The Cyberpunk 2077 release and redemption saga has been fascinating to watch unfold. First launched in late 2020, Cyberpunk was quickly hailed as one of the greatest disasters in AAA history: it barely ran on last-gen consoles, was riddled with bugs, and was just in a generally shoddy state—something not helped by CD Projekt Red’s evasive PR strategy at the time.
Five years and countless patches later, Cyberpunk 2077 is fairly close to what audiences imagined ahead of launch. It’s not perfect, but it’s fully functional, and its many strengths are much more visible now that the fog of bad publicity, bugs, and poor optimization has lifted. Whereas CDPR had earned a reputation for overpromising and underdelivering thanks to Cyberpunk’s rough launch, the developer understandably wanted to turn the tables, surprising audiences with more than they bargained for, not less. This is evident in the many “secret” or otherwise downplayed Cyberpunk updates, which have added substantive or novelty content to the game, all while CD Projekt Red kept expectations low via minimal marketing and hype. And it looks like the company isn’t done yet.
New Cyberpunk Game on Steam Essentially Lets You Own Cyberpunk 2077’s Afterlife Bar and Rewrite Nightlife
Cyberpunk 2077 and its ilk are thrilling sci-fi adventures, but an upcoming Steam game looks to tell a different story in a similar setting.
A Brief History of Cyberpunk 2077’s Post-Launch Improvements
Cyberpunk 2077’s console performance, even on the then-brand-new PS5 and Xbox Series platforms, was so abysmal at launch that Sony actually pulled the game from the PlayStation Store and issued refunds to affected players. It was absent on this massive storefront for about six months before being added back in June 2021, which marked the first time Cyberpunk was reliably, consistently playable on consoles. It was still rough around the edges—the supposedly overpopulated Night City was devoid of NPCs in most areas, for instance—but the bulk of the egregious, game-breaking bugs had been squashed.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
Thankfully, CD Projekt Red didn’t stop there and continued to improve the game through a series of updates, eventually issuing a proper next-gen upgrade in February 2022. This update was substantial, adding RTX, a higher max framerate, and a higher max resolution on consoles, while also making smaller tweaks, such as adding more ambient NPCs with more believable behavior, which made for a more immersive gameplay experience.
In August 2023, Cyberpunk 2077 received its 2.0 update alongside the terrific Phantom Liberty expansion, totally reworking several core elements of the game, including progression, open-world activities, combat, enemy AI, and item economy. It was essentially a total overhaul, and still remains Cyberpunk‘s most significant patch. However, 2.0 was followed by several smaller updates that were generally undermarketed and touted as “the last ever” update, which has obviously been false in the majority of cases. Some of the most impressive or worthwhile additions that came via these updates include:
- The Night City Area Rapid Transit system allows players to ride the game’s trains
- The music player
- Car customization
- The option to invite V’s love interests to hang out
- AutoDrive
- New vehicles, weapons, and character personalization options
These updates were quite beefy, and yet, CD Projekt Red didn’t make much of a fuss over them at all, with some of them basically amounting to shadow drops. Of course, this has gone quite a long way towards healing CDPR’s maimed reputation, so it makes sense why the company would choose this more humble route, rather than taking a victory lap. Having said that, the developer has been mostly true to its word since July 2025, when Update 2.3 was announced as the last major content drop for the game. But with yet another Cyberpunk update on the horizon, some might be skeptical as to whether the game is done getting new content.
Cyberpunk 2077 Is Getting Another Update, but CDPR Says You Shouldn’t Get Your Hopes Up
Cyberpunk 2077 is set to receive a patch to make it compatible with PSSR, Sony’s proprietary upscaling software similar to Nvidia DLSS. But of course, due to CDPR’s aforementioned history of underpromising with Cyberpunk patches, some fans have theorized that it will add extra content as well, like other surprise patches that introduced new gear, features, etc. This prompted the developer to douse these rumors, taking to Twitter to reaffirm that Cyberpunk is now content-and feature-complete, and that this next update really does only encompass PSSR.
But again, Cyberpunk 2077’s patch history makes it easy to doubt these claims. Whether the next Cyberpunk update is indeed more substantive than CDPR is making it out to be, only time will tell, but the fact that some players don’t believe CDPR’s official word is quite interesting: it would have been hard to imagine such a dynamic back in 2020 when Cyberpunk first launched. Through it all, it’s safe to say that CD Projekt Red has earned back a lot of the goodwill it lost five years ago, even if this manifests in an unexpected, ironic lack of trust.
- Released
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December 10, 2020
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
