It’s been quite the journey for CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077, which launched in December 2020 and received multiple updates ever since. This year saw the launch of Phantom Liberty, its first and only paid expansion, and Update 2.0, which massively changes and improves the base game.
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition has been announced and launches on December 5th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. Since this is a good offer for newcomers who have never played the game, here’s everything they should know before jumping in.
What is it?
Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person action RPG with some immersive sim elements and an open world. The Ultimate Edition is essentially the definitive version, including everything released in one package. The best part is that it can be purchased physically and digitally, making it the ideal one-stop solution for those jumping in for the first time.
What Does it Include?
Along with the base game, the Ultimate Edition packs Phantom Liberty, the recently released (and only) expansion. It also contains all of the updates for the game, from Edgerunners, which added content tying into the Studio Trigger anime, the massive overhaul which improves combat and adds new features to Update 2.1. Digital items from the “My Rewards” program are also included, which current players can still get if they register.
Price
The Ultimate Edition retails for $59.99, the same price as the base game has been since launch. Phantom Liberty costs $29.99 separately, so buying the Ultimate Edition is the better deal. On the bright side, at least the barrier for entry to new players is a lot lower.
What Even is Cyberpunk 2077?
For those who have only heard about Cyberpunk 2077, what do you do in the game? Players customize their character, V, and choose from three Lifepaths – Corpo, Street Kid and Nomad. These offer three different prologues when starting and minimal dialogue options throughout the campaign. After meeting Jackie and teaming together, V becomes a mercenary, exploring Night City and taking on Gigs and missions, eventually meeting with Johnny Silverhand.
We won’t give too much away about the campaign but think of the city as a hyper-capitalistic society overflowing with technology, crime and everything in between. There are multiple districts to explore, some more lavish than others, rival gangs to interact with, some more hostile than others, and various weapons and vehicles to acquire.
Combat
As noted before, this is a first-person title, and despite having several guns – shotguns, Smart Guns, rifles, you name it – the combat offers much more than meets the eye. You can utilize melee weapons like katanas to slice foes up after slowing down time with Sandevistan Cyberware. Or maybe you want to Quick Hack enemies and spread viruses, inflicting massive damage while slashing with a monowire. You can even play it as a stealth shooter or go full guns blazing.
Improvements and Patches
When Cyberpunk 2077 first launched, it had several problems, from glitches and bugs to performance issues on previous-gen consoles. Even if you discount promised features that never made it in (like the tram and police chases in the open world), certain aspects like build variety, crafting and melee combat needed improving.
Post-launch updates have improved the AI, adding options to change hairstyles and makeup on V, renting multiple apartments, transmog, cross-progression, and much more. They also added new weapons, attachments, Gigs and secrets on top of fixes for bugs, crashes and glitches. Though the game isn’t 100 percent bug-free, it’s still a massive improvement over launch.
Vehicular Combat and Police Chases
Update 2.0 is the big game changer. It added several new features, including vehicular combat and police chases. Players could now use weapons while driving (with motorcycles even allowing melee options), and you can modify a vehicle with different guns.
Night City’s police had already seen improvements since launch, but there was now a system in place for the player to gain Heat, escalating the threats from law enforcement. Become enough of a nuisance, and you could face MaxTac in a special encounter.
Overhauled Perks
Perks also had a complete overhaul with Update 2.0, providing even more options in combat. You can deflect bullets with blades and leap to enemies automatically with Strong Attacks; exceed Cyberware capacity by up to 50 points at the cost of your max health (with kills able to trigger Fury for more damage); and even utilize deadly finishers.
Do you want to throw an enemy’s lifeless body into another? Dash through the air? All that and more is here, leading to some truly incredible builds.
Update 2.0’s Many Changes
Update 2.0 also makes dozens of changes to the core, like phone UI changes, previewing clothes and weapons in your inventory, revamped weapon mods, clothes no longer having mod slots allowing you to wear whatever, movement options outside of combat not consuming stamina, and multiple improvements to AI, driving and more. However, there’s also level scaling for enemies, with different amounts of armor depending on their difficulty.
Phantom Liberty
Phantom Liberty offers a new campaign where the player must venture to Dogtown to save President Rosalind Myers. New characters like Songbird and Solomon Reed abound, each with their secrets, and V must also contend with Kurt Hansen, who rules the district with Barghest, his militia.
Dogtown comprises multiple locations, from the EBM Petrochem Stadium, where the Black Market is, to the Heavy Hearts Club, where the elite hang out. There’s also Black Sapphire, where the uppermost individuals venture to make less than savory deals.
Relic Tree
The Relic Tree is a brand new skill tree exclusive to Phantom Liberty and allows for utilizing some pretty nasty abilities against enemies. You can perform Leap Attacks with the Mantis Blades and dismember a target with its upgrade, Spatial Mapping, crippling enemies and increasing the chances of lopping off limbs.
Emergency Cloaking renders you invisible, providing some breathing room in combat. Vulnerability Analytics allows for detecting weak spots, which grant 100 percent critical chance, weak spot damage bonus, and armor penetration when hit. It’s not an extensive tree, but the abilities are game-changing.
New Activities
The expansion offers several new activities like courier missions to acquire vehicles and deliver them to specific locations at the behest of El Capitan. Some of these have additional conditions like escaping hostiles and not damaging the ride for more rewards.
There are also Restricted Data Terminals for obtaining more Relic Points to unlock Relic Tree Skills; Increased Criminal Activity locations, which are like mini-dungeons with bosses and valuable loot; and Airdrops, where you need to race across the district to obtain a cache, sometimes fighting rival gang members for it. Courier and Airdrop missions are repeatable, allowing you to keep playing them for money and XP.
Graphics Modes and Features
While Cyberpunk 2077 supports 4K and 60 FPS on PC, the Xbox Series X and PS5 versions have two modes – Performance and Ray Tracing. The former offers 60 FPS and 4K – it’s not native, but AMD FSR2 makes it barely noticeable – while Ray Tracing mode is 4K at 30 FPS. Those with a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti or higher on PC can also enable Path Tracing for full ray tracing and global illumination. DLSS 3 is also supported to ensure better performance with ray tracing.
Total Playtime
With the content included, how much playtime can new players expect from the Ultimate Edition? According to HowLongToBeat, it takes around 60 hours to finish the campaign in the base game and about 22 hours for the expansion. Completing everything in both games is about 133 hours, but your mileage may vary depending on how leisurely you go about everything.
Is Phantom Liberty on the Game Disc?
Unfortunately, those picking up the physical Ultimate Edition should note that Phantom Liberty isn’t included on PC and PS5 discs. It’s only on the Xbox Series X/S version. Other platforms get a code in the box and can use that to download the expansion. Nevertheless, as far as a physical version for PC and current-gen consoles, the Ultimate Edition is the ticket.
Update 2.1
Even though Update 2.0 was to be the last major patch for the game, CD Projekt RED has announced Update 2.1. It goes live on the same day as the Ultimate Edition and includes “new and hotly anticipated gameplay elements.” What those could be remains to be seen, but more details are coming as soon as December 1st.