Cyberpunk 2077’s Next Update Wants To Help Night City Live Up to What Was Promised

When Cyberpunk 2077 launched at the end of 2020, it failed to become the benchmark in both the roleplaying and open-world genres that many players hoped it would be, with technical issues causing it to be temporarily pulled from some stores. Critics accused CD Projekt Red’s follow-up to the award winning Witcher 3 of releasing incomplete thanks to a slew of glitches and underbaked mechanics, like the police system.

The disappointing state the game launched in was one of the major reasons it failed to live up to its most notable feature: its setting. The gorgeously rendered Night City never quite felt like the living, breathing, bustling city portrayed in pre-release trailers or even the game's critically-acclaimed Netflix anime spin-off, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

The game’s first full expansion, Phantom Liberty, is set to release next month alongside a 2.0 game update. Together, these changes are looking to help bring Night City to life. Game Director Gabriel Amatangelo says making good on the promise of Night City is the main priority of Cyberpunk’s next big update, and will help finally fulfill the potential the game had prior to launch now that many other updates have much improved its stability.

“We had such a beautiful, incredible world with so much potential, and we wanted to infuse it with a bit more life,” Amatangelo said in an interview during Xbox’s Gamescom stream Thursday. “So we have a lot of new systems, and new AI improvements, and fantasy fulfilling abilities that you can do.”

One of the biggest overhauls is the police AI, according to Amatangelo. In the original game, police simply spawned near the player if they committed a crime, making them feel more like an annoyance than an actual law enforcement group. The 2.0 update will introduce reactive police that will chase the player, set up barricades to block streets and pursue them more rigorously depending on the seriousness of the crime (think Grand Theft Auto’s star system).

Amatangelo said Cyberpunk 2.0 will also add several types of law enforcement. Where the player is in the city determines which type of law enforcement will come searching for them, and how they investigate. Each type of police will also have different archetypes that players will have to fight differently, according to Amatangelo.

To make the world feel less like it revolves around the player, Night City will now also feature more dynamic events that the player can stumble on.

“The player’s an agent in the world and the world reacts to the player,” Amatangelo said. “But also you’ll see gangs fighting each other, chasing each other in cars and stuff like that. There’s other agents in the world as well.”

Vehicle combat is another entirely new addition. Amatangelo explained that players will be able to use melee, firearms and newly added mounted weapons to add an entirely new layer of depth to car chases and combat.

“You can get on a bike, get out your katana blade, slice a tire, and when you slice their tires, they’ll veer off the road and crash,” he explained. “We’ve got a friendly targeting system, but you can also free aim and start hitting tires, and gas tanks and blowing them up.”

Finally, Amatangelo clarified that Phantom Liberty will integrate into the original Cyberpunk 2077 game, rather than be its own standalone story.

“It is part of the main base game storyline, it's in the midst of it,” he said. “Though if you want to come in and play just this, we give you the option to skip ahead to it, and start immediately [on] Phantom Liberty.”

Players who skip ahead can focus entirely on doing missions in the new expansion without being obligated to do certain missions from the original main questline first. If they beat Phantom Liberty, Amatangelo says players can choose to roll right into the base game if they choose. Those who choose to roll a new player can tackle the Phantom Liberty missions at their own pace as they play through the rest of the game.

“It’s similar to some of the Witcher expansions and how we did some of that, but a little bit more free here since you can go back and forth between the game.”

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is set to release September 26 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles.