Anticipation for the Cyberpunk 2077 release date couldn’t have been higher. CD Projekt Red had kept us waiting for years to find out, so when Keanu Reeves showed up at E3 2019 to reveal it, alongside the fact he’ll be playing Johnny Silverhand, we went somewhat into overdrive.
Alongside that, we got a good peep at more gameplay footage and a four-hour Cyberpunk 2077 preview, which builds upon the E3 2018 demo that showed Cyberpunk 2077 is the answer to, perhaps, the biggest game development question of the decade: how do you follow up something like The Witcher 3? Polish RPG powerhouse CD Projekt Red is looking to replicate its successes with Eastern Europe’s beloved fantasy book series by turning its hand to the futuristic world of Cyberpunk 2077.
CD Projekt Red’s videogame is an adaptation of the Cyberpunk 2020 pen-and-paper game. It’s a first-person RPG set in a gritty, vast future metropolis known as Night City. Like The Witcher 3, it’s an adult story, touching on drugs, violence, and social politics. It’s almost certainly going to be the most talked-about game of 2020 when it finally releases this year, and you can be ready for release day by pre-ordering it on the Humble store. Here’s everything we know about Cyberpunk 2077.
The official Cyberpunk 2077 release date is December 10, 2020. There are specific Cyberpunk 2077 PC release times, which are dependent on where you live and will be available to download on GOG, Steam, the Epic Game Store. You’ll also be able to stream it on Google Stadia.
You can now pre-load Cyberpunk 2077 right now so you don’t have to spend hours downloading the game on release day. The release times are as follows:
Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay
The most recent gameplay trailer shows off the glitz and grit of various Night City locations, and introduces V as an “urban mercenary; a cyber-enhanced gun-for-hire”. It shows off some action-packed combat, hacking, and driving – and also introduces the crux of Cyberpunk 2077’s story. After you steal an incredibly valuable prototype biochip, its sealed container is damaged, and the only way to safely preserve it is by inserting it into your head – however, it also happens to come with the “digitized soul” of Johnny Silverhand, the legendary rockerboy played by Keanu Reeves. How this struggle for control plays out will depend on your choices throughout the game.
CD Projekt Red livestreamed 15 minutes of a gameplay demo for Cyberpunk 2077, including snippets of already seen footage at Gamescom, plus new content, characters, and different play styles you can adopt along the way. The footage is designed to exclude spoilers, but does include new character information and reveals a part of the map, Pacifica. You can watch the full deep dive video below.
While we could admire Geralt’s shock of white hair in the third-person The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person RPG – and we mean 100% first-person. You will have three main types of Cyberpunk 2077 weapons that include melee weapons and high-tech guns, and you will indulge in a bit of Watch-Dogs-style scanning and, with the right Cyberpunk 2077 abilities, plenty of hacking.
Regarding quest design, you can expect to complete some of them in three to five different ways. That comes from senior quest designer Philip Weber, who delved into Cyberpunk 2077’s mission design on a Reddit thread. Weber explains that Cyberpunk 2077’s class system has impacted the ways players can interact with the game’s missions. Weber then goes on to say that using the skills from these class systems “gives you more (as an example, three to five in some cases) ways how to solve a quest or challenges within a quest. This naturally makes quest designs more complex in some areas, but it’s honestly great fun to do.” It’s also worth adding that there will not be any procedurally generated quests in Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk 2077 trailer
All of Cyberpunk 2077’s intense hype started with this title reveal four years ago. How time flies when you’re waiting for a sprawling RPG to play.
The second teaser trailer gave us our first look at the world, with bulletproof cheeks, bladed arms, and future police trying to bring down this cybernetically enhanced criminal.
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Cyberpunk 2077 story
Cyberpunk 2077 takes place in, you guessed it, the year 2077. In a sprawling metropolis called Night City, you take on the role of a fully-voiced, streetwise young man or woman – you can play as either gender in Cyberpunk 2077 – raised in the gutter and wants to improve their life. The street gangs and megacorps will do all they can to keep people down.
Cyberpunk 2077 story
There are three playable Cyberpunk 2077 classes: Netrunner, Techie, and Solo. You will not have to pick one of the three – you can either focus on one or mix abilities and play styles from all three class types. If you’re unfamiliar with Cyberpunk lore, Netrunners are hackers, Techies are crafting specialists, and Solos are lone mercenaries.
We have details on five Cyberpunk 2077 characters who featured prominently in the E3 2018 demo. Firstly, there’s Jackie Welles, a mercenary who takes on bounties and operates on the fringes of the big league. Dexter DeShawn is the next face we run into – Dexter is a Fixer, someone who handles odd jobs ranging from kidnappings to assassinations provided the price is right. Fixers effectively liaise between mercenaries and clients, organising dirty work. Night City is full of Fixers, and Dexter DeShawn is among the most sought after.
Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be sizeable, if you hadn’t guessed. In fact, even level design coordinator Peter Gelenscer doesn’t know how big it is because Cyberpunk is much more vertical than The Witcher 3. At E3 2018, Gelenscer was cagey about an exact Cyberpunk 2077 map size but he did say “it shouldn’t be big, it should be enough.”
CD Projekt Red said back in 2013 that Cyberpunk 2077 would have “multiplayer features” but we know from E3 2018 that Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer will not be available at launch. CD Projekt’s upcoming RPG will launch single-player only, but multiplayer is currently in R&D, according to quest designer Patrick Mills in an interview with Eurogamer.
CD Projekt Red has commented on the post-launch content, especially in relation to its predecessor, The Witcher 3. Cyberpunk 2077 DLC is set to be plentiful, as The Witcher 3 is praised for its DLC rollout, it looks like Cyberpunk 2077 will be, too. Cyberpunk 2077 players can expect “more DLC” than The Witcher 3 had and The Witcher 3 included two paid for expansions and a bunch of free content post-launch.
CD Projekt Red’s next game is, indeed, up for grabs on Steam, and you can grab your Steam pre-order now. In fact, it’s already topping the Steam wishlists chart. If you’d rather buy your games elsewhere, though, then Cyberpunk 2077 will also pop up on the Epic Store and, of course, the Humble store.
WILL CYBERPUNK 2077 HAVE MICROTRANSACTIONS?
The good news is Cyberpunk 2077 won’t have any microtransactions CD Projekt Red confirm saying, they don’t want to “lose the goodwill of our customers”. The head of the Krakow office even went as far to say that he thinks microtransactions are a “bad idea”.
Wondering how long is Cyberpunk 2077? We don’t have a rough hour count for you, but senior quest designer Patrick Mills says that “The main story run in Cyberpunk 2077 is slightly shorter than The Witcher 3”. A huge number of players never finished the main story in Witcher 3, so it makes sense to try and make this part of Cyberpunk 2077 more approachable.
Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements have finally been released, and the good news is that – aside from needing 70GB HDD or SSD space – they’re not particularly demanding, so most gaming PCs should be up to the task. Can you run it? Check your setup against the Cyberpunk 2077 PC specs.
If you’re excited for the Cyberpunk 2077 release date this November, check out other open-world games you could be playing in the meantime.
