Despite a disastrous launch plagued by game-breaking bugs and console crashing, CD Projekt Red has announced the first set of free Cyberpunk 2077 will come in early 2021. While this is a vague window, an early 2021 release date implies anytime between February to April, which is soon for a game that still needs improvements.
One way CDPR could deliver fully fleshed content packs is by bundling together Cyberpunk 2077 content that was cut for the sake of time and branding it as DLC.
Content Cut From Cyberpunk 2077
Some content that was seen in previous demos or trailers implied features that never appeared in the final release of Cyberpunk 2077, such as car customization and apartment purchasing and renovation. Car customization is a common feature in most open-world games that allow the player to explore the city. While Night City is aesthetically beautiful, the emphasis that's put on car purchasing throughout the game ultimately falls flat and becomes pointless when players can get the fastest vehicle in Cyberpunk completely for free.
Other features were seen and used in previous demos of Cyberpunk 2077 were cut late in development to get the game to its December 10th release date, despite being seemingly in the late stages of development. This includes weapons that were highly anticipated, such as the thermal katana, and cyberware that fans were geared up for, such as the optical camo that was aimed at turning V invisible.
One player, YouTuber Medrawt, actually found the optical camo item in the debug console and was able to equip it to V's cyberware eye slot with a customized item icon and description. However, it doesn't actually function, meaning that the mod was likely close to being done before it was cut for time.
Additionally, many fans have pointed out the number of doors around Night City that pop up as "locked," while other doors are essentially just texture as part of the wall and aren't meant to lead anywhere. It doesn't make sense to have these two types of inaccessible doors in Cyberpunk 2077, which likely means that some were meant to be apart of the game and became unfinished locations, much like Night City's Center for Behavioral Health.
Many other features shown in the E3 demo from 2018 have been since cut from the game, including a hefty amount of character creation traits, wall running, combat-boosting drugs, and full day and night cycles assigned to each Cyberpunk NPC.
Alleged Plans to Address Cut Content
Because much of these Cyberpunk 2077 features were seemingly in the late stages of development as seen in the gameplay demos, like the combat-boosting drugs, Cyberpunk's character customization, and the thermal katana, it would be much easier to finish off these projects rather than start on something completely new and fresh, or story-heavy DLC. Also, releasing this content soon could be a way to appease fans who were looking forward to it, especially for those who are waiting until the game is more functional before picking up the controller. The thermal katana could fall in a DLC pack containing several weapons that were cut for time, and similarly, the invisibility optical camo in a DLC pack of special cyberware.
This falls in line with a recent Reddit post quoting someone claiming to be a disgruntled CDPR developer. Readers have gone back and forth on whether or not the post seems legitimate, but something this alleged CDPR developer says is that the studio plans to "address the cut content as well" because fans feel misled.
Though nothing else is detailed in this paragraph, this individual claims those features will be whatever cut content fans are disappointed to see missing. The cleanest way to reintroduce this is likely through free DLC because there would probably be outrage over having to pay for content that was initially planned for the full release.
Cyberpunk 2077 is out now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions currently in development.
Source: Reddit