Since its much-awaited and inevitable release last December, CD Projekt Red's latest—Cyberpunk 2077—has been on a road to redemption, courtesy of multiple massive patches and hotfixes. Cyberpunk 2077 has certainly come a long way and has still a long road to go ahead. But with the game now seemingly in a "playable state," fans are starting to anticipate the promised free DLCs.
Unfortunately, when Cyberpunk 2077's DLCs would start to arrive is still a big mystery, something that CD Projekt Red has yet to clear. According to the initial Cyberpunk 2077 roadmap, these DLCs were slated to release in the first half of 2021. But since that ship has now sailed, here's when fans could expect these to arrive.
RELATED: Cyberpunk 2077 PS4 Sales Are High Despite Sony Warning
It's no surprise that fixing and optimizing Cyberpunk 2077 on every platform is CDPR's first and foremost priority. Since launch, the studio has released two major patches—1.1 and 1.2—that fixed a myriad of quest bugs, visual glitches, and performance issues, with another patch seemingly right around the corner.
Interestingly, patch 1.3 isn't part of the initial roadmap, though CDPR's global community lead Marcin Momot has since confirmed it's "on the way." The final patch that was supposed to release before CDPR focused on releasing free DLCs and next-gen upgrades was patch 1.23, which was released in June 2021. Given how Cyberpunk 2077's roadmap has drastically changed over time, it won't be surprising if CDPR decides to club some, if not all of the free DLCs with this upcoming patch. After all, the studio seems confident about the current playable state of the game on every platform. Cyberpunk 2077's return to the PlayStation store after being notably absent for six months is also a good sign for the upcoming DLCs, as developers could now focus on releasing new content rather than just churning out fixes.
As such, fans could expect Cyberpunk 2077 DLCs to either start dropping with patch 1.3 or, at least, hope to get an update on them. Patch 1.1 and 1.2 were released in January and March of 2021, respectively, and ideally, patch 1.3 should have been out by May. However, things could have changed as 1.3 wasn't included in the initial roadmap.
Before diving into when Cyberpunk 2077's DLCs could release, it's necessary to consider the scope and size of these DLCs. The safest bet is to expect something like the 16 free DLCs of The Witcher 3. CDPR started rolling out these new content—which included new quests, new game plus mode, alternative costumes, and more—right after the game launch. CDPR might have had similar plans to release Cyberpunk 2077's DLCs, but things took a different turn after the game's broken launch.
Whether CDPR's strategy to release Cyberpunk 2077 DLCs has changed or not remains to be seen. Like mentioned before, it could collectively release all the free DLCs with patch 1.3 or launch them one at a time to keep players engaged until Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen upgrades arrive later this year. The latter makes more sense, but fans will have to wait for an official announcement. Strangely enough, CDPR hasn't officially revealed anything about what fans could expect from the upcoming DLCs, although a recent Reddit leak has shed some light on it.
Reddit user Saint-Pirate posted about their discovery of Cyberpunk 2077's upcoming expansion packs. After scrutinizing the leaked source code of Cyberpunk 2077 from earlier this year, they found a list of names for the DLCs and two expansion packs labeled EP 1 and EP 2. These names refer to the addition of new poses for photo mode, new weapon packs, new character customization options, new game plus mode, and map reworks of specific areas. The Reddit post mentions a total of 17 DLCs that are apparently planned for Cyberpunk 2077, outside of the two meaty expansion packs that could supposedly be similar to The Witcher 3's Heart of Stones and Blood and Wine expansion packs. Reddit user Saint-Pirate also mentions that these DLCs additions were supposed to roll out in early 2021 but were delayed due to CD Projekt Red's data breach earlier this year.
The aforementioned Reddit leak suggests that Cyberpunk 2077's DLCs are being held back purposely from releasing. It makes narrowing down the DLCs release window all the more tricky, as CDPR could hold it back further until the situation seems more ideal or launch them immediately. The latter seems more reasonable as Cyberpunk 2077 fans are eager for new content, and this seems like a perfect opportunity to make up for the disastrous launch that happened over seven months ago. However, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is, after all, a leak.
Granted that Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen upgrades land sometime this fall, CDPR has a window of three months to release these free DLCs. Coincidentally, The Witcher 3's free DLCs were also released in the span of three months. If CDPR were to follow that pattern, then Cyberpunk 2077's DLCs—if planned to release individually—could start rolling out in the first week of August.
Cyberpunk 2077 is now available on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades coming in 2021.
MORE: Cyberpunk 2077: What to Expect from the Upcoming Free DLC
Source: Reddit/GamingLeaksandRumors