Modders hired to help fix Cyberpunk 2077 – Weekly roundup

Modders hired to help fix Cyberpunk 2077 – Weekly roundup

3rd September 2021
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Image provided by: CD Projekt Red

PlayStation Showcase 2021

Mark your calendars, PlayStation fans! We’re finally receiving a long-awaited update on the brand’s in-development projects for PlayStation 5! A forty minute long dedicated PlayStation Showcase goes live on September 9th at 9:00PM BST.

Interestingly, Sony has not opted for the tried and tested State Of Play branding. These typically only update us on already revealed games to be released in the not-too-distant future. Think Deathloop or Horizon: Forbidden West.

To us, a showcase sounds more grandiose, and we have lofty expectations. What’s going to be shown? Unfortunately, PlayStation has clearly stated in advance that the next generation of virtual reality won’t appear, even though an update was previously planned by the end of summer. Perhaps there will be an entirely separate follow-up show soon? PlayStation fans would be feverishly feasting then.

Rather, we’re looking forward to a tantalising glimpse into the console’s future – projects slated for 2022 and even further beyond. Sequels to landmark franchises deeply associated with the beloved brand (such as God of War: Ragnarök and Gran Turismo 7) are the obvious contenders. But forty minutes is a lengthy amount of time, so there are endless possibilities for brand-new announcements too.

The last PlayStation Showcase was nearly a year ago

With Horizon: Forbidden West pushed back to early 2022, there’s no real PlayStation-exclusive heavy-hitter for the rest of this year. Fans are waiting patiently for any tiny morsel of news – so hopefully the PlayStation Showcase will dispense a wave of excited anticipation to hold them over.

Modders hired to help fix Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 was easily one of the most hyped games in existence, though it faded quickly from the collective conscious of gamers after a disastrous debut late last year. You’ve likely witnessed second-hand the plethora of game-breaking bugs in copious compilation reels shared all over social media. It was unavoidable around launch, and culminated in the developer CD Projekt Red issuing a public apology for prematurely releasing the game in such a half-baked state.

The experience was especially poor on previous generation consoles. Those fortunate enough to run high-end gaming PCs were able to brute force their way past the relentless barrage of glitches to find a game worth salvaging. After all, CD Project Red was world-renowned for creating one of the most celebrated games ever (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt).

But with the developer’s stock price tumbling down, the damage was done. CD Project Red desperately needed to knuckle down, squash bugs and later make a defiant resurgence, similar to No Man’s Sky, if it truly believed in the game’s obscured greatness.

We’re starting to approach the first anniversary of Cyberpunk 2077. Patches have dropped sporadically, but nothing worth revisiting yet. The developer is hopefully preoccupied with a game-changing update which revitalizes many of the core systems and mechanics.

Image provided by: CD Projekt Red

The latest hint into the direction the game is taking comes from the Cyberpunk 2077 Modding Community Discord. Prominent members are joining CD Project Red in an official capacity to tweak the game’s technical underpinnings and to help implement official modding support. They’re well-known for notable contributions to Wolvenkit, community-made tools for modding The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077.

This is surprisingly positive news regarding Cyberpunk 2077, which makes a welcome change. Open world role-playing games and mods are basically synonymous. Games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout benefit greatly from mods, so support directly integrated by the modders themselves should be a huge boon for Cyberpunk 2077’s stability and longevity. This is only one part required to rebuild CD Projekt Red’s crumbled reputation and the game itself, but we’re cautiously optimistic since they’re listening to community feedback.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns gameplay reveal

The gameplay reveal for Marvel’s Midnight Suns (a tactical turned-based role-playing game from XCOM and Civilization developers Firaxis) is unquestionably divisive. The negative reception seems to stem from two understandably frustrated camps.

The game uses a card-based combat system, an instant turn-off for some players. Rather than directly controlling the superheroes, their in-game actions are dictated by drawing a randomly shuffled selection of playing cards, like a board game. It’s tonal whiplash seeing a superhero’s all-powerful abilities delegated to dragging cards across the screen. There’s something inherently off-putting about such a primitive interface, paired with the explosive on-screen action.

The second reason isn’t directly tied to the game itself, instead the developers. Fans of Firaxis’s games were confidently expecting their next project to be XCOM 3. While Marvel’s Midnight Suns certainly carries some of XCOM’s tactical DNA, it’s a far cry from a fully-fledged sequel. It looks more story-focused, with a heavier emphasis on forming relationships with pre-established characters than XCOM’s player-created squads for personalised storytelling.

If the trailer hasn’t sold you on the unusual concept, there’s an extended in-depth walkthrough detailing the mechanics. We think Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a refreshing take on the tired superhero genre. Marvel’s recent games have been hit-or-miss and exclusively ‘epic’ third-person blockbusters. From Spiderman’s highs to Avenger’s lows.

It’s intriguing seeing such a mainstream franchise adapted to the relatively niche deck-building genre and plainly lifting inspiration from the independent game scene. Marvel’s Midnight Suns is currently slated for a March 2022 release on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo consoles, as well as PC of course.