Has the game finally clawed its way back?
Much like Voltron, a number of powerful (and probably planned) forces have come together to push Cyberpunk 2077 back into the proverbial spotlight. Eurogamer reported back on 16 September that CD Projekt Red’s maligned RPG had more than doubled its concurrent players on Steam since August.
At first it seemed like the recent 1.6 update, the announcement of the upcoming Phantom Liberty expansion and a 50% price reduction on the platform were causing the games player count managed to top FromSoftware’s Game of the Year hopeful Elden Ring.
Cut to yesterday (19 September) and Cyberpunk 2077 had reached a concurrent player count of 85,550, the highest it’s seen since it’s extremely buggy launch. At this point it’s become clear that it’s not just improved performance and a modest price tag that’s brought players to and back to the game. Cyberpunk 2077 has the power of god (read Netflix) and anime on its side.
Existing fans of the title and the later adopters are crediting the influx of players to developer CD Projekt Red and animation Studio Trigger’s collaborative 10-part anime series, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Crazy how fast Cyberpunk 2077 got more players after Cyberpunk Edgerunners dropped. pic.twitter.com/XwPOjhOrRB
— 💮Kiyomi Hoshi💮 『YokaiLive』 (@YokaiRiderVT) September 18, 2022
Natural after getting a netflix orig show around it 😂
— Chibi💕 (@ChibiStreams) September 16, 2022
It makes sense too. The stylish visuals, over-the-top fight scenes and neatly packaged narrative of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners have wowed critics, audiences and even the mind behind the Cyberpunk universe, Mike Pondsmith.
The creator of the original tabletop role-playing game took to r/cyberpunkgame to let CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger know “THEY FUCKING NAILED IT“.
Since the recent release of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners it has blown through Rotten Tomatoes video game TV shows ranking to settle in the number two spot. With a 100% fresh rating and a 97% audience score, the anime series sits just beneath another popular Netflix animation: Arcane.
It’s probably no mistake that CD Projekt Red timed their announcement of new DLC and a snazzy update alongside the release of this sure-fire hit and the results speak for themselves.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available now on Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4, PS5 and Stadia; we reviewed it here and detailed its last-gen issues here.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is an animated series that available to watch Netflix right now.
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