Cyberpunk 2077 Has a 43GB Pre-Launch Patch, With More to Come
Cyberpunk 2077 is the most hyped video game release in years, but even after the clock strikes midnight this Thursday, you might not be able to venture into Night City. According to reports from early players, the game has a gargantuan 43.5GB pre-release patch. That might not even be the end of the necessary updates.
CD Projekt Red (CDPR) announced Cyberpunk 2077 way back in 2012, which was years before it even released the widely praised Witcher 3. The success of that game boosted interest in Cyberpunk, which is based on the Cyberpunk role-playing games created by Mike Pondsmith. The scale of the game shown in demos and trailers is impressive — the metropolitan setting of Night City took time to piece together, and that has led to delays.
The game was originally supposed to come out in April 2020, but as the date approached, CDPR decided it needed more time to optimize the game’s performance. The new date at that point was September 17, 2020, but then in June, CDPR again decided it would need more time. The September date was dropped in favor of November 19th. We got pretty close to the date this time, but CDPR announced a delay to December 10, 2020, back in late October. The company said this final delay was necessary to optimize the console versions of Cyberpunk 2077.
For those curious Cyberpunk 2077 has a 43gb day one patch. pic.twitter.com/BKuWInTpJA
— DreamcastGuy Is Reviewing Cyberpunk2077 (@DreamcastGuy) December 3, 2020
It’s no surprise with the constantly changing street dates, that a few copies made it out to buyers before the official release. The Xbox One version in the hands of @DreamcastGuy on Twitter required a 43.5GB patch at launch. That’s a significant chunk of the game’s total size. On PC, the full download is about 70GB.
A CDPR developer replied to the above tweet, noting that this pre-release patch isn’t even the “final” one. When gamers fire up their copies of the game on launch day, there will be another (presumably even larger) patch ready for download. These big day-one patches are common on all platforms, but even more so with consoles. Publishers have to print the discs weeks ahead of time, and development is still often taking place while the game is sitting in boxes ready to be sold. We don’t know what kind of patch the downloadable PC version will have, but hopefully, it’s not another 70GB on top of the download.
Cyberpunk 2077 launches in just a few days on Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Stadia. One nice thing about Stadia: no 50GB day-one patches.
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