Big review of patch 1.5 for Cyberpunk 2077

The Cyberpunk 2077 Blog website has revealed some changes coming to the game soon. The developers promise to fix many bugs that appear in the game from time to time. They also said that the title will include new quests and an expanding collection of free DLC for Cyberpunk 2077. In addition, the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles will receive updates that should improve performance on game consoles.

List of planned changes

List of the most significant changes in the upcoming update

Exclusive to Next Generation Consoles

• Added ray tracing system and improved shadow lighting. The latter will be photorealistic in nature and will allow you to play in 4K resolution at 30 fps
• Built-in support for achievements for next generation consoles has been implemented. The next-gen console version is different from those released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. For this reason, it is currently not possible to transfer your achievements from a game running in backward compatibility mode.
• Two graphics modes have been introduced for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S
• Now developers guarantee players the opportunity to play at 60 fps in 4K resolution
• Now the Xbox Series S version has only one mode to play. The title only works automatically at 30fps at 1440p with dynamic resolution change
• Added a performance improvement that affects game performance. Now the title on the new generation of consoles will have much less FPS drops. In addition, rendering quality has been improved.
• HDR has been balanced so that colors are well balanced across all gaming platforms, and visuals have reached a new level of quality.
• Action cards have been added to PlayStation 5
• In America, it became possible to put Spanish voice acting on yourself, however, for some technical reasons, only owners of new generation consoles have such an opportunity.
• The PlayStation 5 received the ability to implement spatial audio in the game through 3D audio in the PlayStation headset. You can achieve the same effect on your TV's built-in speakers with Tempest 3D AudioTech for PlayStation 5
• On DualSense 5, haptic feedback is now configurable based on in-game activities
• The built-in DualSense 5 speaker adds even more immersion to the game. All the moments that happen in V's head, as well as messages on the phone and calls, will be published from this built-in speaker.
• Additional content for the game is now available on all platforms

Apartments

Now the game finally has the possibility of renting apartments. They will become available after completing the quest “Time Attack”. Apartments can be rented for one time, and their cost will vary from the elite of the rented room. Renting will be possible both at the location where the room will be rented, and through the website in the in-game Internet called EZEstates

Available apartments

• Northside, Watson
• Japan Town, Westbrook
• Glen, Haywood
• Corpo Plaza, City Center

Now you can change V's apartment on the EZEstates website. Some upgrades will allow you to get some temporary upgrades. For example, if you take a shower, you can get the status “Refreshed” for the next hour. This improvement will allow you to restore health during the battle up to 60% of the maximum mark. The perk is compatible with another similar perk, Regeneration. If the latter is in the player's arsenal, then the recovery speed is increased by another 20% and regeneration returns not 60%, but 80% of health from the maximum supply. Sleeping on a bed will restore V's health and give him the "Rested" effect for one hour, which will allow him to gain 20% more experience. If you make coffee at home, V will recharge with energy and receive the “Energetic” status, which will add 25% to the maximum level of stamina and 30% to its recovery.

Appearance customization

The game implemented a customization of the appearance of the character, which was not in the first versions of the game. Now you can go to the mirror and select the appropriate item, which will allow you to choose to change some details of the character. It is noteworthy that this option is available absolutely free of charge and has no cooldown for this action. In addition, more makeup and hair color options are available in the list of such a character editor, and therefore will be even more useful than the character editor at the beginning of the game.

New arrivals in the weapon shop

New items have been added to Winston's store in Megatower H10. Two new weapons can be found among them: the Darra Polytechnic Umbra, which is a powered assault rifle, and the Budget Arms Guillotine, a powerful submachine gun. There were not only weapons, but also improvements for them. Now it will be possible to acquire four new sights. Kang Tao Jue long scope, Tsunami Gaki sniper scope, Arasaka Kanetsugu short scope and Handyman short scope will be added to the game. In addition to sights, there will also be attachments for different types of weapons. Players will have access to 10 muzzle brakes, 5 of which will be for pistols (RC-7 Ifrit, RC-7 Liger, RC-7 Dybbuk, RC-7 Kutrub and RC-7 Babaroga) and 5 for assault rifles and submachine guns (RC-7 Aswang, RC-7 Varkolak, RC-7 Zaar, RC-7 Yokai and RC-7 Strigoi).

Many weapons have been reworked. Now silenced pistols can be heard not at 3 meters from V, but at 8, which will complicate the task of passing the game on stealth. At the same time, the mechanics of throwing knives have been reworked so that they can now be understood after each throw. In addition, they will automatically return to hands after the set cooldown time.

New Poses in Photo Mode

The developers have tried to ensure that users can take even more interesting and varied photos in the built-in photo mode. Johnny Silverhand was also not deprived and gave him several new poses.

Artificial intelligence and combat

CD Projekt Red has changed the behavior of NPCs in combat. They now react differently to firefights and behave differently in melee and ranged combat. They use cover in different ways, positioning in combat, reloading, take the right weapon in different situations (as the developers say), dodge, block an attack and do many many actions. As for other changes to Cyberpunk 2077's combat system, many of the dismemberment triggers have been improved along with hit response. Death animations have now been taken to a new level and have increased the effectiveness of melee and ranged combat. Enemies now dodge better not only in simple situations, but also with the presence of the legendary Kereznikov implant. Now the heavier the weapon, the easier it is for them to hit. Accordingly, it has now become more difficult to evade him. In melee and ranged combat, AI now has several behaviors: reckless, aggressive, balanced, defensive, and cautious. The balance of combat with netrunners has also been changed and reworked in the same way as in the case of snipers. The latter are now a serious danger and deal more damage than before. They can now retreat from Vee to a safe distance and maintain combat from a distance.

Boss encounters will now feel a bit different for players. Ordinary enemies who will help the bosses will behave differently and will be able to break through V's defenses in hand-to-hand combat. Previously, due to errors, this did not always happen.

Crowd Improvements

• Some people in the city will now be able to start a fight with the player if he makes them nervous with aiming or other types of taunt to fight. Due to some technical features, these innovations will not migrate to the previous generation consoles. When users skip time, the state of NPCs, devices, environments, and some scenes will be reset. The reaction of the crowd to the player, the wayfinding and the disappearance have been changed.
• Now, in order to hide from the police, V does not have to leave the search area. He's just allowed to stay within line of sight until the NCPD stops looking.

driving cars

• Now the game has the ability to make a burnout. To do this, you need to hold the accelerator and brake buttons at the same time. Where the old system allowed players to spin in one spot, the new one could give them the ability to get into beautiful drifting and make every ride fun. Now driving enthusiasts will be provided with some interesting tricks. The developers offer players to try a sharp beautiful stop with a skid, make the so-called “doughnuts” (drifting in a circle, drawing circles on the pavement with a burnt tire), as well as warming up the car and a quick start with a jump of the front end up like in drag racing. The system also works at high speeds, which will allow players to get more understeer in corners. Players on the PC will be able to use the function of key bindings for additional driving commands. However, the developers are confident that players will get the best user experience on gamepads.
• The braking system on all vehicles has been redesigned. Now there is an ABS simulation.
• The performance of the engine and gearbox has been improved. Clutch simulation has been added, which improves the drag forces of the engine when shifting gears. The gearbox, in turn, feels more realistic and has more intelligent shifting logic. This allows you to perform a police turn even better.
• Due to all of the above changes, motorcycles have become noticeably better.
• Some bugs with calling a car that led to unexpected explosions have been fixed.

car traffic

• Transport in the city has been visually improved. The artificial intelligence of residents traveling in cars has also been redesigned, and therefore, in the event of a panic, they can simply drive away from danger. In addition, car crashes can lead to the death of NPCs who are driving the car or sitting in the passenger seat. Now people driving around Night City will react to accidents differently and their response spectrum will be much wider than before.
• When riding in vehicles, players will be shown a song that is played on the radio. When you enter the car, the car name will be displayed on the interface.

Balance Changes

The developers have changed the balance in the game. This applies to different areas. First of all, the changes affected the economy, rewards for quests, car prices, cyber programs, and more.

• The functionality and classification of clothing mods have been changed.
• The dodge stat has been replaced with two stats: attack softening chance and attack softening power. Chance determines the ability to block incoming damage, while strength determines the percentage of damage blocked (initially 50%). Components that changed the effect of the evasion perk now change perks with incoming damage block.

cyberware

• The area of implants and software has been significantly redesigned. Now many implants have changed their characteristics, and the enemies have become smarter. When capturing an enemy, V will be noticed even if he has activated camouflage. The hacking system has also been changed in many ways. The "Subtlety" branch is now called "Nijutsu" in order to reflect the validity of those skills that are in this branch.

Tasks

Night City has some interesting secrets for players to uncover. They are only available for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S users.

• Novels with all kinds of characters have been expanded by adding new messages and interactions with them. In addition, there are now interactions with them in the houses of romanced characters, including sleeping in bed with a partner. Probably, just like V's sleep at home, it will give certain improvements, which will even differ.
• NCPD and repairman voices can be disabled. If you make such a function in the settings, then all radio messages will be replaced with text and sent to the hero's phone. The player can now accept and reject holo calls

Outcome

In general, the update really turned out to be large-scale, but the game is still far from what marketers showed us before the start of sales. Players still remember the unimplemented wall running system by the developers, the absence of which is significantly noticeable in some missions, as well as car tuning, buying new apartments (there are already rentals, thanks!) and other features. Also, don't forget that CD Projekt Red couldn't stick to the content plan and free DLC they originally released to the public. Nevertheless, the Poles really continue to work on the project and one day we may be able to see how the game with a lot of bugs and problems has been transformed into the title that we were promised in 2018.