Cyberpunk 2077 is good now. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's great. One of the most calamitous launches in videogame history finally made good after a bevy of updates and the meaty Phantom Liberty expansion, a journey that's had some of us at PC Gamer asking if the game was actually just in a kind of warped early access for three years. Given that Baldur's Gate 3, our Game of the Year for 2023, had a long (and formal) early access period, we asked Phantom Liberty quest director Paweł Sasko at GDC if Cyberpunk might have benefited from the same thing.
"Maybe there is a way for AAA [games] to use early access," said Sasko, "but I would be cautious with that, just because there is a very specific situation with Larian here." For instance, it could draw on a pre-existing love for the Baldur's Gate series, whose games were "really big behemoths and important projects in the history of our industry," and pre-existing mechanics from Larian's own Divinity: Original Sin games.
