The finish line: Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion seemed like CDPR's swan song for the game. It added an entire lengthy story arc and tidied ups a few remaining issues. However, the development team has one more significant update before calling it a day and tagging CP2077 complete.
During Friday's RedStream on Twitch, CDPR developers announced and discussed their next update to Cyberpunk 2077. The patch is significant because it adds some much-wanted features, the most requested of which would have to be a working rail system.
Currently, Night City's metro is used for fast travel. It will still serve this function in CP2077 version 2.1, but players can also experience the mass transit system in a more immersive way. After the update, you can board a train and enjoy a scenic trip to your destination. Think of it like the original vanilla Skyrim fast travel, where you could skip to your destination or ride it out on the back of a cart.
The NCART (Night City Area Rapid Transit) system has five rail lines and 19 stations. Players can skip to their chosen stop at any time during the trip. The ride is at least partially interactive. The short demo clip showed that players can look around and interact with transit bums.
However, it is unclear precisely how interactive the ride is because the devs didn't want to "spoil" the experience, even though Lead Quest Designer Pawel Sasko dropped a massive spoiler for anyone who has not played the game (be warned if you watch the stream). So it's unknown if you can walk around the train car or start a fight. I would guess you can't. However, Sasko hinted that it was designed to be "a roleplaying feature," which indicates it's more than just a semi-interactive ride.
Adding a fully functioning NCART is a big deal for a few reasons. For one, players were disappointed when it didn't make it to the game at launch. The metro was featured in several trailers. So Sasko said the team felt obligated to add it to the game.
"The original trailer … from 2018 had a metro, and then … the CGI trailer … for Phantom Liberty also had it in some way," Sasko recounted. "So we felt, okay, you know, we've been showing it so many times, maybe it's about time we actually make it for the game."
The other reason it's a significant addition is that designing it took considerable effort. The current system is just a metro door allowing you to open the fast travel map. There are a few partially designed stations that some players figured out how to get into and explore, but they are relatively bare bones and non-functional. So, the team had to build all 19 stations, the rail car interior, and the routes from scratch. From the clips they showed, it looks fantastic.
Nobody will argue that when CD Projekt Red launched Cyberpunk 2077, it was a complete dumpster fire, particularly on consoles. Mistakes were made, lies were told. It wasn't unlike Hello Games release of No Man's Sky. Like NMS, CDPR pulled Cyberpunk out of the toilet – mainly by sacrificing last-gen console versions and pumping out two gigantic updates to fix bugs.
The extra effort is commendable because lesser (read: "greedy, we don't care") companies might have just abandoned it and written it off as a lost cause. Red developers hung in there and fixed their mess and are about to finish it with a fat cherry on top.
Check out the Twitch stream or CDPR's write-up to see what else you can expect from Cyberpunk's final patch. Or you can just wait until version 2.1 drops on December 5 alongside Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
https://www.techspot.com/news/101036-cyberpunk-2077-gets-big-send-off-one-last.html
