If you’ll recall, CD Projekt RED said there were no plans to support PS5 Pro back in November 2024 (which it further reiterated regarding patch 2.2). To see it change course is quite interesting. Of course, how the development team plans to utilize it remains to be seen.

Thus far, other developers have praised Upgraded PSSR for providing higher-quality and more stable image quality. In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Silent Hill f, it’s helped reduce flickering to a significant degree compared to the older PSSR. Ninja Theory even praised it for improving the quality of particles in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2.

If PS5 Pro support is on the horizon, then you have to wonder about that other long-requested feature, New Game Plus. Is this a sign that CD Projekt RED is finally going to give in to fans? One certainly hopes, so stay tuned for updates in the meantime.

“We have no plans for additional DLCs or expansions. If anything changes, we will inform you all!” it said on Twitter in response to a fan asking about “When secret new DLC?” Unfortunately, it didn’t respond when told to “do the same with The Witcher account.”

Phantom Liberty has sold ten million copies as of May 2025 – an especially impressive milestone given that the base game crossed 35 million sales. CD Projekt RED has released multiple updates in recent years, working with Virtuos to add new features like CrystalCoat for customizing vehicle colors. You can even ride the subway, a feature that many lambasted for its absence from the title for years.

Unfortunately, those hankering for more will have to wait until the release of Project Orion, unofficially known as Cyberpunk 2, which doesn’t have a release window or date. It features a new city, which creator Mike Pondsmith likened to “Chicago gone wrong,” and could implement multiplayer, a feature originally meant for the first game before its disastrous launch.

Then again, maybe plans will change, and it will receive the same (alleged) treatment as The Witcher 3, whose new DLC is apparently out in May and connects to The Witcher 4.

Time will tell, but in the meantime, if you haven’t played Cyberpunk 2077, it’s now available on Game Pass alongside Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.

Other notable releases for the first wave of Game Pass in March include Final Fantasy 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, both out today on Ultimate, Premium and PC Game Pass. to a T, a new adventure from Katamari Damacy’s creator is next on March 4th, though it’s currently playable for Premium subscribers.

EA Sports F1 25 arrives on the same day for Ultimate and PC Game Pass, followed by Planet of Lana 2: Children of the Leaf on March 5th (which also marks the day of its launch on all platforms). And if you’re not keen on exploring Night City and becoming a legend as V, there’s also Construction Simulator, which drops for all three tiers on the same day.

For those who didn’t venture into Pharloom last September, Hollow Knight: Silksong will be available for Premium subscribers on March 12th. It’s followed by DreamWorks Gabby’s Dollhouse: Ready to Party on March 17th for all three tiers.

Of course, several titles will also be leaving the service on March 15th. Check them out below and finish them while they’re still available.

• Bratz Rhythm & Style (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Enter the Gungeon (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• F1 23 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• He is Coming (PC)
• Lightyear Frontier (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Creative director Igor Sarzyński didn’t affirm one way or another, but he definitely prefers the “uninterrupted immersion” that the current game offers. “Stumbled upon some old pics I shot during Phantom Liberty development,” he said on Bluesky. “Gotta admit, setting up cutscenes in this game would be extremely pleasant (because everything looks mindblowingly amazing), but in the end I value our uninterrupted immersion more.”

That immersion is due to Cyberpunk 2077 being almost entirely in first-person as players embody V through their journey in Night City. Third-person cutscenes are a rare occurrence, but you’re otherwise witnessing everything through your character’s eyes. So while Sarzyński isn’t necessarily denying a third-person perspective for Cyberpunk 2, it certainly looks unlikely.

If you needed anymore evidence that he’s factoring it in alongside cutscenes here, he responded to another user who claimed that the current presentation “limits interest from people who enjoy third person.” “When something is for everyone, then it’s for no one. It’s okay to not vibe with our choices!”

Back in 2023, quest director Paweł Sasko said the team hadn’t decided whether the sequel would be first-person. Cut to 2025, when a job listing for senior gameplay animator indicated that it would be first-person after all. With pre-production starting last May and CD Projekt RED planning to scale up its teams over the next two years, players may be looking at another highly immersive experience. With potentially sporadic glimpses of their created character, of course.

In a post on his Patreon, Ross wrote about CD Projekt following the actions taken by Take-Two Interactive—referring to the parent company of Rockstar Games having issued a DMCA takedown request to remove mods for Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, as well as for Hangar 13’s Mafia: Definitive Edition back in 2022.

“Now that the dust has settled, I’m even more sorry to announce that we are leaving behind an adventure that so many of you deeply loved and enjoyed. CD PROJEKT S.A. decided that they would follow in Take-Two Interactive Software’s steps and issued a DMCA notice against me for the removal of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod,” wrote Ross.

He also addressed the fact that the only way CD Projekt would have allowed work on the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod to continue would be if Ross were to stop locking access to it behind a Patreon subscription. Declining to do the work for free, Ross decided to take the mod down instead.

“At least they were a little more open about it, and I could get a reply both from their legal department and from the VP of business development. But in the end it amounted to the same iron-clad corpo logic: every little action that a company takes is in the name of money, but everything that modders do must be absolutely for free,” he said.

CD Projekt’s VP of business development Jan Rosner took to social media to offer further clarification, noting that the mod’s existence went against the company’s guidelines about mods being available for free. “This directly violates our Fan Content Guidelines: we never allow monetization of our IP without our direct permission and/or an agreement in place,” he wrote. “We were in touch with Luke last week and informed him that he needs to make it free for everyone (with optional donations) or remove it.”

Further in his post, Ross also confirmed that his next project will revolve around bringing VR support to Larian Studios’ award-winning RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. He wrapped up his post by releasing an early version of the mod without putting it through testing.

“Despite everything, I really want to end this on a positive note, so I’ll jump the gun and just release today the new conversion I have been working on, without going through the ordinary testing cycle. Maybe it will be a little rough around the edges, but we’ll take care of that, as we always do,” he wrote.

The takedown of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod comes just days after Meta announced the closure of a number of game development studios under its VR-specific Reality Labs division.

Among the studios affected by these closures are Armature Studios, Twisted Pixel, and Sanzaru Games. Batman: Arkham Shadow developer Camouflaj has also been affected. However, it hasn’t been closed down. Rather, it was hit by lay-offs, and its few remaining employees are now working on projects that better align with Meta’s current business plans.

It’s been five years since launch. Looking back, what stands out to you most about Cyberpunk 2077’s release, both the highs and the things you wish you’d handled differently?

What stands out most for me is the contrast. On one hand, the ambition, the world, the characters: the things players immediately connected with emotionally. On the other, the reality of how we launched, and not fully delivering on our vision. That being said, I’m so proud of how the team responded afterward; it took some real grit and resilience. The story of Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t just about the launch, it’s also about everything that came after.

"The story of Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t just about the launch, it’s also about everything that came after."

Compared to the launch version, the game has changed dramatically. When you look at the journey from 1.0 to where it is today, what were the biggest lessons CDPR took away, creatively, technically, and organizationally?

Creatively, we learned the importance of focus and discipline. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 works best when its systems, narrative, and themes all reinforce each other, rather than competing for attention, or even openly working against each other. One thing we built on as much as we could, but we could have been smarter about implementing when designing the game, is elements of ludonarrative dissonance. V is dying, vomiting blood, and coughing, but role-playing game progression makes them more powerful with every finished quest. We used this to strengthen the narrative and feeling of loss, as every step V takes brings the inevitability of terminal illness closer, no matter how powerful you feel. We used that tension as well as we could, but could have focused on it earlier.

Technically, we learned how critical a strong, scalable foundation is. Many of the improvements players see today were only possible because we reworked core systems instead of layering fixes on top — sometimes ripping the guts out and redoing it is the only way. Ambition needs to go hand in hand with technical possibilities, and limitations need to be respected and used as a stimulus to make smarter design decisions.

Organizationally, the biggest lesson was alignment. Clear ownership, better cross-team communication, and more realistic planning made a huge difference, and you saw the results of the changes we made internally in Phantom Liberty. Cyberpunk forced us to grow up as a studio; we have redone or iterated most of our procedures, and grew a habit of constantly optimizing and refining that process.

"Many of the improvements players see today were only possible because we reworked core systems instead of layering fixes on top"

How far back does Phantom Liberty actually go in terms of planning? Was the expansion always envisioned as another major chapter within Night City, or was there ever a version on the table where players would leave the city entirely?

Phantom Liberty existed as an idea relatively early, but its final form evolved over time. From the start, we felt Night City still had untold stories worth exploring, especially stories that leaned into espionage, power, and control. Dogtown allowed us to show a different face of the city, one that felt familiar but also dangerous and unpredictable.

With all of our expansions, the goal is to strengthen the main game so players who reach out for it many years after the release will feel how naturally it fits into overall design, and most of the time won’t even realize what was added in the expansion and what components were always there.

What inspired the decision to connect Phantom Liberty so directly to the base game’s endgame and outcomes? What did you want those added options to say thematically about V’s story?

Cyberpunk 2077 is an RPG and ultimately a story about choices and consequences. We didn’t want Phantom Liberty to feel like a detached side story, it was supposed to be a part of the main narrative, neatly connected to the motivation of the main character. We wanted it to matter. By connecting it to the endgame, we could ask harder questions about V’s survival, sacrifice, and agency. Not every choice leads to a happy ending, but every choice says something about who V is and what they’re willing to give up.

"We didn’t want Phantom Liberty to feel like a detached side story, it was supposed to be a part of the main narrative, neatly connected to the motivation of the main character."

Our game is a narrative about terminal illness and dreams of becoming a legend getting crashed early by the inevitability of death. Placing an expansion as a narrative branch anywhere but in the middle of the story would have undermined the main premise of the game. In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt we were able to continue Geralt’s story by placing Blood and Wine after the events of the main game, but because of the very nature of Cyberpunk 2077, hooking it up as a branch of the main story was the only strong option we saw.

Do you have a personal favourite ending? Which one resonates most with you in terms of story, emotional payoff, and character arcs, and why?

I don’t think I can pick a single “best” ending, but the endings that resonate with me most are the quieter ones, where victory is ambiguous and the emotional cost is clear. Cyberpunk isn’t about saving the world; it’s about surviving it, sometimes at the expense of your dreams. Endings that embrace that tension feel the most honest to me.

Many of them have this component and shades of meaning, designed to make the player question their decisions. The introduction of Johnny Silverhand is intentionally antagonistic; he is conflicted with himself and angry, ready to kill you to stop feeling. And throughout the game, V’s and the player’s perception of him change. It’s heartbreaking to see him go, and it’s moving to me when people decide to give up V’s body at the end so Johnny can live. This transformative arc takes empathy, and that is something beautiful about humans. Despite the beginning of this relationship, for some players compassion is the answer.

"It’s heartbreaking to see him go, and it’s moving to me when people decide to give up V’s body at the end so Johnny can live."

What are your favourite side quests across the base game and Phantom Liberty? Are there any that you feel best represent what Cyberpunk does at its strongest?

Our games are a melting pot of genres and themes. From this goulash and personal touch of many individual creators, who have common goals, emerge quests executed with care. From the base game, quests like Sinnerman or Dream On represent Cyberpunk at its strongest: morally uncomfortable, thematically dense, and deeply human. The storyline of Judy and Evelyn, contrasted with Flaming Crotch Man; the stories of Skippy and the sentient vending machine, together they deliver a blend of noir, tragedy, comedy, and pastiche all aligned by one stage: Night City.

In Phantom Liberty, I’m very proud of how side content blends seamlessly with the main narrative. Many of those quests don’t announce themselves as important, but they linger with players long after they’re finished. The spy storyline leads V through a variety of thriller- and action-inspired sequences, borrowing from documentaries, romances, thrillers, and horrors, moving between Bridge of Spies, Ocean’s Eleven, James Bond, and even Alien: Isolation, united all by the common, very clear narrative thread. Phantom Liberty demonstrated our developed thematic discipline, and portrayed how much variety can be found in a very narrowly defined spy theme.

Thanks again for your time. Is there anything you’d like to say directly to the community and fans who’ve stuck with Cyberpunk 2077 over the years?

Thank you, chooms! Your patience, critique, passion, mods, fan art, videos, and discussions pushed us to make Cyberpunk 2077 the game it is today. This journey wouldn’t have happened without you, and we don’t take that trust lightly. We’re incredibly grateful you stayed with us in Night City.

Those who played the base game will remember that it delivered on the story front that fell behind in several key gameplay areas. Following a significant revamp and the release of Phantom Liberty, it’s now the studio’s primary earner with over 35 million sales. However, it was a long journey fraught with hard lessons. What were some of the most important?

Lead quest designer Paweł Sasko, who’s currently working on Project Orion/Cyberpunk 2 as an associate game director, told us, “Creatively, we learned the importance of focus and discipline. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 works best when its systems, narrative, and themes all reinforce each other, rather than competing for attention, or even openly working against each other.”

Sasko also believes that the team could have been “smarter” when it came to “elements of ludonarrative dissonance.” After implanting the Relic, V starts seeing Johnny Silverhand (played by Keanu Reeves), but it’s also shortening their lifespan, making them weaker, which feels a bit off considering how much more powerful they become.

“V is dying, vomiting blood, and coughing, but role-playing game progression makes them more powerful with every finished quest. We used this to strengthen the narrative and feeling of loss, as every step V takes brings the inevitability of terminal illness closer, no matter how powerful you feel. We used that tension as well as we could, but could have focused on it earlier.”

On a technical front, the team learned “how critical a strong, scalable foundation is. Many of the improvements players see today were only possible because we reworked core systems instead of layering fixes on top — sometimes ripping the guts out and redoing it is the only way. Ambition needs to go hand in hand with technical possibilities, and limitations need to be respected and used as a stimulus to make smarter design decisions.”

However, above all else, “alignment” was the biggest lesson learned after all these years. “Clear ownership, better cross-team communication, and more realistic planning made a huge difference, and you saw the results of the changes we made internally in Phantom Liberty,” said Sasko. Despite the hit to its reputation and exposure of practices like crunch, 2077’s controversial launch ultimately served as a net positive for CD Projekt RED.

“Cyberpunk forced us to grow up as a studio; we have redone or iterated most of our procedures, and grew a habit of constantly optimizing and refining that process.”

As for Cyberpunk 2, it takes place in a new city that feels like “Chicago gone wrong,” per Pondsmith. It doesn’t have a release date, but CD Projekt RED is slowly scaling its teams, with more than 450 developers set to eventually work on the sequel by 2027 end.

During this thread on Bluesky, Sarzyński revealed that this applied to Phantom Liberty’s new Epilogue. At one point, it was completely different. “Much darker and weirder,” as he described it. However, as the main story “solidified,” the team found that it didn’t “really fit tonally, thematically,” leading to the current ending.

Another example is the dancing scene with Alex, which was actually a late addition. Regardless, it felt like a “personal lighthearted moment” was needed among all the tension, which constitutes another major part of development – “what you discover that has to be ADDED,” per Sarzyński, from assets and encounters to branches and features.

He admits that you don’t always think about “all the things you wanted to,” often because they’re on the lower priority list in the backlog. However, he considers a game to be a “collective psyche multidimensional interactive engineered art piece. A wonder. A world within a world. Super complex.

“In shaping it, things [are] added. Things get pushed down the work queue. Things get changed. The goal is always the same: to create the best possible thing – on time.” It’s worth noting that this is all a “HUGE simplification. There’s a ton of layered nuance and exceptions to everything, and there are as many methods as there are projects.”

Regardless of how players feel about Cyberpunk 2077 and how certain aspects turned out (personally, the Life Paths could have had been more impactful), it’s hard to deny that everything turned out all right. Over five years since launch and more than its share of ups and downs, the base game has sold over 35 million copies. Phantom Liberty also went on to sell 10 million copies while netting rave reviews.

Cinematic director Igor Sarzyński, who currently serves as creative director on the sequel, disagrees on whether it would make for a better experience. “Would extending Act 1 (before the heist) in Cyberpunk 2077 make the game better? No, it wouldn’t. It’s like saying we should spend more time on Tatooine with farmer Luke before he got involved with all this Jedi stuff.”

Sarzyński is referring to the part in Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope, which, honestly, is one of the least exciting (but still important) moments in the film. Of course, he also added that, “It’s an open world game, some manage to squeeze 20 hours out of Watson. Pick your own pace.”

He also feels that the main goal in this part, i.e. “get to the top”, would have resulted in a “meandering, unfocused experience,” if it went on for too long without any stakes or pressure. Of course, whether it’s enough time to spend with Jackie, V’s best friend, before the heist is subjective. “For some it is, for some it isn’t. All things considered, I think we struck a good balance.”

As for the half-year montage that commences after the first meeting between Jackie and V, Sarzyński clarifies that it in fact does not contain “cut content.” “We always planned it like this. But more on the ‘cut content’ notion in some other post.”

Sarzyński also recently debunked the myth that the elevators in Night City were meant to disguise loading screens. You can read more about that here.

As for Cyberpunk 2, codenamed Project Orion, it doesn’t have a release date, but CD Projekt RED outlined plans to scale up its development teams in the coming years.

Along with ARC Raiders, games like Battlefield 6, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Dispatch, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 were also among the top releases in the charts. Some older games could also be seen, with 2023’s Baldur’s Gate 3, 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077, and 2013’s Grand Theft Auto 5 also being represented, albeit with its Enhanced Edition release.

Valve has also seen continued success with the Steam Deck, with SteamDB ranking the handheld gaming PC as the second-best-selling Steam item, just under ARC Raiders. Check out the list below.

Embark Studios itself hasn’t revealed recent sales data for ARC Raiders, rumours from back in November indicated that it was close to hitting 7 million sales just a month after its release.

ARC Raiders art director Robert Sammelin had recently spoken about Embark Studios’ plans to support the extraction shooter for “the longest time.” In an interview from last month, he noted that the studio has a 10-year plan and that as long as players continue to engage with the title, support will continue.

“Our ambition is to keep this game alive for the longest time. It is a live game,” said Sammelin. “It’s something that we want to keep alive for the longest time possible, as long as players engage with it and have fun and see that it is evolving in a good way.”

The art director also spoke about how the community of ARC Raiders plays a vital role in the game’s evolution, since a major reason for the extraction shooter’s success hinges on how players interact with each other.

“I think games like this will evolve depending on community behaviours, feedback, and how we pick out the things we see people engage really well with. But also throw things into the mix that sort of afford new challenges and opportunities within the game,” he explained.

“I think there’s a wide range of routes that we can take with this, and time will tell how we sort of dig into it. But we for sure have a pretty long-standing plan of where we want to take it.”

As part of the studio’s plans to support ARC Raiders, the Cold Snap update was released last month, bringing with it a new Winter-themed weather condition which also affects gameplay by prompting players to seek shelter (or die trying). It also affects visibility and movement, making some surfaces much more challenging to traverse.

ARC Raiders is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review. Also check out our guide on all ARC machines and how you can beat them in battle.

Top ten best-sellers on Steam from December 23 to December 30:

1. ARC Raiders
2. Steam Deck
3. Battlefield 6
4. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
5. Baldur’s Gate 3
6. EA Sports FC 26
7. Dispatch
8. Cyberpunk 2077
9. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
10. Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced