‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Will Be Free To Play For A Bit, Here’s How To Get It

CDPR has decided that they want as many people as humanly possible to play Cyberpunk 2077. That’s why in a few days, they will offer part of the game for free on current gen consoles for a limited time.

That starts on Thursday, March 28 at 8 AM PDT and ends Sunday, March 31 at 11:59 PDT. So, free long weekend. You can, however, only play the first five hours, which should be a good chunk of the first chapter with the Konpeki Plaza heist. I do not know if there is a hard stop point if you blaze through that part, or just ignore it. This does not require a PS Plus or Xbox Live (Game Pass Core) subscription.

Why the free trial? Well, the idea is that after playing for a period of time, that you will be so hooked on the (now very fixed and well-optimized, gorgeous) game that you will want to purchase it outright after the free period ends. Or you may also want to buy the extremely good Phantom Liberty DLC, released last fall, which can be played midway through the campaign, and I would say it contains the best story content in the game.

I don’t think I need to answer the “is it worth playing?” question as yeah, it’s free, so why not, but as someone who was as angry about its poor launch as anyone, over time, Cyberpunk 2077 has become one of my favorite games not just of the generation, but of all time. It’s my favorite story-driven RPG ever, with some of gaming’s best NPCs and questlines, and combat that is exceptionally fun with any build you can manage, especially with the whole skill tree and Cyberware rework the game introduced in its last big update.

On top of that, at least on PC, I don’t think there is a game that is better looking currently available, as Cyberpunk with its path tracing settings, also added post-launch, is about as gorgeous as you’ll find in the industry. Though obviously you need a massive rig to take advantage of that. We are a far cry from the game looking and playing so bad on PS4 Sony had to issue refunds. But yes this free trial is only on console, not PC.

When the game launches for free, I will have a special feature that CDPR helped me concoct, so stay tuned for that. As ever, I highly recommend Cyberpunk 2077 if you haven’t played it in the last three years, and no matter what you’ve heard, no matter how launch went, it is a transformed game that is one of the best I’ve ever played. I wish I could play it again for the first time (when the first time was this current, fixed, upgraded version).

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.