Over the last week or so there has been a lot of confusion around microtransactions in Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red’s latest game is a mainly single player experience, though multiplayer is planned for the future. Given that they didn’t charge for anything but the two big premium expansions for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it would seem like an odd move to suddenly include single player microtransactions in their latest game. However, the company has cleared things up in a recent tweet, making it very obvious what the actual situation will be when Cyberpunk 2077 releases.
Nothing changed. Cyberpunk 2077 is a single player game with zero microtransactions. One single purchase. No tricks. Don't believe the clickbait. https://t.co/qX0iZwsAf2
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) September 7, 2020
To make it plainly clear, Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t going to have any microtransactions. It’s a single player experience, and it’s going to stay that way. The game will probably have some paid DLC at some point, but there will also be free updates. This is in line with how the developer acted with The Witcher 3, and I’d expect nothing less.
So where are the microtransactions rumours coming from? Well, the multiplayer aspect of Cyberpunk 2077, which CD Projekt Red says will be a completely separate project, will have microtransactions. The multiplayer element to the game now sounds as if it will be a separate release, standalone. This could be similar to how Call of Duty: Warzone is separate to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The game will most likely see some sort of season payment model implementation, meaning that you can buy a battle pass every few months, and earn new cosmetics as a result.
The beauty of this model is that Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t get sullied with the microtransactions of the multiplayer project. People expect some microtransactions in a multiplayer game these days, it’s how the developer justifies the support they provide. I think that whatever CD Projekt Red is cooking up for this multiplayer game, it’ll be a lot of fun, and worth spending some money on. With that said, I’d only spend money in it if it’s free-to-play. Having to pay for a game, and then more for cosmetics, feels cheap, and I don’t think CD Projekt Red would do that.
We’ve seen the harm that microtransactions can do to a single player before. Dead Space 3 had them, and they provided a way to basically pay your way through the game. They were awful, and the series was killed off as a result. CD Projekt Red aren’t as stupid as EA, so I’m sure that they’ll not repeat the same mistake.
