All the Biggest Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 Features

In its continuing efforts to rebuild Cyberpunk 2077 from its poor launch reputation, CD Projekt RED has released the enormous Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update ahead of the Phantom Liberty DLC release.

This update has major system overhauls, new systems, new balance, and more, so it can be rather overwhelming. We're here to take a look at the biggest Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update changes so that you know what you’re getting into when you visit Night City.

Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Updates Car Combat

Long awaited since the game came out, you can now actually participate in combat when in cars. No longer is it just other people shooting at you, but you can shoot back, and even acquire armed vehicles. Mounted weaponry is also possible, with the option in the base game being a heavy machine gun on your vehicle. Coming next week in Phantom Liberty will be missiles and the ability to buy cars with both weapons.

Additionally, you are able to use handguns from any car to fire at foes – meaning you can use pistols or revolvers from your old reliable ride or that Delamain you may have lying around. You can also shoot out tires, which comes in handy in several quests. It's also useful if you get a high wanted level with the new Cyberpunk 2077 police system, as that can lead to car chases and roadblocks.

To deal with the problems of aiming, CD Projekt RED has implemented an auto-aim solution by default. Essentially these will lock onto the area where your foe is and target there, with the range for missing with your handheld weapons generally being larger.

You can also choose to aim manually, giving you more control to do things like shooting out tires or picking out particular foes. Phantom Liberty even has a whole gig type based around grabbing cars, which often involves car chases.

They’ve also made buying cars less of a hassle. Instead of sorting through a mess of messages from fixers, now you can buy and get your cars delivered from Autofixer, a new site that you can access from a number of terminals and computers in the game world.

Beyond that, you can further up your vehicle game with some of the new perks. There are five perks that directly improve vehicles that come as part of the Cyberpunk 2077 perk overhaul in the 2.0 update.

Perk Overhaul in Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0

Cyberpunk 2077 completely overhauls perks and tosses out what was there before in this update. Gone are the subsections, and other busywork for essentially three focused trees in each attribute, with clusters around major perks that further improve them.

Those major perks all have multiple levels needed to unlock fully, and doing so is required to move further down a tree. Additionally, each unlocks a number of minor child perks, many of which improve or broaden the major perk that they are tied to.

Each perk tree is tied to an attribute, and what perks you can buy is determined by your score in that attribute. To buy the lowest level of perks, called Rookie, you need to have a score of 4, while Legend, the top tier, needs the attribute maxed out at 20.

These perks offer substantial boosts or game-changing experiences, with the minor bonuses largely being relegated to minor perks or the reworked ‘skill’ tree that you gain levels in by just doing the activity. This frees up your perk slots to help define what V can do, and not just hitting statistical benchmarks.

Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0's New Police System

Many players have lamented the very basic way crime and punishment was previously handled in Cyberpunk 2077, with the lack of consequences to action.

Well the laments can end, as this update adds a full GTA-inspired police system to Cyberpunk 2077. You can earn up to 5 Wanted stars, with the Night City Police Department taking escalating actions against you depending on your actions, from a few cops chasing you, to roadblocks and car chases, up to them calling in heavy duty MaxTac support at 5 Stars. It adds more liveliness to a game that has so often focused on immersion.

Like in GTA, you'll need to break contact with the police and lay low for a couple minutes until they move on. While it's perhaps a bit credulous that they might move on so quickly when you have gone on a rampage, I would merely point out that lower-level crimes probably happen all the time in Night City... and at the high-level stars, don't you think the NCPD might just want to get away themselves, if given an excuse?

It’s not just a wanted system that they’ve put in the game though; they’ve fundamentally changed how the police interact with the world. You can find NCPD cops around the city, doing work, investigating crime scenes, and other tasks. And if they see you commit a crime, they'll start to take action or break off their normal patterns if you pass their way during a chase.

There’s even a police radio you can listen into now for the lowdown on what’s going on with the cops. In a change that marks an understanding that players will be likely to be in combat with the NCPD, they are now hackable, ending the days of terror for Netrunners everywhere, who are already dealing with some severe nerfing in this update.

Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 Cyberware and Clothes Overhaul

Of course that wasn’t the only rebalancing that took place; plenty of that happened in the game, though only one 'rebalancing' is on par with the perk overhaul. That would be Cyberpunk 2077's new cyberware system and clothing overhaul. This change moves almost all armor and abilities to cyberware and away from clothing, allowing you the freedom to dress stylish.

Pieces of cyberware may now grant armor in addition to its other abilities. The amount of armor varies heavily on the piece, iter, and other specifics, though some regions like the skeleton are heavily focused on providing armor. What and how much cyberware you can equip has also undergone a drastic overhaul.

Now, what cyberware you can equip is based on your cyberware capacity, a new stat added in this update. Your cyberware capacity is based on your level, perks, upgrade shards you find, and the engineer skill, giving you effectively a maximum amount of cyberware you can equip.

It creates tradeoffs for what to plug in, though those specializing in technical ability perks can wear significantly more over time. Gone is the hard stat requirements from cyberware. Instead it has its cyberware capacity cost, which for some items can be quite high.

Additionally, cyberware is generally associated with an attribute, and it will give a bonus based on what your attribute score is. This creates incentives for certain builds to use them, but it doesn't block off your weird idea from being equippable.

As for clothing, while some of it has some stat bonuses still, it generally isn’t that much – typically restricted to something like +20 armor for a bulletproof vest or up to +10% in a particular situation or instance. While I think it would have been better to commit fully to the clothing is just style, making the bonuses this small at least means you don’t feel significantly punished for not wearing the stat boosts.

There’s a lot more in the Cyberpunk 2077 update 2.0, but I hope this gives you what you need to hop in. There's even more coming in Phantom Liberty next week if you are planning to pick that up to explore some new areas in Night City, but it ties in a lot with the overhauls that have happened here.