Few games have been more controversial in recent years than Cyberpunk 2077. But not because of its content, plot or art design, no. but because of how poorly it came to marketan unacceptable state for launch, the result of both the urgency on the part of the studio (i.e. its investors) to get to market now, after years of development (and thus an investment with no return), and the mistake of trying to reach the then current generation of consoles, i.e. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

I don’t think it’s worth going further into what happened at the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, we already did it in depth then, although without losing sight of its developer, CD Projekt RED, the main person responsible for what happened ( although some doubts have also recently arisen about this) that committed to solving all the game’s problems. An impossible promise really, as too much has been promised over the years of development, but it’s a good starting point to start working on redeeming it.

2022 was a key year in this process with the release of update 1.5 in February. This, in addition to many improvements and solutions, marked the arrival of truth to the current generation of consoles. In other words, Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 was (and still is) the version the game was supposed to debut with. Not for nothing, since its launch there has been a timid but measurable increase in the number of users returning to it (and perhaps among them some who are playing it for the first time).

Thanks a lot chooms for this second chance 😭 https://t.co/IONdDq8D9x

— Paweł Sasko (@PaweSasko) September 18, 2022

Earlier this month we had confirmation that the first Cyberpunk 2077 DLC was on its way and very close to arriving, coinciding with the premiere of Cyberpunk: Edegunners, the Netflix series inspired by Cyberpunk 2077. At the time, my partner Isidro reflected on what Cyberpunk 2077 means for the current generation of PCs and consoles, as soon as we can consider its development finishedalthough new updates are posted over time.

There are quite a few differences between the two cases, but still it’s impossible not to draw some comparisons to what happened with No Man’s Sky back then (a gem in my opinion). And just as Hello Games’ title managed to dig itself out of the hole it found itself in at launch, today we see Cyberpunk 2077 also experiencing measurable improvements in terms of user acceptance.

A recent example of this can be found in messageretweeted Pawel Sasko, the former Lead Quest Designer (currently Quest Director) of Cyberpunk 2077, who has been repeating for the past few hours, Cyberpunk 2077 has reached 85,555 concurrent players on Steamwhich is a number not seen since January 2021, although there was a significant decline in that time and it is now on a slow but steady rise.

Did Cyberpunk 2077 make amends? at least partially yesand while the premiere of the series on Netflix is ​​the main reason for this new peak of concurrent players for many, the latest updates and DLC inspired by the series undoubtedly have something to do with it as well.