This article breaks down every change and new feature included in Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 and what that means to you as a player!
This article will focus on what you get for free with Update 2.0, not the content that’s coming with the Phantom Liberty expansion that’s releasing on September 26th, 2023.
Update 2.0 is available for all modern consoles and PC. Its size varies a little depending on your platform:
- Xbox: 52GB
- PlayStation 5: 38GB
- PC: 33GB
Update 2.0 vs. Phantom Liberty
Broadly, Update 2.0 focuses on implementing all of the improvements to game systems, including major changes to perks, cyberware, and police (and enemy) AI, as well as a ton of balance changes, 3 new radio stations, and improvements to vehicle combat.
Phantom Liberty is an expansion that gives you access to new content and costs $30. Includes things like the Phantom Liberty storyline starring Idris Elba as Solomon Reed and its associated area, Dogtown.
It also contains some new items from every category, including clothing, weapons, cyberware, and vehicles mounted with machine guns and/or missile launchers.
If you want to know all of your options, consult with our guide on how to start the Phantom Liberty story and enter Dogtown.
Perks Overhaul
CDPR kept the spirit and many of the core elements of each skill tree and its associated perks, but they weren’t afraid to saw off entire trees if needed.
The 2-3 tabs are now different branches of a single tree where each attribute has 2 full branches and then a smaller synergistic one. More powerful perks are located higher up the tree and require you to invest more attribute points in order to access them.
The perks in the trees tend to focus on expanding your capabilities rather than directly making you more powerful, though there are still some stat boosts in the trees where appropriate.
Each attribute continues to synergize with a couple of specific weapon types, but they’ve spread some of the proficiencies out by weapon type and class, so every attribute has something unique.
In addition, each arm cyberware (Gorilla Arms, Mantis Blades, Monowire, Projectile Launcher) receives its buffs from a specific attribute, though they also get buffed by the Relic Skill Tree, which is available only with Phantom Liberty. Check out our comprehensive 2.0 Arms Cyberware Guide for more information.
When you load up an existing save after you download Update 2.0, you will be notified that you can reset your Attributes (and Perks). This has not been possible before and it is a one-time-only offer.
You can swap Perks at any time during your progression. You cannot reset your Attributes, after that first free reset mentioned above. Being able to activate and deactivate Perks one by one whenever you want, gives you the freedom to alter your build for any situation on the spot.
Intelligence
Intelligence is the caster attribute, with casting in this game being executed through Quickhacking other enemies’ implants. It also lets you hack Access Points (the hex code minigame) and offers additional dialogue options related to Netrunning.
Intelligence’s full branches are dedicated to buffing largely new gameplay that expands on the existing Quickhack system while the third partial tier gives some buffs and hacking synergies to Smart weapons, which are the guns that auto-aim for you.
The first full branch gives you access to a Quickhack queue that expands as you spend more perk points in the branch. By the end, you will be able to queue up to 4 Quickhacks at a time on a single target and get buffs primarily related to cost and upload speed for queueing.
The purple and gold Quickhacks also have revamped final effects instead of passives for equipping them. Many of these give some sort of major buff if they are queued alongside another specific Quickhack, enabling you to perform combos.
The second full branch focuses more heavily on the revamped RAM management that allows for queueing to exist. In order to facilitate queueing, CDPR also opted to remove the cooldown of Quickhacks, but significantly increase their costs. The centerpiece of the tree is a new cooldown mode called Overclock. It lets you convert 10 HP to 1 RAM while giving you other boosts while the mode is active.
Finally, the tree has 2 perks that make the Monowire synergize with Quickhacking, though you really need the Relic skill tree and Phantom Liberty expansion to make it worth using.
Body
Body focuses on boosting your health regeneration and expanding your capabilities with blunt melee weapons (hammers, bats, and fists) as well as the more bombastic weapons (LMG, HMG, and Shotgun). It’s the “run in with guns blazing” attribute, and it also gives you some threatening dialogue options and allows you to brute-force open some locked doors and windows.
The buffs to health regeneration include making it trigger in combat (you get it for free outside of combat now) and boosting the power of that regeneration effect in specific situations. It also gives you access to a new overhead mode called Adrenaline Rush that activates whenever you use a healing item that gives you extra health beyond your maximum HP. This is probably the most sophisticated of the partial trees.
The blunt weapon buffs effectively turn you into a bowling ball and all of the enemies into bowling pins. Most of your blunt attacks will knock people around, and if you jump and swing your weapon into the ground as you land, you’ll create a shockwave that knocks up nearby enemies. You’ll also get access to a few finishers that will send enemies flying!
The buffs to Shotguns, LMGs, and HMGs focus on increasing the dismemberment and knockback power of each shot. The perks typically only apply or are enhanced when your stamina is low, so the idea is to charge in, swinging your hammer around until you get all tuckered out, and then start blowing people’s brains out with your big gun.
The Gorilla Arms synergize strongly with Body because they are considered a blunt weapon.
Reflexes
The focal point of the Reflexes stat is high mobility and all the benefits that result from it, like finesse and survivability. It also gives you some extra dialogue options that relate to quick responses and observations, though it doesn’t let you access other areas. Rather than having 2 main branches and a smaller partial branch, Reflexes has a primary branch and 2 secondaries.
The primary branch upgrades your dodge into a dash that you’ll eventually be able to use in the air. The dash branch also enhances your other movement capabilities, like sliding, vaulting, and sprinting.
One of the secondary branches offers buffs to improve your precision and stamina efficiency with SMGs and Assault rifles, allowing you to be far more accurate and deal more damage for having good aim while spending far less stamina. That’s right, firing guns now costs stamina!
The other secondary tree focuses mostly on finishers with blades and buffs related to those finishers. They really took out most of the generic stat buffs to blades from the pre-2.0 blades tree. Those stat increases now come from new dedicated Cyberware and significantly buffed weapon mods. Early on, you’ll also get the ability to deflect bullets!
In addition to synergizing with the Mantis Blades, Reflexes synergizes particularly well with cyberware that isn’t as consistently useful to other builds, like Sandevistan and Kerenzikov. They greatly enhance your ability to deal and avoid damage while doing all your sick parkour moves.
Cool
Cool is the stealth and headshot attribute. It makes stealth a bit better, including enabling you to sprint while crouching, but the main buffs are directed at landing headshots and weak point hits without your adversary noticing, either because you’re being super quiet or you’re super far away.
To be clear, both of the major branches focus on buffing headshot kills, but one focuses on defeating enemies silently with throwing knives and silenced guns, while the other buffs headshots with long-range weapons like sniper and precision rifles. Cool also gives you access to some interesting dialogue options like the others, but it doesn’t give you special physical access to anything.
The silenced weapons benefit from the same headshot buffs as the long-range weapons, but the knives get all sorts of other boosts, like dealing critical damage and, making the target bleed, and applying ridiculously strong poison so you’ll still have a strong (or, rather, sharp) edge if even if the throw doesn’t finish them off.
The entire Cold Blood tree is gone, though you’ll still get a few powerful short-lasting buffs that trigger after defeating an enemy in a special way from stealth. It’s similar to how Cold Blood worked for a Cool-focused build, but you can’t gain the effects from going on just any old killing spree, so it’s not as universally useful anymore.
It seems that Reflexes is now more of the speed and agility attribute, though you absolutely can combine the two if you just want to be a murder ghost. There isn’t a dedicated arm cyberware that gets buffed by Cool. Instead, they have a small synergy with Optical Camo such that it activates automatically.
Technical Ability
Crafting is now something that everyone can (and should) do. It is no longer restricted to Technical Ability, and there’s only a single perk that directly improves crafting at all, and it just component drop rates.
Consumables are still craftable, but they have been revamped such that they are no longer consumable. Instead, you have limited charges with cooldowns for each charge and rarity upgrades that you can craft (or buy), so they aren’t all that different from regular weapons anymore.
Technical Ability still has a major branch that buffs consumables, both the health items and grenades, but it does so by increasing their effectiveness, number of charges, and reducing their cooldowns. You also get a buff called Pyromaniac that triggers from damaging enemies with explosives, and you get extra stacks of the buff if you take damage from said explosion. These effects also buff the Projectile Launch System arm cyberware.
Technical Ability still lays claim to Tech weapons, and its partial branch focuses on making your charged shots stronger if you fire right before they max out. The attribute also still lets you unlock a ton of doors and gives you some extra dialogue options related to technical knowledge.
The other major tree is completely new and focuses on the idea of edgerunning from the Netflix anime, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. You get buffs for filling up all of your cyberware slots and access to an extra slot for both hand and skeleton cyberware types.
The final perk in that branch is called Edgerunner, which lets you slightly exceed your new maximum Cyberware capacity in exchange for lowering your health and granting a chance to go into a Fury mode where your damage output is boosted. The devs explained that cyberpsychosis comes in when you decide to start attacking innocent people as the cyberpsychos do; bystanders and the NCPD will start referring to you as one as well.
It’s heavily implied in the story that cyberpsychos don’t have that much agency and that they just kind of lose it, but the devs said they didn’t want to start taking agency away from the player or ruining the experience, so this was the compromise they came up with. In general, unless V takes this perk, the explanation for them not suffering from cyberpsychosis is that they just don’t overdo it.
Cyberware Redesign
Cyberware has gotten a hefty redesign. Both attribute requirements for specific cyberware and armor provided by clothing have been removed! Instead, relevant pieces of cyberware provide your armor, and each piece of cyberware now has a cost associated with it that counts towards the safe limit.
You can’t exceed the limit unless you take the Edgerunner perk from the Technical Ability tree, and even then, the limit boost is fairly small. The safe limit increases by a small amount each time you level up, but you can also gain a few points of cyberware capacity from shards you find in the wild just like you can with the attribute progression.
The capacity cost of a given piece of cyberware is related to its overall usefulness, with more invasive and major procedures offering stronger benefits. Armor is primarily granted by cyberware from the Skeleton and Integumentary system (clothing is mostly just for fashion now).
There’s still an incentive to take certain cyberware, depending on your build. Each piece of cyberware has an affinity with a single specific attribute that gives you a small boost for each attribute point you’ve invested that improves your effectiveness in a way that’s related to said attribute.
Some cyberware affinities are different from their past attribute requirements, and some have moved to different categories so that a single category is more valuable to a single specific attribute.
The Immune System cyberware category has been removed, and its cyberware and slots have been redistributed to other categories. The Nervous System now has a third slot by default, and you can unlock an additional slot for the Skeleton and Hands with dedicated Technical Ability perks.
The cyberware feels a lot more balanced now that you have the armor and capacity tradeoffs. Some of the options might not cost a lot but are particularly valuable for a specific build, so those act as your starting point, and then you get the best implants you can for the more general-purpose stuff.
Cyberware can also be upgraded with item components just like weapons and follows the same rarity structure. With the exception of the one in Dogtown that has a few iconic implants, all Ripperdocs are now the same. They no longer have specialties, so you can buy any piece of cyberware you want from any of them, and there isn’t a huge reason to go to one over another.
Notably, this means you can’t miss out on some implants if you decide to beat up Fingers.
Update: We have completed and released our full Cyberware Guide and Catalog of all Implants available in Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 and Phantom Liberty. It includes detailed description of each piece of chrome and helpful recommendations and tips on where, how and why you should use it and in which builds and gameplay scenarios it fits best.
Revamped Police and Enemy AI
When you first commit crimes, the police show up at the scene trying to figure out what happened, and they only engage if the action is still happening. If you keep ramping things up, so will the police response.
At lower levels of Heat (the blue stars), it’s just additional manpower, but then they start bringing in the fancy vehicles and, eventually, MaxTac as you max out your Heat. MaxTac have been upgraded significantly, and they’re meant to be quite challenging to deal with regardless of your difficulty level. There are 5 different types with the 4 members that come to fight you being some random combination of the 5. Each of them has their own boss health bar.
The NCPD is really only concerned with stopping active crime situations and taking down Night City’s most dangerous residents, like cyberpsychos. If you manage to hide from them for long enough, the police become convinced that order has been restored and forget you exist. In the August livestream, the devs referred to evading police as a game of line-of-sight Pac-Man on the minimap.
It’s not perfectly realistic, but the devs have to strike a balance between realism and player agency if you want to be done fighting the cops without dying.
Not only the police NPCs but combat is upgraded and improved. Enemy NPCs will have different and diverse approach when attacking you. Especially Netrunners. They are smarter. Elite enemy NPCs are tougher to fight as well. Different types of enemies are marked uniquely to help you tell them apart. They have different UI elements and HP bars.
Some Vehicle Combat
The weapon-mounted vehicles and special vehicle gigs require you to purchase the Phantom Liberty expansion, but Update 2.0 does expand vehicle combat. You can always shoot out the window with your guns and swing melee weapons while riding bikes.
Each attribute has a single dedicated perk that gives you buffs that relate to the attribute:
- Intelligence lets you use Quickhacks on (some) vehicles.
- Cool lets you use Kerenzikov and Sandevistan while driving.
- Reflex lets you exit cars like a stunt driver in a variety of acrobatic ways.
- Technical Ability buffs the combat stats of cars and is geared more toward the weapon-mounted vehicles you can only get from Phantom Liberty.
- Body makes vehicle collisions more effective against others and less damaging to you.
The police AI revamp extends to vehicle combat. In car chases, the police will employ actual tactics against you to try and stop your car, like t-boning, running you off the road, and blockades.
New Radio Stations
There are 3 new radio stations that you’ll be able to listen to in cars and apartments. The stations are called Dark Star, Impulse, and Growl FM.
Dark Star
Songs from Dark Star are moody, dark, and gritty. The station features 2 tracks rapped and produced by Idris Elba, but it also combines music by artists from around the world, giving the music a diverse and global feel.
Impulse
Impulse is Idris Elba’s DJ set. He put it together using unreleased tracks from the game. The station has lots of electronic and club music.
Growl FM
Growl FM is a community-driven station. It features music created by members of the Cyberpunk community, so each song is pretty unique. As a result, the station doesn’t focus on a single genre like many of the others.
Some of the music that the artists contributed to Growl FM, include:
- Going to Heaven by St. Aurora
- Flatline by Red Dead Roadkill
- Killshot by Frost, Justtjokay, Dubbgotbars, Knyvez
- El Tiempo by Skin on Flesh
- Slipstream by Kiba
- Afterlife by Thai McGrath (FT. Justcosplaysings)
- Fumes by Shinray Ghosh
Tips and Recommendations for your first steps with Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0
Given the sheer immensity of the changes, I (and CDPR) strongly recommend doing a fresh playthrough instead of skipping to Phantom Liberty, especially since you’ll have a few days before the expansion comes out (as of the time of this publication). It takes time to orient yourself in a renewed Night City.
The skill trees and gameplay are quite different, and it’s difficult to digest all the changes and process your build if you get it dumped on you all at once as it will happen the moment you load up an existing save from before 2.0.
Much of the gear has had stats and effects reworked. You no longer have the armor stat on clothing (or armor at all).
Since armor is now (almost) exclusively provided by your cyberware, clothing doesn’t serve much of a function beyond cosmetic appearance. You will have enough Eddies to be able to afford to buy clothes at the stores and still afford your upgrades, and you can access your wardrobe at all clothing vendors, which is super convenient.
At higher rarities, the hat, outer torso, face, and inner torso can provide small stat boosts, but for the most part, the clothes you have equipped don’t matter.
Once a piece of clothing lands in your inventory, it is saved permanently in your wardrobe for infinite use in outfits, meaning it’s best to equip the pieces that provide a stat upgrade and deconstruct everything else for the crafting components.
The in-game economy has been inflated significantly, but crafting components are arguably just as valuable. Each item requires only one type of Crafting Component to craft it.
To give a reference point for the level of inflation, I had 600k Eddies going into Dogtown at about level 30, and that was barely enough to buy everything I could use at the time!
You’ll oscillate between having a ton of Eddies and then a bunch of crafting components depending on if you’re buying or upgrading at the time. Generally, Eddies are more valuable for cosmetics, whereas components are more valuable for gameplay, but you will absolutely need both.
Crafting components are a lot harder to come by since you can’t buy them directly from any of the vendors anymore, making the medicine and junk vendors just as useless as the eateries.
I do not recommend selling stuff enemies drop because that’s really your main source of crafting components. You want to disassemble as much as you can so you can get those components to upgrade your equipment.
Access to cyberware seems to be dependent on both your Street Cred and the average tier of your equipped cyberware. I’m not certain that it works this way (more testing is required), but I think that you get permanent access to buy whatever tier is equal to the average or perhaps median tier of your cyberware.
In other words, it seems that as soon as you’ve upgraded over half of your cyberware from blue to purple, you’ll be able to buy purple cyberware for everything from every Ripperdoc, meaning you only need to procure enough crafting components to upgrade half of it, and the costs increase with each upgrade.
Nvidia DLSS 3.5 and Ray Tracing
Nvidia uses Cyberpunk 2077 to promote their newest tech advances and show off the improvements of DLSS 3.5, now available in Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 as well.
DLSS 3.5 featuring Ray Reconstruction, a new AI model that creates higher quality images for intensive ray-traced games and apps. All other features of the NVIDIA DLSS suite are present as well, including Super Resolution, Frame Generation, Reflex, and DLAA.
To be able to take full advantage of the new Nvidia tech, you will need to have a RTX GPU. The Frame Generation feature remains an amazing tool if you want to both have the game looking as best as the RT Overdrive mode can make it look, but also have it on a playable framerate. Frame Generation is only available on RTX 40 generation GPUs.
To enable DLSS 3.5, perform the following actions:
- Open the SETTINGS menu from the main menu or by pressing Escape during your play session to open the pause menu.
- Navigate to the GRAPHICS tab.
- On the GRAPHICS tab, scroll down to toggle desired DLSS options for quality and sharpness.
To enable Ray Tracing Overdrive, do the following:
- Open the SETTINGS menu from the main menu or by pressing Escape during your play session to open the pause menu.
- Navigate to the GRAPHICS tab.
- On the GRAPHICS tab, scroll down to select desired RAY TRACING options.
A new Nvidia Driver was released on September 21st, 2023. You should update to it to take full advantage of the new GPU tech added to Cyberpunk 2077’s Update 2.0. The driver’s version is 537.42. Version 537.34 also supports DLSS 3.5 in the game, but you should update to the newest one.
Update 2.0 comes out on September 21st, 2023, and will feature major changes to perks and skill trees, cyberware, police and enemy AI, and some of the vehicle combat. Stay tuned for future coverage of Cyberpunk 2077, and consider checking out our spoiler-free review of Phantom Liberty and our guide on Phantom Liberty release times.
For more, browse through our Cyberpunk 2077 Guides Master List of the most important and interesting guides VULKK.com has produced for the game and its expansion, split into categories!
Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 Patch Notes
Below you can read the official patch notes that CD Projekt RED published on cyberpunk.net. These do not represent the full list of everything changed with 2.0.
COMBAT
New Police System
- The NCPD will chase you when you commit a crime, whether on foot or in a vehicle.
- The types of units in pursuit and their behavior will depend on your NCPD Wanted Level. These chases can include various NCPD vehicles, roadblocks and MaxTac swooping in with AVs.
- The NCPD will now be present in the world, actively patrolling the streets of Night City. Officers working at crime scenes will now also engage in pursuits.
- You can now hear NCPD radio chatter through the radio.
- It’s now possible to quickhack NCPD officers.
Vehicle Combat
- Added the option to engage in combat while driving a vehicle from either first-person or third-person perspective. While driving, you can use pistols, submachine guns and health items. Some vehicles come equipped with mounted weapons. Melee combat is possible on motorcycles.
- Vehicle tires can now be shot or slashed.
- Introduced new Perks that unlock a variety of vehicle-related abilities such as quickhacking vehicles, increasing collision damage, boosting vehicle weaponry, allowing the use of Sandevistan and Kerenzikov cyberware, and the ability to exit moving vehicles quickly and stylishly.
- Vehicles vary in durability. Vehicles equipped with CrystalDome technology receive additional protection.
- You can now encounter AI-driven and randomized chases between different factions in a given district.
Combat AI Enhancements
We made numerous improvements to enemy AI, including:
- Various enhancements to enemy netrunner AI.
- Improved NPC reactions to grenades and their use of grenades.
- Improved NPC reaction time when flanked.
- Faster detection by enemies when you’re walking or sprinting.
- Enemies equipped with Sandevistan cyberware will now activate it to counter a player who uses their own.
- Enemies that don’t hear a silenced weapon but do notice the bullet impact will now properly investigate the source of the gunshot.
- Made improvements for scenarios where a group of NPCs can join another group in combat against you.
Netrunning Changes
- Added Perks to expand netrunning capabilities. For example, a new Overclock mode allows you to upload quickhacks by consuming Health if you have insufficient RAM. You can also acquire the ability to queue multiple quickhacks on a single enemy.
- Rebalanced RAM costs.
- Rebalanced damage and upload time. Changed the effects of some quickhacks.
- Removed the option to use Breach Protocol on enemies.
Other
- Health Items and grenades now have a limited number of charges that recharge over time after being used.
- Stamina is no longer drained outside of combat for actions like sprinting, sliding and jumping. Stamina is drained when firing ranged weapons or attacking with melee weapons. Stamina cost varies by weapon.
- Improved the Aim Assist feature.
- Rebalanced the base game’s main boss fights.
- Introduced Armor Penetration for the base game’s main bosses.
- Removed the one-hit kill protection from civilians.
PERKS & SKILLS
- A complete Perk tree overhaul. These trees now contain fewer perks, but impact gameplay in a more meaningful way. Progressing in a given Perk tree will allow you to unlock special abilities such as Overclock mode for netrunners, Bolt shots for Tech weapons, the Adrenaline Rush ability for Body-focused character builds, and so on. Because we introduced extensive changes to the Perk system,your spent Perk points on existing playthroughs have been refunded. You can also choose to reset your Attributes once. Feel free to redistribute these Perk and Attribute points to suit your preferred playstyle before you continue playing.
- We merged the previous Skills into five new ones – Headhunter, Netrunner, Shinobi, Solo, Engineer. These are not restricted by their corresponding Attribute’s level. On existing playthroughs, your progression on old skills has been transferred to their new counterparts. Skills unlock new passive buffs every 5 levels, and can be leveled up to a max of 60.
- Removed the option to reset all Perks at once. Instead, it is now possible to refund each Perk individually for free.
- Introduced new kinds of progression shards: Attribute Shards, Carrying Capacity Shards and Cyberware Capacity Shards.
CYBERWARE
- Armor is now provided primarily by cyberware. As a result, clothing’s purpose is mostly cosmetic. Clothing items no longer have mod slots, and only some items provide bonuses.
- The number of cyberware implants your body can handle is now determined by your Cyberware Capacity.
- Cyberware implants are now Attuned to specific Attributes – the higher the Attribute, the stronger the stat bonus.
- You can now upgrade cyberware on the ripperdoc screen.
- Some Cyberware slots can be unlocked by acquiring specific Perks.
- Added multiple new kinds of Cyberware.
- Visiting ripperdocs is now more immersive. When getting cyberware installed, you sit on an operating chair and experience different animations depending on the type of implant.
- Added a side quest introducing the new cyberware system for players who load an older save on the 2.0 update.
WEAPONS
- Changed the unique effects of some Iconic weapons to better reflect their distinctive features.
- The “first equip” animation can now be triggered at any time.
– PC: Hold B or double tap Alt while the weapon is holstered.
– PlayStation: double tap △ while the weapon is holstered.
– Xbox: double tap Ⓨ while the weapon is holstered.
- Added smoke grenades.
- Added new melee weapon Finishers.
- You can now find a Thermal Katana in the game.
- Added new weapon mods and reworked some existing ones. Once installed in a weapon, mods are irreplaceable.
- All obsolete weapon mods will be removed from the game. In their place you will find new, random weapon mods in your backpack. The quality of any mods added this way depends on your level.
- Removed the silencer slot from Revolvers.
- Removed the scope slot from Light Machine Guns.
- Implemented a new way to craft weapon mods. To craft a mod, you must first have 2 mods of lower quality.
- Expanded the stash wall in V’s apartment to display all of the Iconic weapons from the base game.
VEHICLES
Traffic
- NPC vehicles can now switch lanes to avoid obstacles.
- Pedestrians will now try to avoid running into moving vehicles.
- NPC drivers are now better at avoiding you when you are on foot.
- Improved braking, acceleration and suspension of cars in traffic.
- Some NPCs now might react aggressively when you hijack their vehicle.
- Various improvements to traffic density depending on time of day and night, resulting in more realistic traffic behavior.
- Driving with a quest-related NPC in your vehicle no longer disables traffic in the occupied lane, resulting in the feeling of a busier city.
Other
- Fixers will no longer text you about vehicles up for sale. You now purchase vehicles via the AUTOFIXER netpage on V’s computer or by using terminals located in gas stations and repair shops throughout Night City. To find these, enable the new Autofixer filter on the world map. Vehicles are sorted by manufacturer. The vehicles equipped with built-in weaponry have photos marked with a special icon. As you earn more Street Cred, you will unlock more vehicles for purchase.
- Added new user settings to help configure vehicle camera and controls. You can now also choose between three different third-person camera distances when driving a vehicle.
- Added a new “Driving” category and Driving Manual to the Database.
We implemented various changes and tweaks to vehicle performance and handling:
- New speed-sensitive steering applies to most vehicles. The max turn speed and radius adapts to different vehicle speeds better than before.
- All engines have torque curves now, which reflect the engine’s character and any power modifiers (e.g., supercharger, turbo, hybrid, etc.). Some adjustments and balancing have been made to vehicle acceleration and top speeds.
- Conducted a full pass on adjustments to braking force. For slower vehicles it has been dramatically increased, and all stopping distances were measured and adjusted as necessary.
- All vehicles react better to rough terrain and impacts with curbs, meridians, etc. Vehicles feel “heavier” now, as we have improved how we apply gravity as the suspension moves.
- Many vehicles were fully retuned or their tuning was heavily revised.
- Multiple other small improvements.
BALANCE & ECONOMY
NPCs
- All NPCs now scale to your level. Enemy difficulty is no longer dependent on what area of Night City you’re in.
- Enemies will have different tiers depending on the faction they belong to.
- Some NPC archetypes will feature Low, Medium or High armor.
- All resistances for regular NPCs have been removed.
- Rebalanced game difficulty to increase the challenge at higher difficulties.
Weapons
- Weapons now scale damage based on their Tier.
- The damage for Smart weapons has been lowered, but they now benefit from dedicated Perks.
Loot
- Loot now scales to your level.
- Removed excessive findable loot in the game, such as loot that distracts from scenes and quest locations.
- NPCs no longer drop clothing.
Crafting & Upgrading
- Crafting and upgrading now require only one type of component instead of multiple types.
- Replaced old rarity levels (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary) with Tiers (from Tier 1 to 5++).
- Apart from cyberware, now only Iconic weapons can be upgraded. They gain a higher Tier with each upgrade.
Vendors
- You can now access the Wardrobe feature through clothing vendors.
- Vendor stocks scale with your level, expanding as you reach a new Tier.
- Updated vendor stocks so that each has a more distinctive theme and specialization.
- Vendors no longer sell quickhack and crafting components.
- Adjusted the prices of weapons, cyberware, apartments, clothing and more.
AUDIO
New Radio Stations
- 89.7 Growl FM features songs created by our community. The DJ, Ash, is voiced by Sasha Grey.
- Impulse 99.9 features a completely new set of songs remixed by Idris Elba.
- 107.5 Dark Star is a new station for electronic music.
UI
- The Quest Journal now has a new, cleaner look. Jobs are located in separate tabs, depending on type. The distance to each quest marker is now displayed in the Journal.
- Added the option to untrack a quest in the Journal.
- Overhauled the phone UI to be more intuitive.
- Revamped Perk and Cyberware menus.
- Simplified item tooltips. The most important stats are now represented by bars to make comparison easier.
- The minimap will now zoom out dynamically depending on your speed.
- Updated the minimap to better serve the situation around you. Vision cones will not be visible unless a given NPC reacts to your actions or engages in combat.
- Improved D-pad navigation in menus.
- You can now change the HUD safe zone. This option is available in Settings → Interface.
- Multiple UI fixes for widescreens.
- You can now preview clothing and weapons not only at vendors, but also in your inventory.
- The indicators that show the status of active cyberware are now displayed on your HUD.
QUEST FIXES
- Beat on the Brat: The Glen –Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to draw fists when the fight started.
- Blistering Love –Fixed an issue where the parked car despawned after talking to Rogue in front of the Afterlife.
- Cyberpsycho Sighting: Bloody Ritual –Fixed an issue where Zaria’s body could get stuck underground after defeating her.
- Forward to Death –The forces defending the gate of the construction site now properly attack V.
- Gig: Serious Side Effects –Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to deposit the beta acid at the Drop Point.
- I Fought The Law –Fixed an issue where it was possible to get stuck in the Red Queen’s Race after completing the quest.
- Queen of the Highway –Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to complete the “Talk to Panam.” objective on older saves.
- Spellbound –It’s now possible to steal the data from R3n0’s computer if you don’t have a cyberdeck.
- We Gotta Live Together –Fixed an issue where an invisible wall made it impossible to return to the camp on the Basilisk.
STABILITY AND PERFORMANCE
Multiple fixes and improvements related to stability and optimization.MISCELLANEOUS
- AddedTrauma Drama, an arcade mini game that offers a chance to win special rewards.
- Added more secrets to be discovered in Night City.
- Added some small scenes to the game, including some conversations with Johnny Silverhand when visiting V’s apartment in Megabuilding H10.
- You can now change tattoos at ripperdocs.
- You can now choose between three Control Schemes for controllers: Classic, Dynamic and Alternative.
- Apartments will now give smaller buffs.
- Updated the Characters tab in the Database to include more side characters.
- Added new niches to the Columbarium.
- Added Ukrainian text localization.
PC-SPECIFIC
- Updated PC system requirements. A SSD is now required to run the game.
- Added support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5, which introduces DLSS Ray Reconstruction, a feature that improves the quality of Ray Traced effects. A GeForce RTX graphics card is required. The option is available in Settings → Graphics in the NVIDIA DLSS section. DLSS 3.5 is only available if Path Tracing is turned on. To make sure DLSS Ray Reconstruction works correctly on your PC, update your NVIDIA Game Ready Driver to version 537.42 at minimum.
- [AMD SMT] Introduced a new AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) switch located in Settings → Gameplay → Performance. It allows you to set SMT toOff(only physical cores),On(all logical cores) orAuto(ensuring the performance average across different locations and situations in game is optimal). This change was implemented in cooperation with AMD and is based on tests conducted on both sides.
- The Crowd Density setting has been moved from the Gameplay tab to the Graphics tab. Additionally, Crowd Density is now tied to Graphics Quick Presets and will change depending on the selected preset, but it can be customized independently if needed.
- As PC system requirements have been updated, running the game on an SSD is now a requirement on Steam Deck.
- Updated Steam Deck graphics profile for improved frame rate stability.
CONSOLE-SPECIFIC
- Changed the target upscaling resolution on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 in Performance Mode from dynamic 4k to dynamic 1800p for improved performance and image quality.
Hey chooms, don’t forget that these are just the highlights! There are a lot of other improvements and fixes in this update, so go check them out yourself!
