Tag Archives: CD Projekt

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The Dream Of DRM-Free Steam PC Games Is Fading Away

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Photo: Casimiro PT (Shutterstock)

Good Old Games, or GOG, the digital-rights-management-free PC gaming marketplace and platform from CD Projekt, has officially ended a service that already didn’t feel terribly long for this world. What once seemed like a promising way to slowly import portions of your Steam library to GOG, where they could exist in an infinitely archivable format, has now finally evaporated.

GOG launched in 2008 as an alternative to other digital gaming storefronts on PC, focusing on making older, hard-to-find games purchasable. The cherry on top? All of these games would be available without any digital rights management software to restrict what you do with your .exe copies. Unlike Steam, GOG games are much easier to back up and re-install on multiple computers, all without ever needing to get tangled up in any sort of online account authorization. In 2012, the service expanded from older PC-gaming gems to modern titles, keeping the DRM-free policy in place.

In 2016, GOG announced “Connect,” a service that let you connect your Steam library to redeem select titles you already owned as DRM-free copies on GOG, with said games only eligible for redemption in a limited window of time. Those who’ve checked GOG.com/Connect in recent years, however, have found nothing but digital tumbleweeds. And now, in January of 2023, said link and service now just directs to GOG’s homepage, officially signaling the end of this once very promising program.

GOG.com/Connect always had an air of “this is too good to be true.” A service that gives you an extra copy of a game you already own, with no restrictions as to how you can backup, install, re-install, sell, or share it? How even?

But while the service was active, it wasn’t just a great way to migrate to a new platform, but rather a handy way to archive your Steam library. Though Steam is a pretty accessible and reliable platform that often gives you access to games you’ve purchased but have since been pulled off the storefront (2007’s Prey is one such example), DRM is still widely used on the Valve storefront and trying to use the service without a reliable internet connection can easily render a game unplayable, as many a traveling Steam Deck user has discovered. GOG Connect was once a promising solution to this issue. But, the idea of being able to some day move a substantial amount of your library into something archivable, without spending a dime, was just too good to be true.

Like many, I used this service a fair bit when it launched. I’d keep the link bookmarked to visit once a week. But as available games began to dry up, it drifted from memory. I still play the game of “should I get this on Steam or GOG?” every time something I want comes up on both services. The promise of GOG Connect once made that question irrelevant.

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Edgerunners Mods Are Really Popular Right Now

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“Looks like a prison from here, a cage of light.”
Image: CD Projekt Red / UJB

Cyberpunk 2077 might be getting its first major expansion next year, but that hasn’t stopped fans from creating their own mods for the game so they can finally have Netflix’s popular anime series, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, in the game for realsies.

Following the release of animation studio Trigger and developer CD Projekt Red’s 10-episode anime tie-in series, Cyberpunk 2077 has experienced a resurgence as one of the most popular games on Steam. Since our last article on the matter, in which Cyberpunk 2077 averaged a total of 85,555 concurrent players, the open-world role-playing game is now pulling big boy numbers with CDPR claiming that the game has had a whopping one million players each night across platforms.

Read More: Cyberpunk 2077 Becomes Steam Top Seller Again After Netflix Anime Show

Although CD Projekt Red had the forethought to make Edgerunners content for the game via David Martinez’s jacket and Rebecca’s shotgun, the modding community has gone full cyberpsycho to place the world of Edgerunners smack dab in the middle of 2077.

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As spotted by PC Gamer, the most popular mods on the Nexus Mods website for Cyberpunk 2077 include:

Read More: Netflix’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Tells The Story I Wished For In Cyberpunk 2077

The last mod in particular would likely be on born-again anime fan and game developer Hideo Kojima’s checklist of musts for 2077 considering his Twitter review of the show highlighted its utilization of Franz Ferdinand’s “This Fire” as its opening theme song. Why the man hasn’t just made a Letterboxd or a MyAnimeList account escapes me.

KhrazeGaming

While some players were satisfied with having a few cosmetic presets, others like YouTuber KhrazeGaming went further, attempting to replicate Edgerunners protagonist David Martinez’s kit of military-grade chrome in the game. Apparently, David’s kit is so busted that KhrazeGaming recommends players bump up the difficulty so their build won’t hamper the fun that comes with “chroming the fuck up.”

All in all, everything’s turning up Milhouse for Cyberpunk 2077 thanks to its game-fixing patches and the undeniable popularity of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. That’s pretty nova if I do say so myself.



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Cyberpunk 2077 QA Team CEO Responds To Claims They Misled CDPR

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Get off, you damn bug!
Screenshot: CD Projekt

Cyberpunk 2077 will always be a cautionary tale of how not to make and release a game. It was notoriously marred by technical bugs and developmental woes and now, according to a new report from YouTuber Upper Echelon Gamers, a QA firm allegedly misled CD Projekt Red during the game’s development. But in response, the quality assurance company’s CEO, Stefan Seicarescu, has stated that this is all just a big misunderstanding, according to a VGC interview.

Upper Echelon Gamers posted a video on June 25 going over some deets he got from a whistleblower at Quantic Lab, a Romanian-based outsourcing quality assurance testing team. Quantic Lab has had a hand in ironing out bugs in some big-name games, including Desperados III, Destroy All Humans!, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Cyberpunk 2077. The whistleblower, an anonymous Quantic Lab employee who UEG believes to be authentic based on a series of documents they claim to be in possession of, including a 72-page quality assurance testing file and detailed spreadsheets tracking worker productivity, explained in a June 23 email to UEG what went down during Cyberpunk 2077‘s QA testing.

Read More: CDPR Says ‘Vast Part’ Of Fixing Cyberpunk 2077 Is Done, Focused On Other Projects

According to the source, things started getting bad for Cyberpunk 2077 QA testing around late 2019. Quantic Lab leads were apparently sent to Poland to work directly with developer CD Projekt Red. The team was supposed to consist of “veteran testers,” folks that had “extensive experience with quality assurance who understood the process and workflow,” UEG stated. However, those that showed up were allegedly “junior testers” who had less than a year or, in some instances, just six months of work in the field. According to UEG’s source, CD Projekt Red wasn’t aware of this junior tester team, instead believing they were getting veterans from Quantic Lab who had worked on The Witcher 3.

But it wasn’t just Quantic Lab’s QA department that caused hiccups in Cyberpunk 2077‘s development. Quantic Lab upper management allegedly instituted a “bug quota” policy that required each individual tester to submit no less than 10 bugs per day. The thinking was that the new policy, which inevitably overworked employees, would increase productivity and further polish the game. To accomplish this, though, testers bombarded developers with thousands of minuscule errors, from items clipping to missing textures.

According to UEG, the QA team focused too much on negligible or low-priority bugs to meet the quota. The source claimed the torrential rain of superfluous glitches drenched workers across departments. You should watch the full video.

CD Projekt / Upper Echelon Gamers

In response to UEG’s video, Quantic Lab CEO Stefan Seicarescu lowkey told VideoGamesChronicle that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. He didn’t appear to deny or address any of the allegations specifically; instead, he clarified that the claims made in the video were full of inaccuracies about QA testing.

“The video published on social media as mentioned in your article starts with incorrect statements about Quantic Lab’s history,” Seicarescu said. “There seems to be a lack of understanding in the process of how a game is tested before its release to the market.”

Seicarescu said no global publisher leans on just a single QA team, suggesting CD Projekt might’ve recruited multiple groups to debug Cyberpunk 2077.

“Quantic Lab supports over 200 projects per year from several global leading publishers and continues to maintain a quality comes first approach to all the work we undertake,” Seicarescu said. “All our customer agreements are confidential but in general, global publishers are working with several QA outsourcing companies, not depending solely on one, in addition to internal QA resources at developer level in most cases. Each project we undertake is unique with regard [to] project requirements. Project direction is agreed and adjusted accordingly as per real time requirements with our clients. Quantic Lab always strives to work with transparency and integrity with our industry partners.”

Kotaku has reached out to CD Projekt and Quantic Lab for comment.

 

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‘Witcher School’ Forced To Shut Down Over Political Controversy

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Image: CD Projekt Red

Until recently, a “Witcher School” in Poland ran live-action role-playing (LARP) events for fans of the wildly popular fantasy series with the official blessing of Witcher-series game publisher CD Projekt Red. But last Friday, its organizers, a company called 5 Żywiołów, announced that the “school” would be permanently closing, citing CDPR’s decision to pull its license. The event’s organizers claim it was due to a staff member’s work in a far-right conservative group that opposes abortion and LGBTQ rights. (h/t Eurogamer)

According to a subsequent Facebook comment from the “Witcher School” organizers, CDPR “terminated the license agreement” with a three-month notice back in late February. While CDPR did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication, it was during the period of negative media attention surrounding one staffer, Anna Wawrzyniak.

In an email to Kotaku, 5 Żywiołów said Wawrzyniak worked on the Witcher School project from 2017 to 2019. She also drafted legal opinions for Ordo Iuris, an ultra-conservative think tank that was “instrumental in Poland’s near-total abortion ban and influential in the creation of LGBTQ-free zones.”

Event company co-founder Dastin Wawrzyniak (the spouse of Anna Wawrzyniak) told Kotaku that its relationship with the game studio had previously been “great.” He said that 5 Żywiołów frequently worked for CDPR and would even organize a picnic for the studio’s employees. CDPR wasn’t involved in crafting the LARP’s plot, but the Witcher School’s license allowed the event company to use characters from the Witcher games to tell original stories.

5 Żywiołów stressed that the company kept the professional and private spheres of its employees separate. “We still do not plan to evaluate the views and activities in the private sphere of our colleagues and participants,” it wrote in a comment reply under Friday’s statement. ”This would open a Pandora’s box full of prejudices and quarrels… You know that we have created a highly inclusive project, without paying attention to differences and divisions.”

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The sentiment seems reasonable if you’re talking about pineapple on pizza and not, say, whether or not an employer is trying to ban abortion or legislate queer Poles out of public life. Which is exactly what Ordo Iuris has successfully achieved.

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GOG Is Now Providing Menstrual Leave To Employees

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Image: GOG

The digital storefront GOG, formerly known as Good Old Games, recently announced that it will offer its employees menstrual leave, allowing anyone suffering from excessive period pain or other complications extra time off. It makes the studio one of the first companies in the games industry to offer such a benefit to its staff. Its parent company, CD Projekt Red, is also looking into providing similar leave options.

As first spotted by Axios, the Poland-based company announced on LinkedIn April 1 that it was going to start offering extra paid time off for all affected employees. A GOG spokesperson told Axios they estimate this will amount to an extra day per quarter for employees who take advantage of the time off. But also told the outlet that staff members are free to take more time off “whenever period pains occur.” Employees can also choose to just take a few hours’ leave rather than full days.

“Menstrual Leave fosters inclusiveness by accepting that there are biological differences in the workplace,” GOG wrote in the LinkedIn post announcing the new plan. “By giving additional days off for those experiencing menstrual period pain, we acknowledge these symptoms are real.”

Implementing Menstrual Leave is yet another step towards making GOG an even more inclusive workplace, and we won’t stop in our continuous efforts to learn, reflect and improve on how we can do better for all of our team members.

GOG’s culture and communication manager Gabriela Siemienkowicz told Axios that the new policy is “experimental” and that the company would evaluate throughout 2022 how these additional days off “impact the well-being” of GOG employees. After that, the storefront may “expand the policy” next year, though there are no details as to what that may entail.

Kotaku has reached out to GOG for comment.

Siemienkowicz also told Axios that the policy was inspired by her own experiences and that during a “Women of GOG” meeting she brought the topic up and found other employees had similar stories and experiences.

“We shared the same view on this matter,” said Siemienkowicz. “And would appreciate the possibility to simply lay down and take most of the day off without sacrificing one of the regular paid absence days we have available throughout the year.”

GOG’s parent company, CD Projekt Red, told PC Gamer that it is also looking into adopting a similar policy in the future.

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CDPR Moving On From Cyberpunk 2077 To Witcher 4 And Other Games

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Image: CD Projekt Red

Cyberpunk 2077’s best days may still be ahead but developer CD Projekt Red announced today it’s now shifting focus and resources away to other projects, including its new open-world Witcher game. While the beleaguered sci-fi shooter will still get a story expansion in 2023, it doesn’t sound like it will be getting any more major overhauls in the future.

“We will obviously continue supporting Cyberpunk 2077 and still working on updating it but [the] vast part of the job we believe has already been done and was done in 2021,” the company said during today’s earnings call. It also shared a presentation slide showing how development resources have shifted over time, with “support for Cyberpunk 2077” becoming one of the smallest segments as of February 2022.

That was around when CDPR released the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game, as well as patch 1.5, which added a ton of new fixes, rebalanced rewards and skill trees, and expanded relationships with certain NPCs. Many of the improvements directly addressed earlier criticisms of the game, and I’ve recently been enjoying diving back into the latest version.

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

At the same time, patch 1.5 struck me as the midway point in Cyberpunk 2077’s redemption arc rather than a final victory lap. There are parts of the game I love and then there are the parts where the simulation still frequently breaks and shatters any sense of immersion. CDPR didn’t say the open-world RPG won’t ever get another patch on that scale, but all signs point to development winding down when it comes to any deeper revamp of how the game plays or is structured. That might not be a retreat so much as a concession to the limits of what the game is.

If so, a No Man’s Sky or Final Fantasy XIV-style comeback might not be in the cards after all. During its rough 2020 launch, including a PS4 version that was so bad Sony pulled it from the PlayStation Store, Cyberpunk sold 13 million copies. Today, CDPR announced it only sold another five million in the 16 months since. Currently, that puts total sales slightly ahead of Super Mario Party and behind God of War, both first-party exclusives. It’s also still severely below some analysts’ initial projections.

And while Cyberpunk 2077’s future is still murky, plans for additional DLC have also appeared to get downgraded over time. CD Projekt president Adam Kiciński had previously said the game would receive “no less DLC than The Witcher 3 had,” and that game received two giant and stellar expansions. For that reason, some had originally presumed Cyberpunk 2077 would similarly get two major paid DLCs in addition to smaller free ones, but so far CDPR has only confirmed one. It will arrive in 2023, the company announced today. Further specifics remain elusive. A previously planned multiplayer component also appears to have been cast aside. CDPR didn’t clearly confirm what its fate was when asked about it during today’s earnings call, and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment when asked to clarify its future plans for Cyberpunk 2077.

It’s not surprising that the company is eager, in the meantime, to move on to other things, especially more Witcher. CDPR revealed today The Witcher 3 has shipped over 40 million copies, with the series as a whole selling over 65 million. As it buckles down on developing the next game in that series, it also has plans for more updates to Gwent and The Witcher: Monster Slayer, a new Gwent spin-off, an unannounced project at the recently acquired Boston studio, The Molasses Flood, and the next-gen version of The Witcher 3.

That last release slipped out of this summer after CDPR revealed yesterday it was taking development away from Russia-based Saber Interactive and finishing it in-house. Despite the lack of a new release window, the company said it was unfair to describe it as “indefinitely delayed,” saying it simply needed more time to evaluate what work was left. “Nobody is saying the game is delayed in some monumental sort of time gap ahead of us,” said Michal Nowakowski, SVP of business development.



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Cyberpunk 2077 Currently The Cheapest It Will Ever Be On PS4

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Image: CD Projekt Red

There’s currently a fire sale on console copies of Cyberpunk 2077 over at Best Buy. If you’ve been cautiously waiting to see what all the fuss is about, now’s your chance.

The sci-fi epic from the makers of The Witcher 3 is going for only $5 on PS4 and Xbox One over at the electronics retailer, with free upgrades to the new-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions. The sale ends at 1:00 a.m. ET April 8, at which point the price will revert back to the normal $30. This bargain bin rate is what I like to call Anthem territory. BioWare’s ill-fated live-service loot shooter was a disaster, but even now there’s plenty to appreciate in it for the price of a Big Mac.

Cyberpunk 2077 was nowhere near as bad at launch, but still had its fair share of major issues, especially on console. The 2020 role-playing shooter had tons of bugs and graphics issues on PS4 and Xbox One, and in some cases looked downright ugly. Things have improved somewhat on the visual front in the months since, and the game is a lot more stable, certainly enough to justify $5.

Read More: Cyberpunk 2077 Is Having Its First Good Day

Developer CD Projekt Red released a massive patch in February that also overhauled a lot of the game’s underlying systems to improve the feel of its futuristic city and make its RPG progression more satisfying. The patch also updated Cyberpunk 2077 for next-gen consoles, and I’ve been having a much better time playing it on PS5 now than I did back at launch. CDPR has also promised new DLC content in the future.

The discount is part of Best Buy’s current spring video game sale. If you’re still not interested in Cyberpunk 2077, or already have it, there are a bunch of other sales going on right now too. GameStop and Amazon are currently running buy two, get one free deals on a number of new games, including Elden Ring, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Devs & More Condemn Russia’s Ukraine Invasion

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Protestors from the Christian Ukrainian Community of Rome hold banners in support of Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.
Photo: Alessandra Benedetti-Corbis (Getty Images)

Earlier this week Russian troops, acting on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine and launched 200 missiles, some of which reportedly hit residential areas near the capital city of Kyiv. At least 50,000 Ukrainian citizens have been displaced and are fleeing the country, according to CNN. While some game developers based in Ukraine responded promptly to this act of aggression, now an increasing number of studios outside the invaded nation, including Cyberpunk 2077 maker CD Projekt Red, are also speaking out in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and in condemnation of Russia’s actions.

Read More: Ukraine Game Developers Respond To Russian Invasion [Update]

11 Bit Studios, the Polish studio behind Frostpunk and the anti-war survival game This War of Mine, came out in vigorous opposition to the war, releasing a statement on Twitter brandishing the #FuckTheWar hashtag and reading, in part, “Let this message resonate with everything you know about this war and how war kills people, devastates their lives and homes.” The statement also declared that all profits earned from This War of Mine for the next seven days will be donated to the Ukrainian Red Cross to aid victims of the war.

This morning, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red, also based in Poland which borders Ukraine to the west, announced on Twitter that it will be donating 1 million PLN (or Polish zloty), roughly $242,400 USD, to Polska Akcja Humanitarna, a Poland-based humanitarian group in support of Ukrainian victims.

“The recent invasion on Ukraine, our friends and neighbours, left us shocked and outraged,” CD Projekt Red said on Twitter. “We cannot remain indifferent in the face of such injustice and we ask everybody to join in and help in any way you can. Together we can make a huge difference!”

Crytivo, the California-based indie game publisher and developer behind the city-builder game The Universim, posted a statement on Twitter yesterday signed by CEO and founder Alex Koshelkov announcing that it will be donating all proceeds from February and March to the Ukrainian Red Cross. Koshelkov also said that Crytivo will be giving its Ukrainian employees paid leave until they can find a safe environment that will allow them to work again.

“With the recent military development in Ukraine, I feel obliged to let our fans and others know that our company Crytivo is firmly anti-war as we stand with the people of Ukraine,” Koshelkov’s statement said. “The last couple years have already been difficult for us all and I hope we can inspire others to lend a helping hand to our brothers and sisters in need.”

State of Play Games, the Czech developers behind the BAFTA-award-winning puzzle game Lumino City, also issued a statement this morning saying it will be joining 11 Bit studios in solidarity with Ukraine by donating all proceeds from its games on the App Store, Google Play, and Steam to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

And Amanita Design, the Czech studio behind the psychedelic horror game Happy Game, announced on Twitter that it’ll be donating its earnings from Machinarium, CHUCHEL, and Creaks next week to Clovekvtisni, a nonprofit organization based in Prague that it said would “use the money to aid the most vulnerable people in Ukraine affected by the ongoing Russian invasion.” Amanita Design also thanked 11 Bit studios and State of Play Games in a following tweet for inspiring it to come out in solidarity with Ukraine.

“Ukraine needs help right now,” Amanita Design said in a statement. “We condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This horrible act of aggression has absolutely no place in any democratic society.”



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Now Cyberpunk 2077 Won’t Even Start For Disc-Owning PS4 Players

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Come on, PS4 Cyberpunk 2077, work with me here.
Image: CD Projekt Red / Sony / Kotaku

Cyberpunk 2077‘s next-gen version finally launched this week after months of delays. It’s pretty good if you’re on PlayStation 5, particularly because of the haptics, but the re-release also addressed myriad bugs with its massive 50 GB patch. Not everyone is enjoying the new update, though, as PlayStation 4 owners report the physical disc version of the game is totally busted.

Developer CD Projekt Red dropped patch 1.5 on Tuesday, which introduced additions (like new cosmetics for V) and improvements (such as tweaking NPC AI so that they’re a bit smarter). The game’s still missing some rather necessary content, including a New Game Plus mode, but Cyberpunk 2077‘s next-gen launch pushes the game closer to the state it should have been in at release. Unfortunately, while fixing some things, CDPR seems to have broken other things, including the PS4 disc version.

Read More: Cyberpunk 2077‘s Next-Gen Update Is A Pain On PlayStation

According to users all over the internet, from Twitter to the developer’s official forum pages, the physical version of Cyberpunk 2077 on every iteration of the PS4 continuously brings up launch errors. PS4 owners who’ve installed patch 1.5 say they’ve encountered corrupted data messages when attempting to start the game, with the nearly 10-year-old system asking them to delete the application, insert the disc again, and reinstall the game. However, this series of steps doesn’t appear to fix the start-up problems.

“After installing [the update] on my PS4 Pro, I get the message that the game file is corrupted,” user Gabidu wrote on CDPR’s forums. “I already deleted the file and reinstalled, deleted my saves and recreated the PS4 database through safe mode, but the problem persists.”

PS4 owners patiently waiting for Cyberpunk 2077 to work.
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red

“I wanna cry,” wrote one Twitter user. “This is the second time receiving this [corrupted data message while] trying to play Cyberpunk 2077 since the patch. PS4 disc users apparently are screwed.”

CDPR global community director Marcin Momot posted on the developer’s forums page that the studio is aware of the issue and is investigating solutions. It’s unclear what’s causing these launch errors for the PS4 disc version of Cyberpunk 2077, but it’s not the only platform experiencing problems, either. Momot added that CDPR is looking into crash issues on PC, which he said are likely caused by audio software conflicts. As such, Momot suggested PC users disable audio drivers before launching the game. Such a temporary fix currently doesn’t exist for PS4 users yet.

Read More: A Year Later, Cyberpunk 2077’s Major DLC Continues To Be MIA

It’s a bummer. The game was busted for months after launch. It was so busted that Sony pulled Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation store for six months, and even when it did return, the game still had issues. It makes you wonder when, if ever, Cyberpunk 2077 will reach a stable state.

Kotaku has reached out to CD Projekt Red for comment.

 



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Cyberpunk 2077 On PS5 Makes Great Use Of DualSense’s Haptics

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Not gonna lie, the improved in-game AI kinda has me looking like this.
Image: CD Projekt Red

After countless delays and a huge amount of work on the part of developer CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 finally hit PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 15. This enhanced version launched with a massive patch that added some much-needed quality-of-life improvements and gameplay tweaks, including an overhaul to the game’s perks system. But the coolest feature of this release may actually be exclusive to PlayStation: It’s the way CD Projekt Red has used the DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers to make the game much more immersive. In fact, more than anything else, it’s this feature that’s making Cyberpunk 2077 worth coming back to for me.

If you’ve held a PlayStation 5 controller, then you know what I’m talking about. The DualSense features adaptive triggers that can add resistance to the L2 and R2 buttons. Depending on the game, this could translate to more tension when shooting a gun, or vibrations while driving a car. The end result is a more nuanced experience, one that seeks to mimic the real-world action performed in the game. It’s hardly a 1-to-1 comparison, of course, but when utilized well, the DualSense does an excellent job at conveying the impression of a real experience through its adaptive triggers.

Read More: I Love Everything About The PS5 DualSense Except The Home Button

For Cyberpunk’s next-gen launch, CDPR has really capitalized on the controller’s capabilities, and the game feels totally different because of it.

Take driving, for example. It wasn’t great at launch, with cars feeling floaty and steering feeling imprecise. The next-gen re-release addressed some of these concerns while also fundamentally changing how driving feels via the DualSense’s adaptive triggers. Now, when cruising down the rain-slicked streets of Night City in an old junker or a top-of-the-line sports car, you feel the gears shifting and the tires gripping the road while drifting corners. And because the DualSense also has other haptics built into it, crashes are much more impactful thanks to the varying degrees of vibrations that occur. Honestly, driving just feels miles better and way more nuanced now.

Shooting this gun with the DualSense’s adaptive triggers must require a lotta force.
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red

The same is true for guns, with the trigger buttons making them feel heavier and requiring more pressure to aim and shoot. Perhaps most striking is just how different it feels to fire a pistol, a hefty machine gun, and a shotgun. CDPR lead gameplay designer Michał Dobrowolski told Kotaku over email that these sensations are created via the adaptive triggers shifting between different settings and emitting various levels of pressure needed in order to press the buttons.

“The feeling you end up with is immersive to say the least,” Dobrowolski said. “It lets you feel the game world around you in a completely new way, distinct from how you experience the world through visuals, sounds, and even vibrations. It’s a whole new realm of possibilities design-wise, and from the gamer’s perspective—and I am a gamer myself, too—a really fun way of diving deeper into the experience.”

Read More: Cyberpunk 2077‘s Next-Gen Update Is A Pain On PlayStation

Dobrowolski is right. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 is fun, particularly because of the PS5 controller’s adaptive triggers and haptics. They add a unique feel that, as Dobrowolski put it, lets you feel the weight of the game’s world. Things are heavier, more impactful, and more nuanced now. It doesn’t quite make Cyberpunk 2077 feel like a new game, but it definitely makes the game’s efforts to pull you into Night City that much more successful.

It’s just a shame that Cyberpunk 2077 is still starving for content. The quality-of-life improvements are welcome, and the new features alter the game’s feel, but many of us who have already completed the game are now left waiting for new things to do and experience in its freshly revamped world. Hopefully, CDPR opens up about whatever major paid expansions are in development soon, because these cool adaptive triggers and haptics–along with all the other changes brought about with this re-launch–need the support of great new adventures in Night City to really make the most of their potential.

 

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