Patch 1.5 brings new content and improvements for gameplay and open world. But how well does the hit role-playing game play after more than a year since release? And are the changes enough to win the Platinum Award again?
A shot on the wet asphalt. Passers-by flee in panic. A nervous driver slams on the accelerator to escape and crashes a few metres away. A civilian suddenly pulls out a gun and shoots me in the back from behind. Across the street, bystanders gawk with umbrellas in hand.
Welcome to Night City after patch 1.5!
The latest update for Cyberpunk 2077 is finally here after a long wait, and in addition to the usual bug fixes, it also comes with numerous quality-of-life improvements and optimisations for the open world and gameplay.
But how much of an impact does the new patch have on the gameplay experience? Do you really notice a difference compared to the previous versions? And can the role-playing game finally win back the Platinum Award after more than a year?
That’s exactly what I asked myself and played through the campaign of Cyberpunk 2077 again for this post-test until the finale. After about 30 hours with patch 1.5, I now also have the answers.
Table of Contents
Night City finally feels right
If I had to pick a winner of Patch 1.5, then for me it would be the Open World by far: Because finally Night City feels the way I expect it from a metropolis. There is a lively hustle and bustle on the streets, NPCs no longer disappear right before my eyes as they did at Copperfield’s hand, and I no longer notice so many twins. Passers-by also change their topics of conversation more often now, and as I walk past I no longer have the feeling of stumbling into the same conversation umpteen times.
When dark clouds roll over Night City, I even pause for a moment. People are actually walking through the streets with umbrellas. Yes, I know. It’s really just a little thing, but a wonderfully atmospheric one!
As I walk through the streets in amazement, a shot is suddenly fired from my beloved Skippy pistol – totally unintentionally, of course. What follows is pure chaos. Most of the NPCs take to their heels to get as much distance from me as possible. Other civilians, on the other hand, take up the gun themselves and rush towards me in a death-defying manner. It’s just a pity that they don’t really stand a chance against me.
With my shot, I even sent a motorist into pure panic. Instead of waiting for the green light, he pressed the accelerator, overtook other road users, skidded in his rush and caused a devastating accident in which his passenger died. Phew, that was a really stupid thing to do.
Nevertheless, there is something positive about this incident: Night City feels much more believable and at the same time more dangerous due to all the innovations. The crowds are no longer just a backdrop, but a living part of the city that reacts to my actions and sometimes even defies me. This not only improves the game experience, but also shapes the character of Night City and I now see much more clearly what mood this city is actually trying to convey to me.
The discussion about Cyberpunk 2077
We are aware that this retest will probably lead to discussions around our original rating again. We have already commented on this in various places and summarise it again for you here:
- Yes, it was a mistake to give a rating based on the pre-release version. We shouldn’t have relied on our largely problem-free playthrough being exemplary. And no, we don’t enjoy devaluing a game immediately after testing it either.
- We continue to stand behind our rating, as we feel that our Cyberpunk review argues it comprehensibly for the majority of our community. Otherwise, despite all the problems, they would not have voted Cyberpunk 2077 the best game of 2020 by a wide margin.
- CD Projekt has nevertheless made many mistakes without question and is in the bring debt. On the one hand with Cyberpunk itself, and on the other hand in improving internal structures and working conditions so that crunches don’t happen in future projects. That the studio can’t just carry on like this after Cyberpunk 2077.
Hail to the AI
My AI opponents also react much better now. They behave much more dynamically in fights and shootouts and adapt better to the current situation. If my enemies are no longer safe in their cover, they reposition themselves. Then I, in turn, have to move in order to regain a clear shooting lane.
Other AI enemies, on the other hand, approach the battles much more aggressively, surround me and pursue me more consistently when I retreat. If enemy NPCs catch me out of the corner of their eye while I’m sneaking, they no longer stand motionless as before, but get to the bottom of the matter. I can also use this to my advantage during my sneaking missions to detach individual enemies from the group and stealthily bring them around the corner.
Whether I’m ambushing one enemy after another with my sniper or jumping into direct close combat, the AI now reacts much more naturally. Close combat in particular has more punch and it’s even more fun to try out the different approaches and play styles.
On the other hand, little has changed in the balance of the difficulty levels. The new patch is supposed to make the “Easy” level a little more challenging. The “Normal” level, however, still becomes almost too easy after a few hours of play, and on “Hard” I bite the dust faster than I can say “Arasaka”, especially in boss fights.
Full speed through Night City
One personal highlight of Patch 1.5 for me is the improved driving system. I never thought I’d say this, but: driving in Cyberpunk 2077 is now a hell of a lot of fun – and without any mods at all!
It no longer feels like I’m taking part in the class 6b soapbox competition with a self-made cart. Instead, I have much more control over the car and bike.
Finally, I can cruise and drift through the streets of Night City without knocking down three lampposts and five innocent bystanders. And if I should ever miss the exit, the emergency braking and turning around works so much smoother.
An important change for my gameplay: Whereas I used to resort to fast travel points in order to avoid having to deal with the uncontrollable tin boxes, now I even voluntarily take a few extra laps through the different city districts.
I have the feeling that I can experience Night City in a completely different way when I discover new places or simply observe the hustle and bustle on the streets as I drive by. Practical: Thanks to the double assignment, I can now also spontaneously decide at any time whether I want to control with WASD or the arrow keys.
Life can be so simple
You know when you’re – ding ding – on an important mission – drrrrrrring – and don’t really have the nerve for – bum bum be dum – anything else, but some fixer – rrrrriiiiiiiiiing – keeps calling you in the middle of it?! What has driven many players up the wall has finally come to an end: You can simply refuse the calls of your fixers if it doesn’t suit you at the moment!
But don’t worry, you won’t miss anything. The call will simply be skipped and you’ll just get a text message with the details of the gig instead. This makes life in Night City so much more enjoyable. As do many other little changes that were so long overdue.
Finally I can change V’s hairstyle if I don’t like the bright red braid anymore. Finally there’s a button for walking, so I don’t always have to step on my companions’ heels. Finally, I have a better overview on the map.
Many of the quality-of-life improvements that made their way into the game with patch 1.5 are small features that fans of Cyberpunk 2077 have been wanting since release. They make the game feel so much more rounded and intuitive. Why is it only now that I can spend the night at my partner River Ward’s house, even though he already asked me to move in with him a year ago? Now I can finally wake up next to my romantic partners, chat more with them on the phone or even text Judy’s grandma.
These changes don’t replace a full romance DLC, but Cyberpunk 2077 now plays the way I actually expected it to from the release version. All the new features don’t expand the game, they don’t fundamentally change it. But they do refine it.
When water reacts realistically to gunfire, when showers or drinking coffee give me buffs, or when I can remodel V’s flat, I lose myself further and further in the world. Maybe I’m a little detail-obsessed, but little things like that are crucial to a dense and believable atmosphere for me.
Spring cleaning in Cyberpunk 2077
Another change catches the eye particularly quickly – well, actually not anymore, because someone has cleaned up Night City properly. There are no longer so many unnecessary loot items lying around that distract from the action.
Especially in the main story sequences, I sometimes walk through areas where I can hardly pick up anything at all. For my already trained Loot Hunter eye, this was a big adjustment at first. In hindsight, though, I’m really glad I made that decision.
Instead of running after the green and blue icons at all times and stuffing my pockets with useless playing cards, condoms and stress balls, I focus my full attention on the action. And once again, I’m struck by what makes Cyberpunk 2077 so fantastic. Those dialogues, the facial expressions of my interlocutors, the emotions, the staging.
Patch 1.5 manages not only to underline the great strengths of the role-playing game, but to once again shine the spotlight on them. More than at the time of release, the open world and the numerous captivating stories push the gameplay quirks into the background.
Those who have been waiting to play Cyberpunk 2077 can now confidently start. The role-playing game has never felt as good as it does with Patch 1.5. But it’s still not enough for the Platinum Award.
Why still no 90 rating?
We had to devalue the release version by three points due to plot stoppers and annoying bugs. CD Projekt has already done a good job with the past patches and removed the most serious bugs. While playing patch 1.5, we did not encounter any serious bugs in almost 30 hours of play.
Old acquaintances such as floating weapons, corpses in yoga positions, missing sound tracks or clipping errors are nevertheless encountered again and again and thus tear us out of the otherwise so deep immersion. Patch 1.5 also brings new bugs. These are, on the one hand, minor errors that can be fixed by restarting – for example, when the EZestate website is not displayed on V’s computer or when, after buying a flat, the female V suddenly speaks in a male voice. Larger bugs were also noticed on individual test systems when the menu, the map view and the game jerked violently for a short time despite strong hardware and the problem could not be solved.
In addition, the biggest criticisms of the role-playing game, which we already denounced in our initial test, still remain. While patch 1.5 fills up the basic framework of Cyberpunk 2077 with many great little things, rounds off the game experience and thickens the atmosphere, little has been done about the bloated and opaque loot and crafting system and the difficulty levels also continue to fluctuate.
We already considered these points in our review and downgrade after the Day One patch, so our reasoning remains unchanged.
Nevertheless, the overall gaming experience of the PC version feels much more rounded after patch 1.5. Cyberpunk 2077 is just still not a technically flawless game – and it has to be if it wants to earn back the Platinum Award. For the reasons mentioned, we upgrade the role-playing game by one point and arrive at an overall rating of 89 points.
This update was an important and right step for CD Projekt. However, more changes and bug fixes must follow until we recognise Cyberpunk 2077’s platinum status again.
Editorial conclusion
I actually didn’t intend to play through Cyberpunk 2077 until the first big content DLC. But patch 1.5 made me curious and before I knew it: Bam, another 30 hours invested in the game. And what atmospheric hours they were!
Never before has the journey through Night City felt so good. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the changes are reason enough for a second run-through. However, for those who have waited so far, this is the perfect time to get started. Do I think it’s a shame that Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t released in this state at release? Yes, absolutely! But first and foremost, I’m glad that the developers really listened to player feedback and requests and gave us a completely new gameplay experience over a year after release.
It plays so much smoother when I can simply refuse annoying calls, when I can find my destination on the map immediately and when I can rent flats in the city and no longer have to drive all over town to get to my storage room. Because fast travel is now taboo, the new driving system feels way too good for that! Night City also feels less like a static backdrop and shows character with the revamped crowds.
Patch 1.5 lets the great strengths of Cyberpunk 2077 shine once again in new splendour. However, the known criticisms of the gameplay and annoying bugs remain to a large extent. CD Projekt still has a lot of work ahead of them. But with this update they have shown that they are going in the right direction. I’m looking forward to future patches and DLCs. Until then, I’ll probably spend another 50 hours with Cyberpunk 2077 1.5.
