CD Projekt RED releases the Cyberpunk 2077 launch trailer

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It was eight years of waiting since the announcement in May 2012. In December 2020, on the eve of the premiere set for the 10th, CD Projekt RED published the Cyberpunk 2077 launch trailer, a video centered on V, the RPG’s protagonist.

What stands out in the trailer is the focus on the player’s character rather than the city. V is a mercenary in Night City, a fictional California metropolis dominated by megacorporations, and almost everything about V is customizable: face, voice, body, implants, clothes and background. The game starts with one of three origins, Nomad, Streetkid or Corpo, and all of them lead V to a partnership with the mercenary Jackie Welles. From there, the chip carrying the consciousness of Johnny Silverhand, a rocker and terrorist played by Keanu Reeves, comes into play.

A nice detail about the project: the art team sought inspiration in German designer Dieter Rams and artist Syd Mead, mixing retro and futuristic elements. In the soundtrack, the game’s radio stations featured artists such as Run the Jewels, Grimes, Refused and ASAP Rocky.

Cyberpunk 2077 was set for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia, also running on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S through backward compatibility. It was the Polish studio’s first big game since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, from 2015, and it swapped Geralt’s third person for a first-person view. The premiere had already been delayed three times over the course of 2020.

What came next

The December 10 launch became one of the most troubled of the decade. Reviews published before the premiere used only PC copies, and the PS4 and Xbox One versions arrived with bugs and poor performance. CD Projekt apologized and offered refunds, and Sony pulled the game from the PlayStation Store until June 2021.

Over time, the updates, the animated series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, from 2022, and the Phantom Liberty expansion, from 2023, changed the game’s image. Cyberpunk 2077 passed 40 million copies sold.