have a great stunt team but I don’t need a stunt double for him. [This means] I’m able to shoot special camera positions that I would never be able to do without him.”
Will Hemsworth have that kind of dedication to his role? The Witcher series often falters in plot progression and occasionally in character development, but whenever Cavill is fighting in a scene, you can’t look away. And in Season 3, he gets fight scenes and emotionally deep moments in spades, reminding us time and time again that he’s an excellent Geralt of Rivia.
The Witcher without Cavill
Bizarrely, even Netflix seems determined to reassure viewers that yes, Cavill is still in this season of The Witcher. A recent marketing campaign projected the words “Yes, he’s still Geralt in season 3 of The Witcher” on buildings and cliff faces around the world. Sadly he won’t be Geralt in season 4 of The Witcher, and that’s what I’m most worried about.
The Witcher Season 3 is split into two parts with the second set of episodes coming later this month. The first set of episodes ended on a cliffhanger, making the wait for those new episodes feel just a bit longer. Spoilers below for the books, but the second half of the season will likely kick off with the Thanedd coup, an infamous battle that horrifically injures Geralt. He carries that injury with him for the rest of the series, and the aftermath of the coup has major reverberations throughout the entire continent: It dissolves the mages’ Brotherhood, it separates Ciri from Geralt, it crowns an elven queen, it imprisons Yennefer.
The Thanedd coup will drastically shift the series’ pace—expect it to move rapidly, expect the stakes to be upped tenfold, expect your heart to be broken over and over again. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Cavill shouldering the exciting future of The Witcher, but I’ll keep an open mind. Maybe Hemsworth has got the chops, and his Geralt of Rivia will be one for the ages. The Witcher showrunners have promised a “flawless” and “meta” transition from Cavill to Hemsworth, so I’m at least looking forward to seeing how they pull that one off.
The Witcher Season 3 Volume 1 is streaming now on Netflix; Volume 2 is due out on July 27.
Yes, Cyberpunk 2077 is already in HD—it goes way past HD for anyone playing in 2K or 4K, even—but if you ever stopped to look at the game’s ground textures and walls, you may have noticed they’re not as sharp as some of the more attention-grabbing parts of the world.
That’s to be expected, of course, no developer in their right mind would spend as much time on a patch of dirt as they would the character’s apartment or car. But when a certain type of game reaches a certain level of popularity, there are people out there who want to see what that looks like, cost be damned.
Well HalkHogan is now back with much the same thing for CDPR’s follow-up, Cyberpunk 2077, announcing that his HD Reworked Project is now underway and posting a video showcasing some of his work.
Cyberpunk 2077 HD Reworked Project – Release Preview
While you’d expect that adding something like this to the game would come with a performance hit, HalkHogan says that so long as you have enough spare VRAM, you won’t notice and slowdown whatsoever. And if you do, he’s releasing two versions of the mod:
In general, the modification doesn’t hit performance in any way if you have enough amount of VRAM (video card memory). Even if you run out of memory a bit, it shouldn’t be a problem (and if it will, you can always easily uninstall the mod).
There are two versions of the modification, adapted to what the graphics card you have.
Cyberpunk 2077 HD Reworked Project Ultra Quality: contains the highest quality textures and gives the best visual experience. Highly recommended for 2K/4K displays. Game can use up to max 800MB more VRAM so most modern graphics cards should easy deal with it.
Cyberpunk 2077 HD Reworked Project Balanced:maintains high textures quality with lower VRAM usage. Recommended for graphics cards with less amount of memory. Game can use up only about 400MB more VRAM so basically everyone who can comfortably play the game can use this without experiencing any significant performance drops while having noticeably better textures.
Even then, though, in the depths of the game’s nadir, I could see something in the distance, past all the anger and frustration of the moment. So much of the negativity seemed to be coming not from a place of true revulsion, but disappointment, of people’s expectations of Cyberpunk 2077 being “The Witcher 3, with cars” being fumbled.
That spot on the horizon, as tiny as it was, nevertheless had shape and form. It was hope. Big games simply cannot be allowed to die, so even then, as Cyberpunk was on the receiving end of an unprecedented backlash, I could see where this story was headed. The world loves nothing more than a bad game’s redemption arc—see No Man’s Sky for a similar example of the genre—and as bad as Cyberpunk had been at release, surely CD Projekt Red, after spending all that time and money to make the game, would eventually spend enough time and money to fix it?
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
As time did its thing and moved ever onwards, that spot on the periphery would get bigger, until one day it would displace the negative vibes around the game entirely. One day, Cyberpunk 2077 would be good. Could be good. Please, Cyberpunk 2077, you could hear being said louder by the day, be good.
This game has been out for a while. The team is well past the debut of their creative baby, but being the good parents they are, these devs continue to nurture and support their creation. This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years.
We were now free, two years after the game’s nightmarish release, to convince ourselves that this was no longer the same game it had been at launch. Two years of work had righted the ship, given people what they wanted. Cyberpunk 2077 was good now.
But was it? I, along with most of you, had played it in 2020 and thought it was terrible. How much could really have changed since then? With a bunch of time to kill on a recent vacation, and to address my own simmering curiosity over the shape the game was in, I spent a few weeks working my way through Cyberpunk 2077, front to back.
IS CYBERPUNK 2077 GOOD NOW?
That’s a complicated question! But it’s why we’re here, now, in March 2023. What I found was that yes, over the past two years and change a bunch of technical improvements have been made. And when I say improvements, I say it like a battlefield medic would, in that “sawing a man’s legs off” is an improvement over “dying”. My first encounter with the game in December 2020 had lasted for around 10 hours, and for that entire time, even with a relatively new PC, Cyberpunk 2077 ran like trash. So bad it was distracting me from the game itself.
Now it runs great. With DLSS working its black magic and a bunch of patches under its belt, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game reborn on my PC—the exact same PC I had played it on in 2020—with even my modest rig able to run it in 4K, ray-tracing enabled, without skipping a beat. A smoother framerate also made the game’s sluggish shooting and driving sections slightly more tolerable, and best of all everything looked fantastic. So far, so good.
Cyberpunk’s countless and often mission-breaking bugs also seemed far less frequent. There are some still there, ones I think are just part of the way the game was built, like how cars don’t appear in the world so much as they’re dropped, still rocking on their suspension as your character first spots them. Or how police chases simply do not work. Pedestrians still walk and stand through one another, like they’re re-enacting the end of Watchmen. But there are a lot less of these, and I didn’t run into any of the formerly huge issues—like cars and bikes catapulting off the screen—so again, progress.
If bugs and weird glitches were your primary hangup, then sure, Cyberpunk 2077 is “good now”. This technical triage didn’t really matter to me, though. I’m a Battlefield 2042 veteran, I am used to finding pleasure amidst uncooperative polygons. What their taming did at least allow, though, was the opportunity to stop worrying about them, and focus on the game itself. Not what I had wanted it to be, or expected it to be in a post-Witcher 3 world, not what its calamitous launch had prevented it from seemingly ever being. Just me, a smooth framerate and the entirety of Cyberpunk 2077 ahead of me.
OK, I have SOME THINGS I need to say that will sound review-like. I played through 85 hours of Cyberpunk 2077, much of it over my vacation, I need to talk about this with someone.
I started this whole endeavour thinking I’d be writing about one game, Cyberpunk 2077, but I ended up playing two very different ones over those hours. So different, in fact, that I’ve had to basically write this whole piece twice, since so much of my first draft would eventually end up in the bin.
The first Cyberpunk 2077 I played was how I imagine—actually, how I know after looking at Steam achievement statistics showing how few players had completed important sidequests—most people’s time with the game went. You aren’t led through the main storyline so much as you’re shoved, bombarded from the outset with urgent phonecalls, frantic messages, cutscenes where you’re coughing up blood, directions to travel here, have a shootout there, and before you know it you’re at the endgame wondering why you’ve barely scratched the surface of Cyberpunk’s world, cast or myriad of RPG systems.
Writing about this Cyberpunk as I went, my notes used the word “dogshit” a lot. The main storyline is the very worst of Cyberpunk. It doubles down on the game’s failed attempts to be an explosive FPS, shines its brightest lights on Night City’s dullest characters and moves so fast that Cyberpunk’s elaborate endings mean nothing because you haven’t had the time or space to give a shit about anyone affected.
My conclusion to this piece, as the credits rolled, was that Cyberpunk 2077 was unsalvageable. Its problems were too fundamental, the scathing reviews from 2020 justified in their damnation.
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
CYBERPUNK 2077, PART II
But then something weird happened. Instead of being dumped back at my lair in some kind of overpowered postgame, I found myself reloaded back to a checkpoint just before the final mission. There was no real endgame here (the storylines as they wrap up rule that out), just a soft reboot, presumably so players could jump straight back into those final hours and make different choices, enough to unlock one of the game’s four other endings.
Here, with the main quests all but resolved and my need to see a final cutscene already satisfied, another Cyberpunk 2077 unfurled in front of me. This Cyberpunk was full of unresolved sidequests, only now I had the time and space to resolve them. The game finally had time to breathe. It took its foot off the gas, stopped harassing me to sort out Keanu Reeves’ problems and began slowly serving me the game’s most memorable quests, most with meaningful consequence, each one taking me on a tour of previously-unseen corners of the game’s lavish world and giving me a newfound appreciation for its scale and detail.
I met all my favourite Night City residents in this second Cyberpunk, and I think it’s easily the best way to meet them. To be able to savour each little adventure at its own pace, instead of having them crammed in between main quests. In this second game, where I was no longer following a Keanu Reeves-led narrative laced with international intrigue but free to just be a guy doing murderous odd jobs around town, Cyberpunk felt so much closer to what I had expected from it back in 2020. A game about exploration, being a handyman, uncovering unforgettable little stories with sticky moral quandaries. The Witcher 3 with cars, basically.
My conclusion after this second Cyberpunk wrapped, after I’d rinsed it of every substantial (and less so) sidequest on the board, is…well, it’s what you’re reading now. My reflections of a game that is still broken in so many ways, and forgettable in many others, but which is also more than that, so much more than most people who (rightfully and understandably!) bounced off the main storyline in 2020 and never looked back will ever know.
It’s almost as though Cyberpunk’s main problem isnt with its various components themselves, so much as the urgency and order they’re thrown at you. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 as CD Projekt Red designed it is like going to a fancy restaurant and having the steak thrown at your face before you’ve even looked at the menu. Then getting your delicious entrée served 90 minutes later. The food is good, sure! But that wasn’t the best way to eat it.
Everyone who has ever said “just try the side missions, they’re better” in the time since Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, and sounded like a copium addict at the height of a trip, turned out to be right on the money. I’m sorry for ever doubting you. Some of these auxiliary quests are good, but many of them are excellent. A mayoral candidate having a little IT problem is a highlight, as is the tragic and unforgettable case of a cop’s missing nephew and a cattle farm. Claire’s tale of loss and revenge is handled with the utmost care. Judy’s evolution from peripheral quest-giver to her beautiful finale was a joy to play through, and Kerry’s mid-life crisis resolves in possibly the most cathartic moment of the whole game. These stories are well-written, deeply interesting and many of the best ones don’t even need you to shoot anything.
I could go on and on here, and kinda want to, but I’ve wasted enough of your time with my thoughts on a game that’s now over two years old, and was written about, at length, maybe more than any other video game in history. Thank you for sticking with me this long.
IT’S STILL CYBERPUNK 2077
Technical fixes aside—and they make a difference!—this is still Cyberpunk 2077. The good stuff was good in 2020, the bad stuff was bad in 2020, and they will forever be that way because you can’t save a game by patching in a new character arc (or any character arc) for Johnny Silverhand, or turn some dials and suddenly make the entire first-person shooting experience feel even remotely exciting.
I feel like I did everything I was supposed to do here, everything the zeitgeist and the blip on the horizon said I should do when it came to this game. I played it in 2020, bounced, then gave it time—time it may not have deserved if it was any other game from any other studio—to clean itself up. I revisited it to play the game this was supposed to be.
It’s not that game, of course. The “Cyberpunk can be saved” narrative is as delusional here as it is for so many other big-budget failures, when success had seemed assured but for whatever reason never arrived (of course Cyberpunk 2077 will always be, if nothing else, a financial success). Bugs and fundamental shortcomings in the game’s structure are two very different things. One can be patched, and mostly has been. The other, we’re stuck with forever.
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
And that’s OK? I’m OK with it, at least. There was so much anger and frustration tangled up in this game’s launch, all fed as much on people’s expectations as much as the reality of the game that was on offer before us. This was the next game from The Witcher 3 guys, it cost so much money to make, it took so long to make, it released so many incredible (and, turns out, quite fanciful) trailers, blah blah blah.
All this led to a consensus that the game was both busted and a huge disappointment. Now? Now it’s still a little busted and still disappointing in most of the same ways. There are still huge holes in this game, with shortcomings it will never overcome, but decoupled from the Bad Vibes of its 2020 launch I found myself free in 2023 to just fire up Cyberpunk 2077 and play what was in front of me.
What I found was a game that, when given the chance, could be more than just a trainwreck of a launch. It could also, with a bit of work and a bit more patience, be something truly special. And that was enough of a redemption arc for me.
