Cyberpunk 2077 Is Still Pulling Big Numbers
Cyberpunk 2077 launched on December 10, 2020. Its release was rough enough that it wiped out roughly three quarters of CD Projekt’s market value and became a textbook example of a bad PC and console launch. Bugs, performance problems and missing features overshadowed what was supposed to be a flagship RPG for high end rigs.
Fast forward five years and the picture looks completely different. Despite being a singleplayer game with no live service hooks, Cyberpunk 2077 is still drawing big crowds. On Steam alone the game recently hit a peak of almost 44,000 concurrent players in a single day. That is a huge number for a five year old story driven RPG and shows just how much the game has recovered after patches, free updates and the Phantom Liberty expansion.
With the fifth anniversary landing on December 10, fans naturally started looking for signs that CD Projekt was planning something special. That is where a seemingly simple social media post turned into a full on hype storm.
The Mysterious Anniversary Tease
On December 1, the official Cyberpunk 2077 account posted a cryptic message on X that looked like a secure transmission. It listed a few key dates.
- Cyberpunk 2077 — 10.12
- Reed, Solomon — 12.12
- Song, So Mi — 29.12
For fans, this looked like the start of a new content rollout plan. The date 10.12 matches the game’s fifth anniversary, and the other names are tied to Phantom Liberty characters. That was enough to kick off a flood of theories about what might be coming.
People speculated about all kinds of possibilities.
- A surprise free update or patch with new features
- A small piece of story DLC
- New in game events tied to character birthdays
- Maybe even a bigger expansion stealth dropped around the anniversary window
The post used in universe styling, like a secure communications channel being opened, which only fueled expectations. Cyberpunk fans are hungry for more content and the game’s turnaround in quality has turned cautious players into true believers again.
However the community hype train quickly outran reality.
CD Projekt Pours Cold Water On The Hype
The social team behind Cyberpunk 2077 tried to joke about how even a wholesome post now sparks wild conspiracy theories. That did not stop players from picking apart every line looking for secrets. Eventually it fell to CD Projekt’s global community director Marcin Momot to spell it out clearly.
He explained that the post was not a teaser of new content. Instead it was part of a regular monthly tradition: posts that celebrate in universe character birthdays. Every month the team highlights which major characters would canonically have birthdays coming up, and this time they also added the game’s own anniversary date to the list.
Previous months back this up. Recent posts highlighted birthdays for:
- Rogue Amendiares
- Johnny Silverhand
- Judy Alvarez
- The main character V in both Valerie and Vincent form
The December post simply continued that pattern. The secure comms style, while fun, was not meant to hint at a secret update timeline.
For anyone hoping for a huge fifth anniversary patch or brand new DLC, that is a bit of a letdown. Officially this message is not a coded roadmap or a stealth marketing beat. It is just a lore friendly way to mark important days for fan favorite characters and the game itself.
Even so, the story does not completely end there. CD Projekt has previously said it was finished with Cyberpunk 2077, only to return later with surprise updates that improved performance, tweaked systems or added smaller new features. In other words the studio is not afraid to say one thing and then quietly ship more support when it feels right.
There is also timing to consider. The Game Awards takes place on December 11, right after the game’s fifth anniversary. CD Projekt has already ruled out any Witcher 4 appearance at the show but did not explicitly say that Cyberpunk 2077 would be absent. That slim gap in the messaging is exactly the kind of opening fans love to latch onto.
Right now there is no confirmed new content, no announced free patch and no public plan for another expansion. What exists is a game that has clawed its way back from a disastrous launch to become a staple recommendation for PC gamers, especially those with stronger hardware that can really push its visual settings and ray tracing features.
Whether the fifth anniversary comes and goes quietly or surprises everyone with one more update, Cyberpunk 2077 has already pulled off one of the most impressive comebacks in modern PC gaming. The community’s reaction to a simple birthday post shows that plenty of players are still ready to jack back into Night City the moment CD Projekt gives them any reason to return.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/cd-projekt-winds-up-cyberpunk-2077-fans-with-fifth-anniversary-post-then-cruelly-breaks-their-hearts-were-not-teasing-anything/
