Yesterday, CD Projekt RED released a pretty sizeable update for Cyberpunk 2077 out of nowhere. The 2.2 update came with an improved photo mode, a bunch of new cars to buy from Autofixer, the ability to save and apply your custom car coatings to other vehicles, and ol' Keanu Reeves zapping himself into the passenger seat as you cruise around the city, commenting on your surroundings and flipping off passers-by like the bad boy he is.
There's a bunch of other new tweaks listed in the 2.2 update too, but IGN uncovered something that didn't make it onto the official patchnotes: a whole new sidequest based on this year's roguelike poker-like deckbuilder Balatro.
The quest begins with you getting a message from one 'Jim B', who tells you about a gang of rogue jokers scattered around the city. This kicks off a treasure hunt where you look for pixel-art images of Balatro's joker cards tagged around the city, with the reward being a whimsical Joker shirt and Balatro trophy.
Some time ago, I asked the Quest Design team at CDPR: “You liked the Cyberpunk cards in Balatro? What if we had Balatro cards in Cyberpunk 2077?” Thanks to the talented Quest Designer Maria Mazur, we now have the Balatro quest in Update 2.2. 🃏 Amazing work, Maria! 👏 https://t.co/unjw4XzYyTDecember 11, 2024
Judging by Balatro's tweet to Cyberpunk asking about why their Joker cards were suddenly plastered around Night City, the devs were clearly involved in this crossover. According to CDPR's Global PR Director Radek Grabowski, the devs felt inspired by the Cyberpunk 2077 cards that were added to Balatro in October, and decided to return the favour and chuck Balatro cards around Night City. So they set Cyberpunk's Quest Designer Maria Mazur to work, and here we have it: a Balatro-themed treasure hunt!
According to this Reddit thread, there are quite a few other additions that weren't listed in the Cyberpunk 2077 2.2 patch notes, including a new street race in Watson, more colour variants of existing weapons, and a little rejig to the counterpunch whereby it no longer has the slow-motion effect.
The update comes as an unexpected Christmas surprise for Cyberpunk players, though considering CDPR said almost exactly a year ago that the 2.1 update would be the 'last big one,' I'm now stumped about whether to finally give the game another pop. Had I completed Cyberpunk before this update only to find that I'd missed out on having Johnny Silverhand ride shotgun with me, I'd probably never have recovered from the FOMO. Who's to say that they won't release hoverboards in patch 2.3, or wall-running in patch 2.4?
Yep, I think I'll wait just a little bit longer…
