Highlights
- Cyberpunk 2077 will no longer receive major updates, as the development team shifts its focus to the game's sequel, codenamed Project Orion, in Unreal Engine 5.
- The recent release of the Phantom Liberty DLC brings a substantial story campaign, new side jobs and gigs, a new location, and new characters to meet, earning praise from fans and redeeming CD Projekt Red's reputation.
- The game's disastrous launch led to unplayability, removal from the Playstation Store, stock losses, backlash, lawsuits, and employee crunch. The planned sequel is seen as a miracle and a chance for CDPR to learn from its mistakes.
Cyberpunk 2077 will no longer receive any significant updates, with developer CD Projekt Red planning to turn its attention to the game’s sequel instead. Update 2.0 and the Phantom Liberty DLC are currently the last big updates for the game.
The release of Phantom Liberty, the game’s new story DLC, brings with it not only a sizable story campaign averaging around 10-15 hours to beat but also several new side jobs and gigs. The expansion will see players return to Night City and explore a new location, Dogtown, in the anarchic Pacifica. There are also new characters to meet, such as Solomon Reed, a spy played by Idris Elba, and even the president of the New United States.
According to an interview with Wes Fenlon of PC Gamer, Cyberpunk 2077’s game director, Gabe Amatangelo, said there are no plans for major updates or new story expansions. Phantom Liberty and Update 2.0 are definitively the beginning of the end of the game’s seven-year journey. Instead, the team will begin moving ahead and working on the sequel after taking care of several bug fixes.
Cyberpunk 20772 is codenamed Project Orion, with CDPR planning to build the sequel in Unreal Engine 5. Amatangelo is also geared to direct the game and is a veteran of RPGs, having worked for ten years at EA, spending time at studios like Mythic Entertainment and BioWare.
To say that the game had a disastrous launch is an understatement. It was unplayable on some consoles to the point that Sony, in an unprecedented move, removed the game from the Playstation Store. CDPR stock also fell, with the company losing $1 billion following the launch. There was massive backlash from fans, investor lawsuits, members of the team leaving the company, and even the revelation of workers having to crunch. So, to see a sequel being planned and in the works is nothing short of a miracle.
It is almost three years now since that Christmas launch, and CD Projekt Red has joined other developers, such as Hello Games, in pulling off a redemption story for their games. The 2.0 update brought much-needed changes to Night City, such as the complete overhaul of vehicle combat and a transmog system. Phantom Liberty, released earlier this week with glowing reviews and combined with Update 2.0, is being lauded as what the game should have been on launch. This has earned CDPR a lot of goodwill that it had lost from the fans and community at large. Now, only time will tell if it learned from its mistakes.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: PC Gamer