Cyberpunk 2077 free DLC confirmed — what you need to know

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Cyberpunk 2077 looks beyond its troubled launch with first free DLC

Cyberpunk 2077 keanu reeves
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

Cyberpunk 2077 will get some free DLC in early 2021, as developer/publisher CD Projekt Red looks to move past its disastrous launch.

Bugs, poor console performance, offered then rejected refunds and even a class action lawsuit have stripped the sheen off Cyberpunk 2077’s strong sales performance, but a new DLC page on the game’s official site shows that CDPR is moving ahead with its add-on content plans.

Details are scarce: “Free DLC starts hitting Night City early 2021” is the page’s only message, besides a call to stay tuned. Still, it confirms the plans teased in a hidden message within the Cyberpunk 2077 launch trailer: that the game would follow a similar DLC model to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with a mix of free and premium DLC packs. The first of this free content would indeed launch early next year, according to the message.

Cyberpunk 2077 hidden message

(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

The Witcher 3’s free DLC came in small but varied drops, like armor sets, new animations and alternative character skins, with a few small-scale quests thrown in. So, if Cyberpunk 2077 follows this template, you can probably expect more of the same, with bigger story-based expansions to come later.

That’s all well and good, though any DLC will need to share development time with a number of major patches that are planned to fix the game’s myriad bugs and performance woes. One of these, version 1.06, went live last week, and included various fixes for memory crashes, disappearing characters and the bizarre 8MB save file size limit that wiped the progress of the game’s most dedicated players. 

Two more of these big patches are scheduled for January and February respectively.

James Archer
James Archer

James is currently Hardware Editor at Rock Paper Shotgun, but before that was Audio Editor at Tom’s Guide, where he covered headphones, speakers, soundbars and anything else that intentionally makes noise. A PC enthusiast, he also wrote computing and gaming news for TG, usually relating to how hard it is to find graphics card stock.