Cyberpunk 2077’s Major Free Update completely revamps its gameplay experience.
Cyberpunk 2077 stands as an exception in recent memory in that its launch was such a failure; yet after only weeks into playback it has managed to rebound impressively and become one of the highest selling games of its time.
CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 launched to critical acclaim on December 2020; however, upon its initial launch it was quickly plagued with bugs, performance issues, and lack of promised content – so much so that Sony ultimately removed it from PSN Store altogether.
Cyberpunk 2077 would return to the PSN Store in 2021 with numerous fixes; however, regardless of these patches and updates intended to improve it on PS4, Xbox One, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S it remained far from ideal state on those platforms. When PS5 and Xbox Series X|S updates launched in February 2022 there was evidence of Cyberpunk 2077 finally living up to its potential and taking shape at last!
At around the time of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’s release on Netflix, an anime series called Cyberpunk: Edgerunners also arrived. Set approximately one year prior to its main game counterpart, Edgerunners follows David Martinez – “a young student attending Arasaka Academy on his mother Gloria’s request despite their financial struggles; illegally altering his cyberware to keep attending classes”.
Edgerunners explored cyberware and its influence over time in altering an individual’s mental state if they choose to augment themselves with it. Cyberpsychosis refers to an individual being driven towards insanity as a direct result of cyberware use; an effect which leads to involuntary action by their body due to being overwhelmed by information overload caused by cyberware use.
Cyberpsychosis exists within Cyberpunk 2077, yet has never been explored to the extent seen in Netflix anime series. But that will soon change with Phantom Liberty expansion!
Though cyberpsychosis won’t have much of an effect on protagonist V in Phantom Liberty expansion, some optional abilities could potentially bring with them negative side-effects that are hard to manage.
Pawel Sasko, CDPR’s quest director explained to VGC that some cyberware enhancements will make V more powerful, yet at a cost to their health bar – for instance an ability which enhances combat capabilities could come at the expense of V’s health bar.
“This game is all about finding an optimal balance between risk and reward,” according to Sasko. “Keep that in mind; we do not intend to introduce cyberpsychosis at this time.”
I appreciate how aspects of the anime series are being integrated into Cyberpunk 2077; however, it would be unnervingly cool for V to hallucinate when using more advanced augmentations. Perhaps we will get our chance in its sequel? Only time will tell.
