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.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
NoName, written by Edgerunners creator Rafal Jaki and manga artist Machine Gamu (Gachiakuta), is a supernatural manga series where the meaning behind people’s names gifts them powers associated with their meaning. For example, its main characters, two detectives named Ralf and Ursula, have the power to control wolves and transform into giant bear, respectively.
Pretty sweet, right? Well, not exactly, because the world of the dark manga series is governed by the Nordic Name Bureau—a kind of police state that maintains order by assigning names to newborn babies. In doing so, the NNB takes agency away from its citizens, deciding what powers they’ll grow up to have and, effectively, what socio-economic class a person is destined to exist within for the rest of their lives. The first chapter of NoName is available to read for free on Manga Plus Creators.
NoName’s first chapter follows Ralf and Ursula—employees of the NNB—as they accept a job from a charismatic politician named Bodil to look into the whereabouts of his wife and son, who shares his name. After a bit of sleuthing, they discover that the situation isn’t what it initially appeared to be; Bodil’s wife, Kara, left to free herself and her child from Bodil’s abuse.
Bodil, whose name translates to human commander, forcibly used his powers on Kara, whose more common name gave her weaker powers. In addition to some truly awful physical and sexual abuse, he also used his powers of mental influence to convince her that she wanted to keep their child. (Basically, his powers work like Zebediah Killgrave’s from Jessica Jones.) It’s also revealed that Bodil used his political influence with the NNB to have his son inherit his name, and with it, his terrible power.
While most manga series center their power systems on arbitrary scales that vary depending on things like the power of friendship, training, or birthright, NoName’s unique premise of placing power in a person’s name, having that process strictly policed, and having it all depend on a child acknowledging their name for the powers to manifest, has my mind racing with the narrative avenues and thematic possibilities the series could explore in future chapters.
I won’t spoil how NoName’s first chapter ends, but I will tell you that its original power systems, coupled with its enthralling political overtones, make it one of the more intriguing manga reads of the year.
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.
Gif: Nintendo / Studio Trigger / Odyssey Interactive / Kotaku
There are just so many games these days it’s hard to stand out from the crowd and get the world’s attention. So, here’s one good way: Get world-renowned anime house Studio Trigger to make the trailer for your upcoming Nintendo Switch sports-action game.
The Week In Games: Galactic Refugees And Stone-Age Life Sims
Omega Strikers, developed by Odyssey Interactive, is a free-to-play online 3v3 soccer (football for readers across the pond) game in which anime-looking athletes compete in cross-platform online matches. Some of the dapper athletes are so anime AF in their designs that they’re not even human. By my count, there’s at least one slime girl, a gun-wielding lizard man, and a swole gerbil-looking bear dude. The soccer ball here is on fire half the time, so these characters being anime AF fits the bill.
Odyssey enlisted the help of animation powerhouse Studio Trigger (the studio behind Kill La Killand Cyberpunk: Edgerunners) to sell the hectic energy of its roster of footballers, what with their penchant to bend the rules of conventional soccer via unsanctioned weapons, with a cool opening cinematic music video. You can check it out below.
Nintendo / Studio Trigger / Odyssey Interactive
Studio Trigger anime tend to have themes of defiance against some sort of authoritative organization. For example, Kill La Kill and Brand New Animal saw its colorful casts openly defy the notion of socially acceptable clothing and racial prejudice against beast people, respectively. More recently, Trigger’s Netflix anime adaptation Cyberpunk: Edgerunners focused on a Latino boy named David Martinez’s journey to becoming a legend in a town that would turn a blind eye to his untimely demise.
Great for work or play This laptop boasts a 15.6-inch touchscreen, an Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, a webcam, and more. It also has a variety of ports for connectivity’s sake, making it versatile for use as a display or even a desktop replacement.
All that being said, Trigger animating an opening cinematic about a group of outcasts united by their passion to decimate their opponents just makes sense. I guess Omega Strikers players are defying conventional soccer regulations. Who are we to deny a pompadoured rockabilly his fun? Time will tell whether Omega Strikers will have an arena that lets its madcap group of soccer weirdos duke it out in space, as Trigger is wont to do. In the meantime, props for having such a stylish trailer.
Omega Strikers is slated to release on April 27 and is available for pre-order on the Nintendo Switch, Steam, the App Store, and Google Play.
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.
The world of Cyberpunk 2077 is one where technological innovation has run wild. Its citizens are full of robot parts, can send data with their minds and can literally see other people’s dreams and memories. Yet despite all this, one aspect of everyone’s daily lives is still incredibly quaint (at least by those standards): its cars are full of buttons.
There’s a big trend in automotive design these days, spurred on by Tesla’s reliance on enormous touchscreens, that cars don’t need buttons. That everything you need to do as a driver (or front-seat passenger), from checking a map to controlling the air conditioning to changing the song on the radio, can and should be performed by tapping through the menus of a big computer screen (or using your voice, though this is usually only helpful for a select few features, depending on the car).
There’s absolutely not good reason for it. It’s slower, it’s harder and most importantly it’s more dangerous to use a screen while driving than using traditional buttons. Tapping on an ipad is fine when we’re at work or on the couch because that’s what we’re doing. It’s the only thing we’re focused on. Asking us to do that while driving a two-tonne motor vehicle, taking our eyes off the road while hurtling down it at 70 miles an hour, is borderline suicidal. Especially if you keep fucking things up because you’re trying to watch the road and tap on the screen and so keep missing the buttons and moving your seat when you meant to be swapping albums on Spotify.
(I’ll note here that I’m talking about cars, especially contemporary and upcoming electric vehicles, that put these huge screens front and centre. My 2018 Kia Sorento has a little touchscreen that I just use for Android Auto, with everything else still buttons, and I think that’s fine and a nice balance!)
You know where a button is in a car. More importantly, you can feel it while driving, meaning you don’t have to take your eyes off the road to use them. Want to turn up the AC? There’s a big round dial for that. Same for the volume. These have their own dedicated space inside the car—they’re not buried inside a menu—and with their own distinct shapes and tactile feel can be found and used instantly.
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This isn’t an “old man yells at cloud” take. It’s an “I’m sick of Silicon Valley influencing people to change things for the sake of them instead of changing things because they’re actually better” take. And I’m of course far from alone here; watch any car review on YouTube and you’ll often see the same complaints, that too many functions, from VW’s awful climate “sliders” to Tesla’s murderous insistence on having your speed only visible in the central screen in some of its cars, are a pointless obstacle to safe and comfortable driving.
During the tests, drivers were given varying tasks to perform, such as changing radio stations or altering the climate controls. In each instance, the car was driven at 68 mph, and researchers measured the time and distance covered by each car while the tasks were being performed.
The results? The 2005 Volvo V70 won handily, while the worst-performing vehicle was the MG Marvel R, a modern car which has some buttons on its steering wheel but relegates many other commands to its large central touchscreen. As for the Tesla Model 3, it took over twice as long to perform the same four tasks as the 18-year-old V70.
Image: Vi Bilägare
Image: Vi Bilägare
Which is my very long-winded way of getting around to saying that, having just spent a lot of time playing Cyberpunk 2077 (more on that in the weeks to come), I really appreciate the fact its cars are full of buttons! Every car you get into, there’s buttons all over the place. In front of you, next to you, all over the dash, all over the centre console. And it looks amazing. There’s an aesthetic reason for that, of course, as lead vehicle artist on the game Jakub Przybolewski explains:
We looked at car designs from the 1980s and 1990s, as cars manufactured during that time had a very minimalist look – doing so much without overdoing anything. They’re simple, easy to recognise, and carry a timeless look. For the world of 2077, this was a perfect place to start.
So the fact 2077’s cars are full of buttons is partly down to the fact that, like so much other stuff in the game’s world, they’re extrapolations of classic sci-fi art, drawn in the decades before today’s touchscreens had been invented.
But then, plenty of other stuff in the game has been made ultra-futuristic. Many of 2077’s data transfers are done digitally via people’s brains, and nearly every computer you interact with has a big clean touchscreen, not a clunky old 80s monitor.
Given that, I like to think the buttons all over the interiors of the game’s cars aren’t just there as a visual throwback (and a very good-looking one at that), but as a future realisation that, shit, as technologically depraved as 2077’s world has become, even they know a dumb idea when they see one, and they’ve reverted to the fact cars are much cooler—and easier to use—if they’re full of buttons.
The 2022 edition of the LACC went down at the Los Angeles Convention Center between December 2-4. Why are we only posting it now? I’ve been on vacation, give me a break!
It’s comfortably one of the biggest nerd shows on the calendar; last year’s event drew over 126,000 people through the gates over those three days, and because a huge number of them were cosplayers, the video and pics you’re about to see are of the highest order.
As usual everything was shot by our friend Mineralblu, and as usual you’ll find each cosplayer’s character, series and social media details watermarked on the image. You can see some video highlights below, or click through for a gallery of some of our favourite photos.
THIS IS LOS ANGELES COMIC CON LACC 2022 MASHUP BEST COSPLAY MUSIC VIDEO BEST COSTUMES ANIME EXPO CMV
Look, I thirsted over Professor Turo for half the year. It was a significant touchstone of 2022.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
When it comes time to write these year-end lists, I usually slim them down to my top five favorite games I played because, despite what this job entails, I usually only have passionate feelings about a handful of games by the time we reach December.
But 2022 was a weird one for me, in that I feel like I played fewer games than ever. Not that any of that has anything to do with Kotaku, as I’ve only been here for about two weeks so far. But going through tumultuous times and a layoff at the last job doesn’t leave one much energy to invest time in a ton of games.
But I did experience a handful of games that really resonated with me, a few of which were old ones that got renewed in some way in 2022. So don’t yell at me when you see them on this list. It’s my list, and I’ll cry about Cyberpunk 2077 if I want to.
I’m a simple man. If the electric rat is there, I’m happy.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Honorable mention: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
Getting two major Pokémon games in 2022 was a lot for some people, but being able to run around a Pokémon world with Raichu by my side is the only thing that keeps me going some days. So I was happy to indulge in an open-world Pokémon in the form of Pokémon Violet. However, I just have too many issues with this game to give it a proper spot on my list. It’s buggy, sure, but it’s also designed in such a way that it can’t keep up with its own “find your bliss” philosophy, which made entire sections of its main story annoying and disorienting to play through.
That being said, the stellar endgame has completely rewired my brain and I can’t think about Professor Turo without crying, and playing a Pokémon game in co-op with my friends is a childhood dream come true. It’s deeply flawed, but I keep looking back at screenshots of me and my friends hanging out in Paldea like an old photo album. It’s got so many great ideas, but it’s all built on top of a shaky foundation. I’m awaiting its DLC with bated breath.
I loved Kratos and Atreus’ story, but all the other story threads God of War Ragnarök spun were too much for one game.
Honorable mention: God of War Ragnarök
I really adore the 2018 God of War reboot as an examination on the series’ previous gleeful glamorizing of gratuitous gore, and when it was at its best, God of War Ragnarök felt like it was building beautifully upon Kratos’ and Atreus’ relationship as father and son. But, man, what a messy follow-up it was.
I like large swaths of Ragnarök, and I think, had it been broken up into two games and made a trilogy, rather than Sony Santa Monica attempting to introduce and wrap up two games’ worth of story in the course of an exhaustively long game, I would’ve loved it a lot more. Its action still feels weighty and fun and getting to play as Atreus was a lovely surprise, but it feels breathless and bloated in a way the 2018 reboot didn’t. I’m always going to wonder what the conclusion to God of War’sNorse story would’ve looked like as two games instead of one, as those are the ones that would’ve likely made it onto my list.
Cyberpunk 2077‘s city skyline makes me well up the way most open-world vistas don’t.Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
5. Cyberpunk 2077
I’m still very resistant to any narrative that Cyberpunk 2077 is “great” in 2022 after CD Projekt Red put in the work to elevate it from the technical disaster it was when it launched in 2020, but the game was still a central figure in my year, and has gone from something I played out of a work obligation two years ago to a game that’s become pretty special to me.
I played through and dissected Cyberpunk 2077 all year as part of Normandy FM, a retrospective podcast I co-host, and combing through that game in a relatively stable technical state unmasked that it’s a pretty unremarkable RPG. That being said, as a person who spent all of 2022 dealing with the realities of the capitalist gristmill that is America, both through job stuff and in the medical system, there was something freeing about existing in Night City, which felt like an oppressive, capitalist amalgamation of the cities I dreamed of living in while I was stranded in small-town Georgia.
When Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t being insufferably cynical about people, places, and things, it was a constant interrogation of what I was willing to live for, and why I wanted the things I wanted in life. It’s a product of the same capitalist hellscape it claims to satirize, but in the margins there are things worth fighting for, even if you have to go looking for them on your own terms. I don’t boot up open-world RPGs very often, but throughout 2022 I would turn on Cyberpunk 2077 just to drive around the city and imagine the possibilities it held for me. Thankfully, I live in a city now, and no longer have to dream. But Cyberpunk 2077 was a lifeline during a time when the home it proposed felt unattainable. For that, I’ll always keep the story of V and Night City in my heart, even if I don’t think it’s a great video game.
Haven’s Couples Update gave queer fans a new reason to experience the RPG in 2022.Screenshot: The Game Bakers / Kotaku
4. Gayven (Haven, but gay)
Haven completely slipped by me in 2020, but that changed this year when The Game Bakers added an update that let you play as same-sex pairings of its main characters Yu and Kay. As a person who has written a lot about queerness in the video game industry, I was immediately drawn to Haven as a case study in a developer putting in the time and effort to make a game queer-inclusive. Getting to experience Yu and Kay’s story from the perspective of two queer men was a wonderful way to first experience the game, and made its angsty science-fiction romance all the more affecting for me as a gay man who eats that shit up.
Haven is a lovely meditation on long-term relationships, with its exploration and turn-based combat broken up by scenes of Yu and Kay just living together through the most mundane parts of being together. Where many video games thrive in the lead-up to a romantic relationship, Haven sits with what it means to already be well and established, and it leads to some of my favorite romance writing in a game. It’s full of big, oppressive science-fiction ideas, but its best moments are when two people sit together in their home and speak to each other not as spacefaring adventurers, but as two star-crossed lovers willing to find pockets of joy when they’re all they’ve got left.
We Are OFK is essentially an interactive music video, but the drama between its indie pop bangers is just as compelling.Screenshot: Team OFK / Kotaku
3. We Are OFK
The music of We Are OFK, an episodic biopic about a group of young adults drifting through the L.A. game dev grind and into a musical act, nearly topped my Spotify Wrapped this year. The band was second under Coheed and Cambria, my favorite band that released a new album this year, which speaks volumes about how catchy and contemplative Team OFK’s indie pop stylings are. These songs are interwoven between We Are OFK’s depiction of the dramatic, interpersonal relationships between a group of queer creatives just trying to figure their shit out.
We Are OFK is contentious as a video game, as its interactive elements feel insubstantial beyond choosing text messages and playing through an interactive music video at the end of each episode. But as an unapologetically queer musical drama about finding yourself and those willing to put up with your bullshit, it’s deeply relatable. The game exists as a springboard for a larger virtual band experience, and as long as they keep producing bangers like “thanks,” and “Infuriata,” I’ll follow it in whatever form OFK exists.
Overwatch 2 is still only half the game Blizzard promised, but its PvP suite is still pretty damn great.Screenshot: Blizzard Entertainment / Kotaku
2. Overwatch 2
Look, look, I know. I know Overwatch 2 is a mess of microtransactions and free-to-play grind, but Blizzard’s sequel/reboot of its hero shooter is still such a gold standard for team-based combat that I have sunk nearly 300 hours into it since its launch in October.
Right now, Overwatch 2 isn’t exactly what I was looking for when Blizzard announced it back in 2019, as its story content has been pushed into 2023. I (foolishly) came into Overwatch on the back of its characters and lore, so I’m still eagerly awaiting that side of the sequel. However, in its complete revamp of the original game’s format in favor of a 5v5 setup, its new modes, the heroes, and the great deal of attention given to its contextual banter writing, Overwatch feels more alive than it’s felt in years. This is damage of Blizzard’s own doing, as the company essentially put the first game on ice until Overwatch 2’slaunch. But it’s comforting as a long-time player to finally see signs of life for the game after all this time, and to feel hope for its future for the first time in years.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus was a mechanical evolution, but also a narrative one, as well.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
1. Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Pokémon Legends: Arceus was everything I’d been wanting out of a Pokémon story for over a decade. After years of watching the franchise add to its mythology and world, it never really felt like many of these games were living up to the promise of the universe Game Freak had built over 25 years. Pokémon Legends: Arceus was the first time since I was a child that this setting felt as large and unknowable as it did in my youth.
Much of that came from Legends: Arceus’ use of a historical setting, rather than the modern one seen in most other Pokémon games. Taking the player back to when the Sinnoh region was known as Hisui, being present for lore-defining conflicts, and watching the universe’s gods have it out was more impactful than hearing about them through historians and seeing cave paintings and statues. It felt like a second chance for Sinnoh to feel like the significant origin point of the universe it had been described as in Diamond and Pearl.
On top of just feeling more vast, Pokémon Legends: Arceus was also the most tangible the world felt to me as a player. This was thanks to Game Freak’s shift into action-oriented mechanics like actually being able to aim and throw a Pokéball at an unsuspecting wild Pokémon, stealthing around the wilderness to avoid giant Alpha Pokémon, and being able to fluidly traverse its open areas on the backs of friendly critters. Even when Pokémon Scarlet and Violet attempted their own versions of these systems, it never felt like they quite captured Legends: Arceus’ frictionless traversal, and that’s why they felt flimsy in comparison.
Legends: Arceus solidified to me what it is I want out of Pokémon games. Some people want to capture every Pokémon in the Pokedex, some want to compete and become a respected champion. But for me, existing in this world and discovering its secrets with Raichu by my side is why Pokémon still holds my attention decades later, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the most I’ve felt captivated by this universe, probably ever. I hope it’s a blueprint for the series’ future, because I feel like, otherwise, I’m going to be chasing the highs of its best moments for years to come.
With so many great titles available on the Steam Deck, 2022 was an explosive introduction to Valve’s handheld.Image: Valve / CD Projekt Red / Microsoft / rose-engine / Kotaku
Steam Deck, Valve’s mega-powerful mini-PC, only arrived this year, and while there are many reasons to check out one of the most exciting pieces of gaming hardware available today, the amount of great, hassle-free games available on the device is proof enough of its success.
But Steam is a big marketplace, and not every game works well on the Deck. While many hit games do run well on the device, some won’t launch, while others will have you chasing through various settings and scrolling forums and Reddit posts for solutions. Fun for the tech enthusiast, but not ideal when you just want a great gaming experience. Valve has made the process easier by labeling certain games “Verified” on the device, but sometimes that’s not always a guarantee that a game will run without issue.
Worry not, this list will guide you to the best experiences you can have in year one of the Steam Deck’s life. All but one of these games are Deck-verified. They work great on the first boot. That said, adjusting a few settings here and there might make a given game experience even better for you, so I’ll call that out where relevant. Tweaking the visual settings…can’t do that on a Switch!
As you may know, there are relatively simple ways to get non-Steam games running on the Deck, but those we’ll handle another time. This list is focused on great games you’re guaranteed to have access to right out of the box.
Update 12/27/2022: Wrapping up 2022, we’ve now bumped this list up to 20 amazing games you can play on the Steam Deck now. To hit this number we had to bend a rule: We now have two games that are technically not “Deck Verified,” but are still totally playable.
Update 10/21/2022: The Steam Deck’s library keeps growing, and so too does this list! I’ve added five new games to the main list and one new honorable mention. Nearly all of these games are Deck-verified, but I’ve made an exception for one particular title.
Given that Cyberpunk 2077 came out nearly two years ago, you might think there’s little left to discover and document ahead of the game’s first and only planned DLC, Phantom Liberty. But right in the heart of Night City lies the beginning of a riddle that has left fans scrambling to unravel the mystery since the hunt began in 2020. It all starts with a single statue and a six-digit alphanumeric sequence: FF:06:B5.
Cyberpunk 2077 players caught on to the FF:06:B5 mystery early on in the game’s life, but the answer has remained frustratingly out of reach despite many elaborate theories. The mysterious six-character sequence is found on a statue where monks can often be seen praying or meditating. The search has involved rigorous number-crunching based on the initial hint, maps that chart the location of repeat instances of the same statue, and deep dives into spiritual concepts and real world history, among other attempts to find the solution. Following the trail is dizzying to say the least. But every step of it is intriguing, even if you’re not sure you’re on a trail to begin with.
Few concrete, undeniable facts and trails have surfaced outside of initial observations, a good chunk of which are documented on r/FF06B5, a subreddit dedicated to cracking the titular mystery (as well as other secrets found in Cyberpunk 2077). Theories and speculation go over the deep end real fast with this mystery, so if you find yourself struggling to keep your head on straight, you’re not alone. As is said in the “Newcomer Sticky” of FF:06:B5’s subreddit, “Without concrete proof that one [theory] is more viable than another, it’s difficult to give this community and newcomers a direction to look.”
No one is certain what the solution is, or if any of the proposed theories and documentation are even on the right track. If you want to get a look at the origin of the mystery for yourself, you can find the first and only truly confirmed “hint” right in Corpo Plaza. Located northwest of the massive roundabout and near the Corpo Plaza apartment, is a statue known to FF:06:B5 mystery hunters as FF:06:B5 Prime “D3.” A multi-armed statue holding a giant sword with two hands, and a sphere in one of its left hands, it has the six-character sequence in bold across the front. It also has a strange forking symbol that many suspect either relates to V’s lifepaths, the branching nature of the game’s story, or even ancient numbering systems. This statue can be found in multiple locations in the city, though not all have the alphanumerical sequence. Miniature versions of the statue, complete with the sequence, also appear in the game’s recently-added apartments that are up for sale.
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
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Despite the mystery, a few reliable observations and likely starting points have been established by the community:
FF:06:B5, when used as an HTML hex color code, translates to “shocking pink,” or as the community refers to it (and often the mystery itself) “magenta.”
The sequence looks like a portion of a MAC address and/or matches other kinds of code sequences found elsewhere in the game.
NPC monks gather in front of the D3 “Prime” statue. They can be heard chanting as well as repeating one particularly intriguing line of dialog: “My apprentice! Your throat chakra is blocked! Activate the meridians on the roof of your mouth.”
Paweł Sasko, Cyberpunk’s lead quest designer, confirmed that this isn’t a case of smoke where there’s no fire. He acknowledges that it is indeed a mystery worth looking into, likely with a specific meaning and solution—and one he has turned down every opportunity to shed light on, even when asked directly.
There’s also somewhat of a sixth fact to consider: After update 1.5, the text on D3 “Prime” changed from red to yellow. What that could possibly mean is anyone’s guess.
All theories more or less sprout from these confirmable observations. What follows depends which avenue you choose to pursue and how lost in the weeds you’re willing to get. You can check out some of the connected threads in the community’s mind map, which traces not only connections within the game but also connections to works of pop culture and spiritual concepts that exist outside of the game. Anything that can have a number, color, or thematic concept attached to it seems to be up for exploration. Trips through Reddit threads and Discord conversations point to any number of possibilities. Everything from complex readings into spiritually to matching the code to Windings fonts, of all things.
One example of the rabbit hole that can ensue from following a potential lead includes attempting to connect the mysterious “Zen Master” side jobs to FF:06:B5. Given the presence of monks at the D3 prime statue, the monk’s meditation quests seem like a natural place to look. These side jobs involve meeting a lone monk who takes you through a meditative brain dance. When pulled apart for clues, things get a little interesting.
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
As charted out in the mind map, players have figured out that the amount you can choose to donate to the monk after each meditation session increases in order of the Fibonnaci sequence starting at the 12th position. Not only that, but each quest is named after specific works of art such as John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” Rūmī’s “Poem of the Atoms,” and “Meetings Along the Edge,” the title of a piece that appears on the collaborative recording project between composers Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar. These have their own numbers to contribute with release dates, song length, and more. Trailing sets of numbers and thematic relationships seem to be a common end result of many theories and the game is more than happy to provide such speculative fodder.
Occurrences like the Zen Master and the weird math hidden in the details have become the meat and potatoes of intense speculation that blends number crunching with concepts of spirituality with the game’s own lore and references to pop culture. It’s hard to keep track of it all. Does it directly relate to the main FF:06:B5 mystery? Another mystery altogether? Or none at all? While some trains of thought seem more convincing than others, the game is filled with dozens of opportunities to trace lines where there might not have been any in the first place. Yet, it always seems like certain clues are too hard to ignore. Why does one striking in-game ad in particular seem to not sell a specific product (or contain other versions of it as all other ads do, confirmed via datamining)? I found myself wondering why said ad seems to bear some resemblance to the mysterious symbol on the D3 Prime statue and on the jewelry worn by the monks who meet in front of D3 at the same time of day, every day. Am I seeing things or am I on to something?
The scope of the city, the frequent themes of identity and reality woven throughout the game, it all creates a spiral of possible solutions to a weird statute that has been resistant to the most audacious efforts to crack it.
Given the clear esoteric nature of the mystery, others have turned to investigating Misty, her shop, the game’s tarot cards, and all other appearances of religious and spiritual concepts and iconography. The glyph found in Misty’s shop contains strings of numbers and letters that can be connected to form a larger sequence, broken up into pairs similar to FF:06:B5. It also bears resemblance to graffiti found near the final Zen Master quest.
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
The NPC monk line concerning the “throat chakra” seems to also be somewhat promising, as some speculate that the answer to the mystery lies in following the request to “activate the meridians on the roof of your mouth.” A couple of recent posts to the mystery’s subreddit are following patterns of blue, based on the traditional color of the throat chakra and how that matches the giant blue circular glass “roof” that covers a portion of the road in Corpo Plaza.
Despite the impressiveness of the documentation that’s been gathered in pursuit of this mystery, it’s hard not to get discouraged by how many lead to dead ends. And when every little thing in the game can seemingly be related by some extension, it’s easy to start getting paranoid.
Every time I felt like I was ready to give up on one of the possible theories or speculations, there’d be a small connection I’d struggle to dismiss, or documentation of alleged clues that drew lines to other oddities in the game, such as the constant repetition of the “no future” graffiti. But after sifting through so many long strings of speculation and theory, it’s hard not to deny the fun in finding something tucked away in Cyberpunk 2077 that no one’s pieced together yet.
