Tag: Quest

Well, there goes the metaverse! | TechCrunch

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Meta’s enormous bet on virtual reality ended last week, with the company reportedly laying off roughly 1,500 employees from its Reality Labs division — about 10% of the unit’s staff — and shutting down several VR game studios, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s a huge reversal for a company that, just four years ago, staked its entire identity on the concept.

Few are going to miss it.

As industry watchers might remember, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in 2021, promising to usher in a new era of technology led by VR devices.

In part, the decision was a bet on Gen Z’s preference to socialize in online games like Fortnite and Roblox as opposed to traditional social media apps. The change also helped Meta distance itself from the negativity surrounding its Facebook brand. Over the years, the brand had been damaged by data privacy scandals like Cambridge Analytica; reports from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who shared documents indicating Facebook knew of its negative impacts on children and teens; Congressional hearings over Facebook’s digital surveillance; its role in the spread of misinformation; its monopolistic practices, and more.

Meta’s vision at the time was that the metaverse would be the next big social platform, where users connected in a virtual world via Meta’s Horizon Worlds app and played games on their VR headsets.

Fast-forward, and the metaverse has effectively been abandoned in favor of AI.

According to CNBC, some of the casualties include studios making VR titles inside Meta, like Armature Studio (“Resident Evil 4 VR“), Twisted Pixel (“Marvel’s Deadpool VR“), and Sanzaru (“Asgard’s Wrath). Meanwhile, the VR fitness app Supernatural, which Meta acquired in 2023 for $400 million, will no longer produce new content and will move into “maintenance mode.” Camouflaj, the studio behind the “Batman: Arkham Shadow” VR game, has also been impacted by layoffs, as reported by GeekWire.

And last week, The Verge noted that Meta’s program to bring VR to work, Workrooms, is shutting down, as well.

The news follows an earlier Bloomberg report from December, which said that Meta was slashing the virtual reality department’s budget by up to 30%. Around the same time, Meta announced that it was pausing its program to share its Meta Horizon operating system, which runs on its Quest-branded VR headsets, with other third-party headset device makers.

Unlike the news of Meta’s rebrand, the deprioritization of the company’s metaverse efforts should come as no surprise — the division lost money at an excessive rate, worrying investors, and had never turned a profit.

In total, the company had funneled some $73 billion into Reality Labs. To put that into context, you’d have to spend $1 million per day for 200 years to match that kind of spending.

“Building in the open” fails

Besides being overhyped by investors and analysts alike, initial versions of the metaverse were just bad products. The goofy, soulless avatars didn’t even have legs, and one metaverse selfie of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was so bad it even became a viral meme. In short, Meta was overpromising a future while its product still under-delivered. It was a failure of the “build in the open” model, where early tech products are shipped to consumers in hopes of getting feedback that can be used to iterate.

Image Credits:Facebook

That model works when customers are actively interested in a technology. But in the case of the metaverse, there was only middling consumer demand. Though Meta quickly gained a majority share of the VR market with its Oculus headsets, the headsets saw declining sales. Last spring, Counterpoint Research noted that global VR headset shipments had fallen by 12% year-over-year in 2024, which was their third consecutive year of declines. Meta had accounted for 77% of those 2024 headset shipments.

Image Credits:Meta

Meta, betting on the “if you build it, they will come” strategy, was more interested in the profits that could be made from running its own platform for apps and games than whether or not consumers even wanted these so-called face computers.

Specifically, Zuckerberg was looking for a way to bypass the ability of Apple and Google to tap into Meta’s revenue through their app stores.

“This period has…been humbling, because as big of a company as we are, we’ve also learned what it is like to build for other platforms. And living under their rules has profoundly shaped my views on the tech industry,” Zuckerberg said in a keynote speech at the company’s Facebook Connect 2021 event, referencing the Apple-Google duopoly. “I’ve come to believe that the lack of choice and high fees are stifling innovation, stopping people from building new things, and holding back the entire internet economy.”

He proposed that the metaverse could grow to a billion people in the next decade, hosting “hundreds of billions” of dollars in digital commerce. Analysts like McKinsey & Co. and investment bank Citi backed up this questionable forecast with their own heady estimates of the metaverse becoming a multi-trillion-dollar platform by 2030.

Meta quest app store

Meta may have had dollar signs in its eyes, but the apps built for the metaverse weren’t being adopted in massive numbers, at least for a company of Meta’s size.

Though there’s no external visibility into Meta’s own VR app store, you can look at Meta’s apps with iOS and Android counterparts as a proxy for adoption. According to modeled estimates from app intelligence provider Apptopia, the Meta Horizon app has been downloaded 60.4 million times globally and 39.8 million times in the U.S. since May 2018. A better estimate for adoption, however, is its app activity.

From a U.S. panel, Apptopia has figures for the average sessions per daily active user in the U.S., which grew from 3.49 in January 2023 to 4.93 in January 2026. While that’s still a high-water mark for the app, it may not have been enough for Meta.

For comparison, outside of VR, Meta now has over 3.5 billion daily active users across its social apps Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

An attendee wears a Quest 3s virtual reality headset during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. Image Credits:David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Of course, had this all succeeded, Meta would have created a new social empire, built on the back of VR gaming — not unlike Facebook’s early days as a social network, when partners like Zynga — whose games included Farmville, and Words with Friends — drove double-digit revenue streams for Facebook. (Ultimately, Facebook’s 30% cut of virtual goods sales, combined with restrictive platform policies, drove Zynga to launch its own gaming portal and pivot to mobile.)

But this time, Zuckerberg telegraphed his desire to tap into developer revenue far too soon. Meta might have had a better shot at attracting developers to build for VR if it promised to undercut Apple or Google’s standard 30% fees, or those of other gaming platforms. Instead, Meta did the opposite: it charged more.

Even before VR became a sizable platform worth investing in, Meta announced its plans to take a whopping 47.5% of the sales of digital assets within Horizon Worlds, consisting of a 30% hardware platform fee and another 17.5% fee for Horizon Worlds itself. Creators, unsurprisingly, were not happy.

Image Credits:Meta

As bad, Meta wasn’t building the metaverse with user safety as a top priority. As with its rush to scale its social network, the company tended to be reactive rather than proactive about safety features. For instance, the company only rolled out its “Personal Boundary” feature, which put a buffer between avatars, after reports that users were experiencing sexual harassment in the metaverse. In some cases, users had even engaged in virtual rape and gang rape in Meta’s Horizon Worlds. Meta later dialed back the safety feature a bit by adjusting the Personal Boundary to only default to “on” when a user is engaging with “non-friends” in the metaverse and allowing users to switch it off entirely.

In May 2022, TechCrunch asked a Meta rep to detail its support measures for Horizon Worlds. The company described several tools, including blocking and reporting features, a “safe zone” button for users to instantly block and mute others, and a feature to temporarily remove disruptive people from venues that was built in response to user feedback. Despite outlining these tools, Meta declined to say what sort of actions it would take to address individual bad actors’ behavior.

Image Credits:Meta

At the time, users told TechCrunch that those who faced abuse in the metaverse would often react with an obvious move: instead of recording the abuse, they would take off their headset and take a break from VR. But when they returned, their harasser would still appear in their list of recent encounters, and it was too late to submit a report of the abuse with the video and audio attached.

These types of scenarios were seemingly not thought through from the start, and detailed policies around what constitutes abuse didn’t exist. When a metaverse code of conduct was later published, it still didn’t detail any consequences beyond saying Meta would “take action on users.”

Also around this time, Meta declined to share the makeup of its team building the metaverse with TechCrunch. (But if we had to bet, we’d guess there weren’t as many women on the project as men. This would reflect the makeup of Meta overall, so it’s not a bad bet!)

AR, mixed reality, and AI proved more popular

Another nail in the proverbial coffin for the metaverse was the success of Meta’s Ray-Ban AR glasses, which have seen increased consumer interest in recent months. With features like the ability to record hands-free, stream music, and chat with Meta AI, the glasses began to outsell traditional Ray-Bans in some retail stores in 2024. The company is now considering doubling the output of the glasses to meet consumer demand, Bloomberg reported this week.

Meta Ray-Ban displayImage Credits:Meta / Meta

With an eye on AI, the company more recently introduced Ray-Ban Display last year, which are similar smart glasses that also include a display for apps, alerts, and directions on the right lens. The company has since paused its international plans for this product, citing “unprecedented demand.” (Or rather, overly conservative inventory forecasting.)

With other companies, including OpenAI, Amazon, and various startups, looking to hardware AI devices as the next potential computing platform, VR seems even more of a dated relic of a vision for the web that never came to pass.

Combined, these factors, and particularly the adoption of AI as a possible app platform, make it hard for Meta to continue to justify spending on VR. Instead, Meta will focus on the products that have potential, like its Ray Ban and AI glasses, AI app’s growth, and large language models.

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Sarah Perez

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January 19, 2026
How To Finish Fortnite’s Quests For Chapter 5, Season 3, Week 9
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Fortnite’s Chapter 5 Season 3 Battle Pass has various quests you can finish each week for some sweet XP to unlock new cosmetics with. Week 9’s batch of quests introduces five new challenges for players to complete, each worth 15,000 XP. Those who complete all five quests will be rewarded with 75,000 XP, which can be used to further your progress with this season’s battle pass.

Why Everybody Hates This Dragon’s Dogma 2 NPC

Fortnite’s Chapter 5, Season 3, Week 9 Quests
- Give ‘em a big wasteland BOOM! – Eliminate opponents with the Combat Shotgun (5)
- Finders keepers! – Outlast players while holding a Medallion (30)
- It’s all about staying INSIDE the Storm Circle. Survive Storm Circles (15)
- Let’s show ‘em nothing scares us. NOTHING! – Emote at Brawler’s Battleground and Nitrodrome
- Mod it up! – Damage opponents using a weapon with an underbarrel mod (1,000)
Give ‘em a big wasteland BOOM!

Screenshot: Epic Games / Kotaku

To complete this quest, you’ll need to grab a Combat Shotgun and eliminate five different opponents. You need to kill players to complete this quest, so we recommend landing at the Nitrodrome, Brutal Beachhead, or the Redline Rig and finding a Combat Shotgun there. Once you’re there, take out five players, and you’ll complete the quest.

Finders keepers!

Screenshot: Epic Games / Kotaku

To complete this quest, you’ll need to outlast a total of 30 players while holding a medallion. This can be a bit tricky. You’ll either need to kill a player or the boss holding them and once you pick it up, your general location is exposed to the entire lobby. We recommend you land at Nitrodrome, Brutal Beachhead, or the Redline Rig and kill the boss immediately. After you do that, use their medallion to unlock their car, and drive around with it until 30 other players die, while you’re holding the medallion. As long as 30 other players die while you’re holding one, it’ll count towards completion.

It’s all about staying INSIDE the Storm Circle

To finish this quest, you’ll need to survive 15 storm circles. This can be done by naturally playing. Of course, you won’t be able to do this in one game, so you’ll need to play a few rounds before completing this one.

Let’s show ‘em nothing scares us. NOTHING!

Screenshot: Epic Games / Kotaku

This is another fairly straightforward quest. To complete this, you’ll need to do it at Brawler’s Battleground and the Nitrodrome. You can complete this all in one go if you’re fast enough, but you can complete this quest across multiple games..

Mod it up!

Screenshot: Epic Games / Kotaku

This quest will require you to inflict a total of 1,000 damage with an underbarrel mod attached to a weapon. Weapons can be modded at bunkers, Which can be spotted all over the map and will open up as the game progresses. We recommend using the Vertical Foregrip because it improves ADS recoil and spread. But you can also complete this quest by picking up a weapon with an underbarrel mod too, So you don’t need to be the one to equip it.

There you go, you’re all done with Week 9’s quest! Enjoy all the XP, and be sure to spend those stars!
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Luis Joshua Gutierrez

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July 24, 2024
How to finish ‘Zero Hour’ and get Outbreak Perfected in Destiny 2
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“Zero Hour” is the second secret mission to ever come to Destiny 2, and it’s finally back in the game as part of the Into the Light update and the May 14 reset. Much like the reprised “The Whisper” mission and its Whisper of the Worm reward, the updated version of “Zero Hour” rewards a fully craftable version of the Exotic pulse rifle Outbreak Perfected.

In this Destiny 2 guide, I’ll walk you through how to complete “Zero Hour” and get the pattern for Outbreak Perfected. Whether this is your first time experiencing “Zero Hour” or it’s just been too many years for you to remember the path, I’ve got you covered.

How to start ‘Zero Hour’ in Destiny 2

Image: Bungie via Polygon

To start “Zero Hour,” all you need to do now is talk to Ada-1.

Head to the Tower Annex — the landing point over by the Drifter — and head up to Ada-1, the vendor who normally just handles transmog. She’ll give you the “Asset Protection” quest. With the quest in hand, all you need to do is open up the “Into the Light” submenu in the Director and select “Zero Hour.”

Completing the Exotic mission and finishing the quest at Ada-1 will reward you with the pattern for Outbreak Perfected.

‘Zero Hour’ walkthrough in Destiny 2

You have 40 minutes to beat this mission on the Normal difficulty.

Navigating the Destiny 1 Tower in ‘Zero Hour’

“Zero Hour” starts out with a lot of combat as you first adventure through the Destiny 1 Tower. You’ll be dealing with some powerful Fallen here, so make sure to put on your best gear and an assortment of ad-clearing weapons. As with all dense Fallen encounters, the Riskrunner Exotic submachine gun will serve you well if you’re having trouble.

Bungie via Polygon

Make your way through the bazaar and into the small vent. On the other side, you’ll be where the Speaker’s chambers once were. Clear the enemies, and move through the sweeper bot hallway.

You’ll find yourself in the courtyard, which is filled with enemies of varying type and power. There’s even a Brig here now, an enemy type that didn’t exist when the original mission came out. Take them all down to unlock the rest of the path.

Bungie via Polygon

Continue through the old tower until you reach the flaming scaffolding where the original opening mission of Destiny 2 takes place. Slide under the big door next to the M and drop down the elevator shaft. Climb in the vent and follow it.

Bungie via Polygon

You’ll emerge in a giant shipyard. Turn immediately left, and you’ll see a ship sitting below you. Run up to it and crouch under its nose. Follow the path and take a right into the vent. Follow the hallway you drop into and take the other vent above you. Take a left and enter another vent behind the toolbox.

Bungie via Polygon

Follow the vent and take your first right. There are a few doorways below, but you only need to take the one directly under you. If you’re the first player to arrive, you’ll have a handy metal lip to stand on. If you’re following a teammate, it’ll have broken off by now. Step off the ledge, turn around, and push forward against the wall as you fall. Climb into the ledge and follow the vent.

Bungie via Polygon

Jump onto the first piece of yellow scaffolding and then onto the next. Look toward the tower. There are two drain openings and a platform to your left. Depending on your class, you can either jump straight to the landing or hop your way to the landing through the drain openings.

Bungie via Polygon

On the landing, look off and down toward the tower. You’ll see a small protrusion. This is your target. Jump off the landing and move toward the wall. Land on the antenna.

Bungie via Polygon

Look out toward where the city and turn left. Jump on the pipes until you reach the next landing. You can pull a switch here to help your friends catch up.

Bungie via Polygon

Jump onto the scaffolding above you and run up to the open vent. Jump in and follow the path. You’ll be in a big elevator shaft. Start climbing up a few flights until you’re at the second from the top. Shoot open the vent on the right and climb through.

Bungie via Polygon

Now you’ll be surrounded by spinning fans, each of which have an Explosive Shank in the middle. Look for the red lights and jump into them. If you hold against the wall, you’ll save yourself from the fans. When you land, be careful — don’t hit the ground too hard and skid off into another fan. Repeat this process, carefully taking out or maneuvering around the Shanks, until you’re at the bottom of the shaft. Climb in another vent.

Bungie via Polygon

You’ll now find yourself in a long hallway that looks completely blank. Jump off the ledge and onto the silver vents hanging off the wall. These are tricky to stand on, so limit your movement. Jump to the next one and finally into the open door on the far side. Once again, there is a switch here to help your friends through the puzzle if they’re lagging behind.

How to navigate the ‘Zero Hour’ maze

Bungie via Polygon

Follow the vents until you get to Ventilation. Walk forward and take a look at the map, which you can see clearly in the image above.

This is the maze section of “Zero Hour,” and it looks much scarier than it actually is. The white lines represent hallways you can walk through, with the red arrows denoting switches you need to hit. You start the map in the center of the bottom-most rectangle’s southern white line. When you’ve had a good look at the map, turn around and drop down two floors of vents.

You’re in the maze now, just like in the picture. We recommend sending one player right and another left, just to speed the process up. The instructions below are for the right-side player, so left-side players should just mirror my instructions.

Bungie via Polygon
1. Run forward and take a left. Keep running until you find a split in the hall.
2. Turn right and into another rectangle.
3. Follow the path and hit the first switch.
4. Keep running until you reach the original hallway.
Bungie via Polygon

Here, you’ll likely have to wait for a wall of electricity to pass. If the electricity is just starting to arc, you can run through. Otherwise, you’ll have to sit and brood — Darth Maul style.

Bungie via Polygon

When the electricity drops, take a right turn. You should start hearing an unsettling sound about now. An electric shredder is also running the maze with you, named TR3-VR by Bungie and the Destiny community. There are some alcoves to hide in so it can pass, but just to your left you should see a giant cavern with pipes in it.

Jump on the pipes and wait for the machine to pass. You can tell if the shredder is chasing you by its sound or giant red light.

Bungie via Polygon

With the machine gone, jump back over to your hallway and take a left. Follow the path until a hallway opens on the right. Go hit the switch like last time and return to your normal hallway.

Bungie via Polygon

Take a right and follow the path until you can take another right. This is the exit. If you’ve hit all four switches, the doors will be open.

Run into the new room and hop on one of the elevators to your right or left. Hit the button and wait for them to slowly lift you into the rafters.

Bungie via Polygon

Jump onto the platform and shoot out the vent. Head down the chute and stay in the center of the slide. Jump to slow your momentum, or risk death by splattering against a wall. When you come out of the chute, turn left and then immediately right. Crawl through the vent on the floor.

How to navigate the vault maze in ‘Zero Hour’

Bungie via Polygon

You’ll be in the old Cryptarch Vault now, and the mission is nearly done.

On the opposite side of the Vault’s door, you’ll see some pipes on the wall. Next to the pipe, you’ll see the Cryptarch symbol. Go stand by it and the secret door will open. Run forward until you reach the section with white floor panels. You’ll need to step on these in the correct order or you’ll get incinerated.

There are six rows of panels, each are five panels across. We’ve numbered the panels below in order, so R1 – 1 is the farthest left panel on the first row, R1 – 2 is the farthest left panel in the second row, R3 – 5 is the farthest right of the third row, and so on.

You’ll start on the second tile from the right on the first row. From there, here’s the order you should follow, with the direction you need to head in in parentheses:
- R1 – 4 (Start)
- R2 – 4 (Forward)
- R2 – 3 (Left)
- R2 – 2 (Left)
- R2 – 1 (Left)
- R3 – 1 (Forward)
- R4 – 1 (Forward)
- R5 – 1 (Forward)
- R5 – 2 (Right)
- R5 – 3 (Right)
- R4 – 3 (Back)
- R4 – 4 (Right)
- R4 – 5 (Right)
- R5 – 5 (Forward)
- R6 – 5 (Forward)
Once you’re through the panels, head to the end of the vault.

Bungie via Polygon

At the broken case, take a right and you’ll see a burned hole in the ground. Drop through it. Run forward and hop into another vent. It’s time to fight.

How to defeat Siriks in ‘Zero Hour’

Bungie via Polygon

When you drop down, you’ll find a Fallen Captain wielding a Scorch Cannon: Siriks. They’re surrounded by an army of Fallen.

Take out Siriks’ Fallen allies. They’ll summon turrets, big Servitors that grant immune shields to everything (these are very annoying, so kill them first) and a ton of Shanks. Just keep killing everything until Siriks’ health is about one-third full. You’ll get a message on your screen that says “Siriks retreats… for now” and the boss will disappear.

Two Fallen Walker tanks will appear on the raised platforms on your left and right, along with some additional Fallen. Take everything out and you’ll get another ominous message: “Siriks returns… heavily armed.”

Siriks will drop back into the area in a massive Brig mech. This thing has full health, so it’s going to take some time and work to take it out. Once you manage to blast off theshield on the Brig, the boss will start lobbing massive tank and constant airstrikes. Just keep moving to dodge these attacks and you’ll eventually take it down.

With Siriks dead, head up to the chest that spawns, say hi to Mithrax, and grab the Outbreak Perfected schematic. Head back to the Tower and talk to Ada-1. She’ll give you the Outbreak Perfected, complete with the pattern attached. Ada-1 will also give you the “Outbreak Refined 1” quest, which you can complete for some additional crafted perk options on your new Outbreak Perfected.

If you already have the Catalyst for Outbreak Perfected from the original version of “Zero Hour,” you’ll instantly be able to place it on your newly crafted gun. However, if this is your first time running the mission, you’ll need to hop back in on Heroic mode in order to pick up the Catalyst and improve your Outbreak Perfected.
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Ryan Gilliam

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May 14, 2024
‘Readvent of Calamity’ quest walkthrough in Dragon’s Dogma 2

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“Readvent of Calamity” is a quest you’ll pick up in Dragon’s Dogma 2 the first time you return to Melve. It involves driving off a diseased drake (which is a dragon as opposed to the Dragon), helping out Ulrika, the leader of Melve, and then finding her when she has to leave town.

Our Dragon’s Dogma 2 will show you how to start “Readvent of Calamity,” the steps you’ll have to follow to complete it, and where to find Ulrika.

How to start ‘Readvent of Calamity’ in Dragon’s Dogma 2

Image: Capcom via Polygon

Once you complete at least one of Captain Brant’s quests (but before you complete “Feast of Deception”) and then head back to Melve (like for the “Oxcart Courier” quest), you’ll find the town under attack by a diseased dragon (or drake — the game is inconsistent on the name). After you deal a bit of damage by attacking the blisters on Puss the Magic Dragon, you’ll drive it off.

When to visit Melve ‘from time to time’ in Dragon’s Dogma 2

After the fight, you’ll get a quick cutscene where you talk to Ulrika, Lennart, and Sigurd. And then you’ll get an unhelpfully vague objective to “visit Melve from time to time.”

You need to wait a day or three before you can continue the quest. Head out of town and take care of other quests for a bit. You can always fast travel to Melve quickly from Vernworth by using the oxcart.

Graphic: Jeffrey Parkin/Polygon | Sources: Capcom via Polygon

On your subsequent visit, check in with Ulrika at the large house in Melve. Inside, you’ll witness Ulrika and a government goon named Martin having an argument. The next day, you’ll learn that Ulrika has chosen to flee the village instead of cause problems for everyone.

Where to find Ulrika in ‘Readvent of Calamity’

Your next objective will be to figure out where Ulrika fled to. And you won’t have any clues. The short answer here is that Ulrika has fled to Havre Village.

Graphic: Jeffrey Parkin/Polygon | Sources: Capcom via Polygon

The longer answer is that she won’t (might not?) actually appear there until you complete a couple other quests.

First, you’ll have to have completed “Monster Culling” for Captain Brant (which you probably already have). After that, you should poke around Harve Village to take on and complete “Scaly Invaders” which ultimately just has you driving out some saurians a few days in a row.

Image: Capcom via Polygon

After that, Ulrika will appear right at the town’s main crossroad. Talk to her, and she’ll send you back to Lennart in Melve. Report back to him in Melve’s big house, and you’ll get a reward of 4,500 gold and a Ring of Grit.

For more Dragon’s Dogma 2 walkthroughs, here’s the best order for Captain Brant’s quests, plus how to rescue the caged magistrate, how to reach the Nameless Village, where to find Rodge, how to confront the Arisen’s shadow, and when to attend the coronation.

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Jeffrey Parkin

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March 26, 2024
‘The Caged Magistrate’ quest walkthrough in Dragon’s Dogma 2

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“The Caged Magistrate” is one of several quests you receive from Captain Brant in the early stages of Dragon’s Dogma 2. Brant tells you about one Magistrate Waldahr, someone who has stood his ground against Disa and refused to change the Code of Vermund to her benefit when asked, leading to him now sitting in a cell in Vernworth jail — ahem, gaol.

So Captain Brant has one very simple request of you: set Magistrate Waldahr free. He’ll give you a gaol key so you can let yourself into his cell, but you’ll find that Waldahr needs some convincing first.

In this Dragon’s Dogma 2 guide, we’ll walk through the entire “Caged Magistrate” quest, including where to find Magistrate Waldahr and how to set him free.

Where to find the Magistrate in Dragon’s Dogma 2

Image: Capcom via Polygon

Enter the palace grounds and head to the objective marked on your map. This is the entrance to Vernworth Castle Gaol Tower. Otto will greet you and allow you through, so make your way downstairs and aside from a couple of rooms to explore and loot, the main area here is the long corridor with pillars in the middle and cells on each side, for a grand total of eight.

Magistrate Waldahr is in the first cell on the right-hand side, as soon as you enter. Wait until the two guards are facing away from you then use the Gaol Key given to you by Captain Brant to unlock the cell.

Head in and talk to Waldahr, then when the option arises, urge him to escape. He explains that he’s perfectly happy in the cell because he can spend his days “perusing the Code and deciphering old texts.” However, if you can find “a place with a mountain of tomes,” Waldahr will reconsider escaping. Leave the gaol and return to Captain Brant.

Where to find ‘a place with a mountain of tomes’ in ‘The Caged Magistrate’

Image: Capcom via Polygon

Brant suggests talking to a chap named Kendrick, found by The Gracious Hand in the slums. He’s a balding chap wearing a blue robe, wandering around the tents and dilapidated houses on the outskirts of Vernworth. He’ll ask you for a charitable donation of gold, so pay up and he’ll explain a local boy named Malcolm has gone missing.

This starts an entirely separate quest named “The Heel of History,” where you must find Malcolm by speaking to the children of the slums. Look for a girl called Aimee who will be somewhere nearby and she’ll tell you Malcolm went into the vaults underneath the slums. Return to Kendrick and the pair of you will enter the vaults to find the runaway kid.

Image: Capcom via Polygon

Explore the vaults in their entirety and you’ll find Malcolm, followed by a huge underground library. Kendrick makes Malcolm promise to keep his mouth shut about the discovery, but you can return to Waldahr in the gaol and tell him about this wonderful place where he can study in peace. Escort Waldahr out of his cell and to the slums, then return to Captain Brant for your reward: 7,000 gold and a ferrystone.

Make sure you also return to Waldahr in the vaults a few days later, as he’ll have another quest for you: “A Magisterial Amenity,” which involves finding his confiscated spectacles.

For more Dragon’s Dogma 2 walkthroughs, here’s who to give the Jadeite Orb to, if you should buy the Ornate Box, how to buy a house in Vernworth, where to find Rodge, and the best order for Captain Brant’s quests.

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Ford James

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March 23, 2024
Players Are Having Trouble Activating The Cyberpunk 2077 Expansion’s Final Mission

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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 handful of Reddit 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.

For more on Phantom Liberty, check out Kotaku’s review.

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Kenneth Shepard

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September 29, 2023
One Of Starfield’s Best Quests Is A Gravity-Defying Beer Run

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A random bartender on a small back-world planet led to one of my favorite side-quests in Starfield, Bethesda’s latest and biggest open-world RPG. Just be prepared for some gravity issues.

The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: August 2023 Edition

Starfield is one of the biggest games of 2023, and has already become one of Xbox’s most successful Game Pass offerings. The Bethesda RPG, like that developer’s past games, is filled with characters to meet, creatures to kill, items to collect, and quests to finish. And this time around, you get to explore 1,000 planets (while discovering the dead animals on them). While most quests in Starfield are fine, a few are better than the rest and worth tracking down. For example, a quest involving a broken-down spaceship, some expensive booze, and fighting space pirates in zero-G.

“Sure Bet” is a side-quest you can start at any point in the game past the opening tutorial. Once you have your own ship and can make the journey to Gagarin, a planet located in the Alpha Centauri system, you can talk to Lizzy, a bartender in the small, industrial city of Gagarin Landing. The place is being overrun by corporate execs and she wants to serve better, finer, and more expensive liquor to attract these rich sleazebags. So she asks you, of course, to track down some valuable booze lost on an abandoned cargo ship.

I didn’t expect much when I took the quest but hopped over to the derelict ship, and within a minute realized this was going to be a different experience than most fetch quests in Starfield. That’s because the ship you board isn’t working properly, and the machinery running its artificial gravity is failing. So every 30 seconds or so the gravity in the ship turns off and you, all the objects in the vessel, and all the space pirates looting it begin floating in zero-G.

Bethesda / Game Guides Channel

This leads to some really fun combat, where you can use the shifts in gravity to your advantage to quickly reach higher locations or to target enemies who get knocked out of cover and float into the open air. I also had a great moment when I fired my big, dumb shotgun and went zooming backward into a wall.

“Oh right, physics!” I thought to myself as I jetpacked back into the action with a big smile on my face. After the fighting ends, the grav shifts continue and lead to some light but enjoyable traversal puzzles. Once I got the booze I left, returned to Lizzy, passed a persuasion check, and got more money than she had initially promised.

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A quest that shows off Starfield’s physics

Starfield has received a lot of criticism for its locked 30fps framerate on console, and while I always prefer a higher framerate when possible, this quest is a reminder of why Bethesda’s RPG probably can’t hit 60. When the gravity first went out in the ship, every object, weapon, and body around me began to float into the air. Then they all landed a moment later when the ship started working again. This repeated at least 50 or so times during the quest, and each time Starfield tracked and maintained where these objects were, how they collided with other items, and their momentum.

Meanwhile, I and some dozen other pirates were shooting each other, ramming through all of this debris, and tossing grenades too. That’s a lot of stuff to render, track, and calculate. So it’s not surprising that Starfield has to cap the framerate at 30fps to spend its resources on other things.

Of course, there’s an argument to be made that Bethesda’s latest RPG doesn’t fully utilize all these wild simulations running under the hood. And I’d agree with that. Most quests don’t feel like they are taking advantage of the game’s impressive physics, or other novel systems for that matter.

However, when a quest like “Sure Bet” comes along, it’s a great example of what this game can actually achieve. I just wish Starfield remembered that more often.

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Zack Zwiezen

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September 12, 2023
This Diablo IV Quest Rewards You With Great Loot And A Heartfelt Story

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Image: Blizzard Entertainment

One quest line in Diablo IV is drawing in players not just for good loot, but because it has a strong mental health message that makes it feel meaningful beyond the actual perks.

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The quest starts with A Question of Self and follows Taissa, a character who is dealing with a mental health struggle tied into Diablo’s world. We don’t need to get into spoilers here, but according to senior quest designer Harrison Pink, Taissa’s story, even down to the flavor text on the equipment you receive for seeing it through, was meant to deal with mental health and grief.

In a thread on Twitter, Pink explained that the quest line was about “overcoming grief and trauma,” and how you can’t force progress by brute forcing it.

At the end of the quest, you receive the Mark of the Conclave, which is an amulet that includes a letter from another character initially meant for Taissa, and it includes words of encouragement for her that have been comforting to Diablo IV players. There’s a whole Reddit thread of folks talking about the message and how they’re dealing with their own mental health struggles. The flavor text for the amulet reads:

Healing is a journey. A series of steps. Some days you may stumble, but so long as you continue to put one foot in front of the other, you will reach your destination.

Blizzard Entertainment / Coooley

On top of having a lovely message, the Mark of the Conclave is actually a pretty good accessory to have. As YouTuber Coooley explains, the accessory can boost your Life stat, and because it’s a Rare item, you can reroll its stat boosts with the Occultist. Doing this means you can have a huge addition to your Life. So if you haven’t done these quests yet, take the time. You’ll get a good side story and leave with a great accessory.

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Kenneth Shepard

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June 23, 2023
Bonkers Destiny 2 Shard Farm Gives You Unlimited Exotics [Update: It’s Gone]
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A new glitch in Destiny 2’s Season of the Deep makes it easy to farm infinite Legendary Shards through unlimited Exotic drops. It’s super simple and easy and probably won’t be around for long.

A Foe From The Next Team Ninja Game Is Giving Me Sekiro PTSD

I came upon the exploit via the Destiny streamer Leopard, though it’s been spreading like wildfire throughout the community because of how fast and generous it is. Season of the Deep added new class-based Exotic quests for existing gear that’s been reworked over at Ikora Rey in the Tower. One simple trick allows you to take the single Exotic reward and multiply it indefinitely. Here’s how it works:

Go to Ikora and pick one of the Exotic quests.

Get to step four

Go back and speak to her but don’t collect the reward

Instead back out and open your quest log and abandon the quest

Now talk to Ikora again and pick up as many copies of the Exotic as you want

You’ll want to make sure the inventory slot for the relevant armor piece is empty, otherwise space will fill up quickly. But once you get going you can just start deleting all of the extra Exotic pieces and then grab more without ever leaving Ikora’s quest screen. Each broken-down Exotic will net you seven Gunsmith reputation, 500 Glimmer, and five Legendary Shards.

Shards are used for focusing Engrams, buying other resources like upgrade modules, and grabbing new weapons and gear from various vendors. They’re easy to run low on, especially if you’re a new player. And you never know which way the wind is going to turn in Destiny 2’s economy, so it’s always a good time to stock up.

Bungie likes to patch these exploits quickly, however, so who knows how long this one will remain viable. For now it’s nice to have something to fill the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom duplication glitch-sized hole in my heart after that game’s most recent update.

Update 5/26/2023 7:05 p.m. ET: And it’s already gone. Bummer.
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Ethan Gach

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May 26, 2023
Genshin Impact In 2022: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

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Image: HoYoverse / Kotaku

2022 was the year that Genshin Impact’s developer rebranded to HoYoverse to convey its ambitions for expanding its offerings to global audiences. It was also the year when players left the Japan-inspired region behind in order to explore Sumeru—a nation based on Southwest Asia, South Asia, and North Africa (SWANA).

Not all changes were warmly received. The Sumeru leaks received significant backlash for colorism, orientalism, and fetishization, but mechanical changes to exploration and resource gathering were welcome. And the new Dendro element made the combat feel exciting and new again. Which makes it an even bigger shame that not everyone can enjoy playing Genshin without reservations. I know that light-skinned folks from the SWANA region exist, but it even feels awkward to me that every city-dwelling NPC with an Arabic name is light-skinned. For a game that sells the idea of an immersive world, Sumeru kept taking me out of it.

It also sucks that we’re not getting a new endgame mode. But I find the new card game so much fun that I don’t really care. I can’t wait for more people to learn the rules so that I can squash them in Genius Invokation matches.

Here are the fun additions to the game, the grievances both new and old, and controversies that tore its community apart.

The Good

Screenshot: HoYoverse / Kotaku

Sumeru transforms open world exploration

After months of burnout, the addition of a new North Africa/Southwest Asia/South Asia inspired region helped Genshin feel like a fresh open world game. I absolutely adored zipping around the forest canopies and waterfalls, which allowed me to explore more of the map than I otherwise would have. I just wish that the designers kept it up for the more recently introduced desert area, which still demands that I leg boringly plain distances.

The Dendro element revives disfavored characters

Remember how bummed the community would get whenever it was revealed that a cool new character would have thunder powers? Electro was once widely considered the worst element, and for good reason. Its reactions with other elements weren’t as powerful unless a character was built as a rare physical attacker. Its main role was to provide energy particles—but there are other ways to gain energy. Using an electro character was almost considered a waste of a party slot.

Sumeru Preview Teaser 01: The Fascinating Dendro Element | Genshin Impact

Not anymore. The new “quicken” reaction allows Electro characters to cause additional damage that scales with their “Elemental Mastery” stat. This means that Fischl is now one of the most valuable characters in the game (Yes, yes, I know about taser comp), Yae Miko becomes an absolute DPS monster, and Lisa becomes viable for the first time since Genshin launched.

I’ve always hated how certain gacha characters are more “meta” than others, and that rarely changed without some kind of numbers buff. Genshin is constantly reinventing its meta by adding new ways that powers can interact with each other, and I’m absolutely living for it.

The Japan-inspired region finally earns its tragic gravitas

Last year, I wrote that the Inazuma storyline was kinda mid, and the best stories were found in the mundane sidequests. The writing felt weak, and I worried that the developers couldn’t sustain the previous narrative quality while releasing live service updates for a new region. My concerns were quickly dispelled with the new year.

HoYoverse released an underwater sub-region with some of the creepiest lore in the game so far. The quests of Enkanomiya are full-throated about how the current rulers of Teyvat are genocidal conquerors from another world. This was heavily implied if you bothered to read the 139,847,934 tomes of in-game lore. Most people (understandably) didn’t. This subregion is technically “optional,” but I don’t think it should be.

Version 2.4 “Fleeting Colors in Flight” Trailer | Genshin Impact

None of the Enkanomiya quests are mandatory. But Genshin trusts a significant portion of its players to care about these injustices, and the rewards for following the breadcrumb trails are sublime. When I ran a dozen fetch quests for faceless NPCs, I wasn’t thinking about the premium currency that I could earn. I was thinking of the Sunchildren, ancient puppet rulers who were burned alive before adulthood. How did their story end? For all the jokes that the Genshin community is primarily motivated by primogems, we’re even more obsessive about good stories.

For those who don’t have the patience to explore all of Enkanomiya, the second part of Raiden Shogun’s storyline is much easier to digest. I liked that this arc relied more heavily on emotional beats and well-paced writing rather than flashy animations. Earlier quests had fancy special effects, but they couldn’t save the main scenario from feeling rushed and poorly constructed.

The storytelling becomes more mature

2022 is when Genshin started making NPCs more important to its central storyline than ever before. We met compelling side characters in Inazuma last year, but some of the rawest lines I’ve ever heard were from random soldiers and explorers in the spring Chasm update. And the sickly heiress we meet in the main quest scenario was the real star who outshone our overpowered heroes. Genshin isn’t the first video game to say that ordinary people are the protagonists of their own lives, but HoYoverse is committed to actually showing it.

I also wanted to give a quick shoutout to the animated cutscenes, which have been improving drastically over the past year. I’m not talking about the technical improvements, but how Genshin uses more varied camera shots to create scenes that feel like movies (rather than talking heads).

Genius Invokation TCG

Genshin’s take on Gwent has become my new favorite reason to log into the game. I love this card minigame because it never feels like I’m truly backed into a corner. The mechanics are forgiving, and the rules allow me to convert useless resources into more helpful ones. So if one of my characters falls, it feels like I actually earned that L.

Best of all, there’s no gacha component in Genius Invokation. I was worried that I would have to grind matches endlessly for booster packs, but I just have to buy individual cards straight from the shop. It’s such a welcome reprieve from yelling at my screen because I flubbed my artifact rolls again.

Genshin is getting an anime

HoYoverse is partnering with the anime studio Ufotable to produce an animated series, which is the best news to come out all fall. Ufotable has produced crowd pleaser hits such as Demon Slayer and Fate, and hey also produce animation for video games such as the Tales series. Their work is sheer wizardry, and now they’ll be animating the biggest weeb game in the world.

Genshin Impact Long-Term Project Launch: Concept Trailer | Genshin Impact

The Genshin fandom rarely agrees on anything. So it’s nice that we can get such a massive collective W like this.

The Chinese opera revival

Chinese opera is widely considered to be a dying art, yet HoYoverse chose to include it in the main quest scenario that happened around Chinese New Year. The character Yun Jun is an opera singer, her design is based on the performers’ outfits, and she has a real opera singer as her second voice actress. After the update was released, millions of people got to experience a cultural artform that they had never seen before.

Story Teaser: The Divine Damsel of Devastation | Genshin Impact

This wasn’t just an important moment for the Chinese diaspora who have had less palatable aspects of their culture maligned. It was meaningful to all the YouTube and Twitter commenters who never knew that Chinese opera could convey such profound emotion. Yun Jin’s performance didn’t just move her own audience, but people of different nationalities around the world.

The Bad

Image: HoYoverse / Kotaku

Farming mats in Sumeru is awful

Everything is spaced so far apart, and the only multi-node resources are cooking ingredients. And good luck if you need any scarabs—the little bastards are almost impossible to see in the desert sand unless they’re scurrying away as you approach. Worst of all, none of the useful flowers can be grown in the housing system right now. So good luck—especially if you don’t have the premium 5 star Nahida to help you gather flowers from the cliffsides.

The conflicting quest backlog situation is getting ridiculous

It used to be that new players couldn’t access newer content until they finished enough of the main quest. Now older players are being hit by the unwieldy quest log too. If you accept certain sidequests too early, then you can be locked out of the main quest scenario.

I’d understand if there was some kind of chronology requirement, but the game is doing this solely to prevent an NPC from being in two places at once. This is incredibly silly, and I hope that the developers will get rid of it soon.

Game delays due to the coronavirus lockdowns

While other gaming companies had to push their release dates because of the pandemic, HoYoverse seemed to be the only studio that seemed delay-proof. That ended when Shanghai underwent severe lockdowns and food crises. Genshin experienced its first delay since its 2020 release at the end of April. The housing system was locked in maintenance mode, and Ayaka Kamisato had the longest gacha banner in the game’s history… but only by a period of two weeks. It seems that not even coronavirus lockdowns can stop HoYoverse’s developers for long.

HoYoverse announces that Genshin will not have endgame content

Oh boy. There’s never been any doubt that Genshin is a game catered towards casual players. But the combat is so well-designed that many meta-centric players latched on early, so they felt like they were being slapped in the face when the developers confirmed that the Spiral Abyss would be the only endgame for the foreseeable future.

The Spiral Abyss is a challenge dungeon in which players can clear four new levels every six weeks. It’s a DPS check where players try to kill all the enemies within a certain amount of time. Every time the Spiral Abyss refreshes, the fights also come with new conditions. But it’s still stuff that you can clear in a single evening, rather than an endless endgame mode.

Here’s why this is such a big deal: Some of the most competitive players have been spending large amounts of money to get extra abilities and weapons from the gacha. So there’s the feeling that HoYoverse owes them more challenge modes in which they can test their gameplay prowess. Right now, most of the studio’s development muscle has been focused on story-centric events and challenges that are catered towards players who don’t have a lot of characters. HoYoverse understands that appeasing the casual players is what gives F2P games their longevity. But it still sucks to see that a passionate section of the community is being thoroughly neglected.

The Ugly

Image: HoYoverse / Kotaku

Sumeru is too white

As usual, Genshin’s upcoming gacha characters leaked far ahead of their official announcements. Many people were disappointed that the Chinese RPG continued its tradition of populating the world with mostly light-skinned characters. Previous nations were based on Germany, China, and Japan, so fans expected more melanin variation from a fictional country based on North Africa, Southwest Asia, and South Asia. People also pointed out that Liyue and Inazuma were based on specific East Asian countries. It sucked that Sumeru seems to be a hodgepodge of multiple cultures and nations.

While there are dark-skinned NPCs with sympathetic backstories, the gacha characters are the “protagonists” of the game. The majority of those originating from Sumeru are light-skinned, and no canonically Black characters currently exist in the game at all. Gacha is a video game genre that sells personal attachment and sex appeal. Whether or not HoYoverse includes darker characters isn’t a matter of “wokeness” as some delightful commenters say—it’s a question of whether or not HoYoverse considers melanated skin to be desirable. So far, the answer seems to be “Sometimes, but not past a certain point.”

We knew this was coming. HoYoverse did not have a good reputation with how they portrayed darker-skinned characters even before Sumeru had been released. But a lot of players had hoped that the studio would be listening to feedback and taking the community’s feelings into account. There’s still time to fill the roster with more diverse characters, but the period of goodwill seems to have passed.

HoYoverse accused of bribing fans for votes at The Game Awards

Seasoned gacha players know that they’ll give out premium currency for almost anything. Anniversary? Here’s some gacha money. Maintenance went on too long? We have apology money. HoYoverse usually distributes some currency every time that Genshin wins an award, and the internet wasn’t happy about it. Specifically, the Sonic Frontiers fandom started to accuse HoYoverse of buying votes with in-game currency. Some even suspected the fandom of using bots to cheat in a popularity contest.

There were several reasons for this. First, Sonic Frontiers was neck-and-neck with Genshin in the polls, but it’s a single-player game that can’t use premium currency for marketing. Second, there’s the perception that the studio had already cheated by entering a game from 2020 into the running. Thirdly, it’s a common perception that most Genshin players are gambling addicts. It wasn’t just the unsubstantiated botting accusations that were ugly, but the casual ableism that gamers threw out in order to justify their hatred of Genshin. There are valid reasons to criticize companies, it’s what we do here all the time. But something has gone horribly wrong when gamers will use mental health as ammunition against a community that they know little about.

Genshin did go on to win the Player’s Vote award, and every player received enough currency for five rolls—or around $12.

A high schooler is accused of “satanism” for painting a Genshin character

Satanic panic in 2022? You read that correctly. Michigan parents bullied a teenager at a school board meeting after she painted a queer-positive mural as part of an official school contest. One of the contested images was the mask worn by the Genshin character Xiao. He’s an evil spirit hunter, so it’s more accurate to say that Xiao is the anti-Satan.

I’m not invested in defending his honor to some Republican parents, but I do think homophobia and xenophobia is shitty. Maybe worry a little more about how your kids will feel while living in a bigoted community rather than if a video game character’s mask is promoting Satanism.

Looking to the future of Genshin Impact

Sumeru’s story arc hasn’t concluded, and there are still so many remaining questions about capital Genshin nouns such as the Scarlet King, Irminsul, and the Descenders, or where Istaroth went after saving Enkanomiya from the Dragonheirs. Every year of lore updates seems to bring up far more questions than answers, so I’ll likely be trapped in this gacha hell with the rest of the community for the entire ride.

HoYoverse usually releases a major nation every year, and our next destination is the France-based region of Fontaine. This is where the god of justice resides, but I find this a little ironic. It says in the lore that she’s not willing to challenge the divine—the rulers in Celestia who have colonized this world and caused multiple genocides against its inhabitants. How could she be just if she won’t challenge the rulers who demand the world’s fealty by force? By now, I know that HoYoverse has a good answer planned. We just need to wait an entire year to find out what it is.

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Sisi Jiang

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December 16, 2022
This Cyberpunk 2077 Side Quest Is One Of Its Best, So Don’t Miss It
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Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

Venturing off the path of the main quest in Cyberpunk can feel a little…perhaps ludonarrative dissonant? Sure, V’s got a lot on their plate, but there’s a whole city out there filled with quests and objectives. Not all are made equally though. If you want to experience one of the best side diversions this dystopian futurescape has to offer, however, it’s time to get reacquainted with an AI taxi service you met in Act One. Turns out they’ve got a bit of a staff problem; good thing you’re in need of eddies and have time to spare.

Act Two opens with such a heavy narrative premise that it’s easy to get immersed in the main story. Who has time for fetch quests when the clock is ticking on impending doom? This is especially the case when much of the game can feel like a GTA-wannabe at worst. But the quest chain that follows “Tune Up” is filled with such personality and offers such a classic sci-fi AI premise that you shouldn’t miss it. In fact, it should be top of your list of quests to grab once you wrap up “The Heist” main job.

You need to be in Act Two to access this quest. Act Two follows the trying events of “The Heist” main job, so we’re gonna be in spoiler territory here. Also, as a content warning, this quest does deal with themes of self harm and suicide. Make sure you have an Intelligence score of at least 10 in order to access all outcomes at the quest’s conclusion.) It’s worth pausing the main storyline for this one.

It all starts with the “Tune Up” side job, which will take you a little by surprise before you’ll be on your way to hunt down individual objectives scattered around the city. You have two choices for how you want to tackle this quest: Either knock all of the seven objectives out one-by-one, or, dip in and out of them as you progress through the main story or other quests. Some of the shootouts can get a little rough if you’re not leveled up appropriately, specifically the one that takes place in Pacifica.

Let’s dig in.

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How to start the Delamain side quest

Your choom is dead, a cigarette-smoking rebellious rockstar is stuck in your head, and a stolen piece of hardware from Arosaka is slowly overriding your consciousness. Isn’t the future grand? Act Two arrives after one hell of a turn of events and all you might care about after waking up is where the hell your car is.

Lucky you: If you check your journal or map, you’ll come across the “Tune Up” side job, where the first objective is to retrieve your vehicle from your apartment’s parking garage.

After the very impolite car smashes into you and wrecks your ride, you’ll be wheel-less for a spell. Don’t worry, you can either grab one of the purchasable vehicles as a temporary replacement (yes, you’ll get your wheels back).

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a free set of wheels and don’t mind a quick trip out to the desert, you can score a Colby CX410 Butte for literally free at the following location:

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

It’s not the fastest car by any means, and the acceleration is rather slow, but what do you want for nothing?

Finish up the remainder of “Human Nature’s” tasks and you’ll be able to access the “Tune Up” side job. This one will take you down to Delamain HQ, where you’ll understand a bit about what just happened.

After chatting with Delamain a bit, you’ll come to find out that a number of his cars have gone rogue. It’ll be up to you to track them down.

Finding the rogue Delamain car locations (and how to drive in first-person without crashing)

Time for a seven-step fetch quest! Don’t close the browser, trust me, this one’s worth it. For the best experience, however, I really recommend driving in first-person mode. To avoid smashing into things left and right while driving in first-person perspective, make sure your map is on and use it as a kind of peripheral vision.

Once Delamain gives you the rundown of what’s going on, you’ll have access to the seven-step “Epistrophy” side job. You can go to each location as you wish, knocking them out one-by-one, or choosing to grab them when they seem appropriate. If you want to leave this quest as something you’ll return to on and off, you don’t need to worry about tracking it too often. Delamain will call you whenever you are near the vicinity of one of the rogue vehicles. It will take a little while to find some of them depending on their location. Stay within the highlighted area in your minimap until you find the car and stick close to them once you’ve found their location. They can be found in the following places:
- Wellsprings
- Northside
- North Oak
- Rancho Coronado
- Badlands
- The Glen
- Coastview
Some of the more notable parts of this quest include the Rancho Coronado, Wellsprings, and North Oak locations. In North Oak, you’ll need to drive the rogue cab back yourself, except this AI is particularly nervous about the city. Keep the car under 50 to not spook him too much.

Rancho Coronado will have you engage in some amusing property damage to satisfy an AI who’s very upset about some pink flamingos. Meanwhile, the AI in Wellsprings has a bit of an attitude. It might feel clunky, but I recommend sticking to first-person during the car battle here as, given the camera perspective, an impromptu 1v1 demo derby in the middle of a city is quite fun and poses a bit of a challenge.

If you’re heading to Pacifica for the Coastview location, however, come leveled up and stocked on ammo. After an amusing easter egg, you’re gonna get jumped by a bunch of gonks. I recommend staying under the bridge during this shootout, as there are two groups of hostile enemies outside of the bridge who can easily get roped into the shooting spree. Fighting one group of fools is much more manageable than taking on three.

As a note, “The Glen” location involves a conversation about depression and self harm.

Final Delamain quest: “Don’t Lose Your Mind”

Once you gather all of the rogue AI’s and send them back to Delamain HQ, you’ll have to wait a couple of days to receive a suspicious call from Delamain. This call usually triggers by visiting Corpo Plaza. Turns out, Delamain has found the source of the problem: A virus has hit the AI and you’re being called on to help.

As you’ll quickly learn, entry into Delamain HQ isn’t as straightforward as it was before. Once you find a way in around the back, you’ll move through some abandoned offices. Take the time to sift through the computer emails for a bit of dystopian backstory about what happened to the human staff. This is one of the game’s quests that earns time spent sifting through in-world documents. You’ll also need to dig through the emails for the code to the main office computer (it’s a super secure one too: 1 2 3 4). If you have an Intelligence of 8, you won’t need the password.

Once you get access to the garage, you’ll have to deal with some hostile drones and an electrified floor. The drones don’t put up too much of a fight, but the floor will kill you fast. (The Inductor Immune System implant will make you immune to the electricity).

Take the door to your left when you enter the garage and see Johnny. You’ll need to hop on to the car that’s being raised and lowered and parkour your way over to an open vent. You’ll then have to navigate through some narrow corridors behind the cars to make it to the control room and Delamain’s core. Once inside, things get interesting.

Johnny will appear and will instantly give you a piece of his mind about what you ought to do. You’ll have three options: Restore Delamain and kill the rogue AI offshoots, merge the AI offshoots with Delamain (requires an Intelligence score of 10), or pull out a gun and destroy the core, liberating the AI offshoots but killing Delamain.

Do the AI offshoots have a right to live? Are they just an error that needs to be corrected? Should (or can) they peacefully coexist with the primary consciousness that gave birth to them? SPOILERS FOLLOW:

Johnny will appear to encourage you to destroy the core or merge all of the AIs into one. He isn’t without a point, implying that Delamain is hardly living a free life as both a taxi driver and dispatcher. Delamain admits early on in the quest that he maintains a control room strictly for the need to mirror humans, saying that such a space is an “infrastructure” he inherited, much like the visualized face he speaks through. Narratively, this is an opportunity for V to decide whether or not he’ll continue simply serving humans by sending out and driving taxis.

You are free to reset the core to purge the errant AI offshoots, which identify as Delamain’s children and seem to be fragments of his own personality. If you do this, Johnny won’t be happy and will call you out. If you lack the Intelligence score to merge the AIs, your only option then is to pull out a weapon and destroy the core.

If you have a high enough Intelligence score (10), you can access what is arguably the “good ending” for the Delamain quest guide. Once all AI personalities are merged, Delamain will express the need to leave Night City to go on to a better place. Regardless of which ending you choose, however, you will get a taxi cab of your own to drive.

Though merging the AIs seems to be the best way to go, none of these seem to scream “good/bad ending.” Instead, you’ll be left with a nice riddle about the nature of consciousness and what it means to be free. What’s more cyberpunk than that?

Delamain’s quest is easily one of Cyberpunk 2077’s most memorable sidequests. There’s some great gameplay, a ton of great dialog and narration, and it will have you traveling to different areas of the city. It’s easily the first side job to pick up once you’re out of the first Act.
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Claire Jackson

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October 20, 2022