Today, Night City changes forever. Cyberpunk 2.0, the long awaited overhaul update for CD PROJEKT RED’s 2020 release, drops today. We got a review key from CD Projekt Red and have a few opening impressions on how Cyberpunk 2077 feels radically different.
Skill Trees and Cyberware Got Notable Revamps
Cyberpunk 2.0 reworks nearly everything in the skill trees except the five attributes. Each attribute has one dedicated skill tree instead of two or three webs. Additionally, each tree shows a clear progression of how skills grow and what the attribute needs to be. As a matter of fact, if you highlight a locked skill, the tree will also highlight the prerequisite skills needed for the highlighted one.
This is a notably welcome change. Streamlining the skill trees make them easier to understand and more cohesive. We’ll have more thoughts on them as we invest in the skill trees.
Beyond skill trees, Cyberware got expanded too. The slot system from the original release still exists, but now there are Cyberware Capacity and Armor gauges. Capacity shows how many bodily upgrades you can handle, and that limit can be upgraded with skills.
Armor speaks for itself. Upgrading armor needs investments in Skeleton Cyberware and a new section of upgrades, Integumentary System. Outside of damage-over-time, armor boosts your resistance to all damage types.
Cyberpunk 2.0 Moderately Reworks Combat
In-game combat has a slew of updates. First, weapons have more developed stats than before like Attack and Reload Speed, Effective Range, and more. These options give players the extra information they need to further refine their current arsenal.
Hacking works similar to the original, but we did not have too much time to fully experience the update and will update as we have more experience. Players can continually short circuit attackers, overheat, etc. starting out, and still get the ping option thanks to T-Bug. As such, Daemon Uploads still function the same
Additionally, players can now dodge as they run around. It now uses the old crouch button, and crouching moved to the right joystick on consoles. This can feel jarring at first but will easily get normalized as you play.
Night City Feels Alive
The biggest update we noticed in our first few hours of playing was the city itself. Night City feels more chaotic where anything can happen at a moment’s notice. When replaying the opening hours, we saw a shootout between the Tyger Claws gang and NCPD, the game’s police force.
That immediately made us want to dive deeper into the new Night City to see what else is happening. While we haven’t gotten the chance to see this yet, 2.0 introduces vehicle chases beyond the missions that rely on it.
CD Projekt Red has continually updated Cyberpunk 2077 since its release. However this update is far different. This is the type of patch that upgrades a game’s DNA. It’s still very similar to the original release, but wildly improved. We’re excited to get more into Cyberpunk 2.0 and we’ll be back with more.
