It’s been over three months since the launch ofCyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red’s open-world sci-fi RPG. As the most hotly-anticipated game of 2020,Cyberpunk 2077came under a huge amount of scrutiny both before and after its launch. The promise of an open-world cyberpunk title from the developers of theWitcher 3helped to draw a lot of attention.
Unfortunately, the game was plagued by issues stemming from a rushed development. As PC players struggled with bugs and missing features, console players suffered from major performance issues. Following the backlash to its poor launch, CD Projekt Red promised to make significant improvements to the game. To this end, the game’s second largest update will be releasing soon. Patch 1.2 addresses a few of the major issues that players had with thelaunch version ofCyberpunk 2077, as well as tweaking performance and fixing bugs.
Slower Rapid Response
Onecriticism ofCyberpunk 2077that seems to be shared by console and PC users alike is the game’s approach to the police. Although the game has crime detection and aGTA-style five star wanted system, its implementation is nowhere near the standard of Rockstar’s open-world titles. One of the problems that players encountered was that police would appear from nowhere within seconds of committing a minor crime. To make matters worse, the police inCyberpunk 2077go straight to shooting.
Thisissue will be addressed in Patch 1.2, with the response time of NCPD officers being lengthened. This should simulate the effect of the police learning about the reported crime and then sending officers to investigate. It will also prevent NCPD officers from instantly spawning behind a player’s back, in a prime position to kill them. In addition, the improvements to police behavior will also add a recon drone unit, which will scout ahead of the armed officers.
While this patch does begin to address theproblems with the NCPD inCyberpunk 2077, there is still a long way to go. It seems that issues like the police being incapable of carrying out a car chase will have to wait for a further patch. Finally, there’s no word that these NCPD improvements will be backed up by an attempt to make them function like other hostile NPCS. At the moment, NCPD officers are completely immune to hacking, which gives a huge disadvantage to any player that has focused on that skill tree.
Vehicle Handling Improvements
The second major improvement in Patch 1.2 is aimed atCyberpunk 2077’s vehicle handling system. Feedback from players has led CD Projekt Red to make improvements to steering in the new patch. Most notably, there will now be a Steering Sensitivity slider in the Options menu. This slider will allow players to slow down the initial steering speed for all vehicles, without affecting the maximum turn radius.
This change should particularly help PC players steering with a keyboard, as well as console players with low framerates. Apparently, these two groups had the hardest time staying on the road withCyberpunk 2077’s vehicles. In addition, the new patch will also tweak the steering physics of a number of individual cars which were considered too twitchy.
Twitchy driving can often leave a player stuck in the scenery, which leads to another of Patch 1.2’s features. It’s fairly easy to get avehicle permanently stuck on an obstacle inCyberpunk 2077. This forces the player to abandon it and either call a different vehicle, or move far enough away to call the same one again. To counter this, Patch 1.2 will add a new Unstuck feature, allowing players to rock their vehicle in an attempt to dislodge it.
Inadvertent Dodging and Key-Binding
Anothercomplaint that CD Projekt Red will address in Patch 1.2revolves around the dodge function. InCyberpunk 2077, it’s possible to dodge by pressing twice on any movement key. Players have found this system to be too sensitive, particularly on a keyboard. This sensitivity leads to players dodging when they didn’t mean to, which can be a bigger problem that it sounds.
Dodging is interpreted byCyberpunk 2077’s NPCsas a “combat” maneuver, and can even cause them to respond with hostility. Dodging at the wrong moment may cause a fight in an otherwise non-hostile situation. To address this, Patch 1.2 will allow players to switch off double-tap dodging in the Controls settings. This will instead bind dodging to a double-tap of the Crouch (Toggle) key, which is C by default on PC.
As a small addition to this change, Patch 1.2 will also make it easier to change key bindings. While PC players were previously stuck with WASD as the movement keys, it will now be possible to move them. The Patch 1.2 notes acknowledge that there are remaining binding issues that will need to be fixed in future patches.
Cyberpunk 2077is out now for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Stadia.
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