The Case For ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Going To Xbox Game Pass For ‘Phantom Liberty’ Launch

Phantom Liberty

CDPR just announced that Cyberpunk 2077 is heading to Gamescom for an appearance at the Xbox booth, where its upcoming DLC, Phantom Liberty, will be on display.

I’d argue that there is no better time than the launch of Phantom Liberty to for CDPR to go one step further with this partnership, and finally bring Cyberpunk 2077 to Xbox Game Pass.

Well over a year ago, there was a “leaked” screenshot of Cyberpunk 2077 coming to Game Pass Ultimate. That may have been fake, and nothing ever came of it, but in September of 2022, CDPR did address the idea of Cyberpunk heading to a subscription service on an investor call:

"As for the second question – whether there are any potential deals with Xbox [Game Pass] and PlayStation [Plus] – we’ve done some deals in the past, but if there’s any deal happening, we’ll only be able to talk about in the future, and anything that’s going to happen will be announced at an appropriate time. We don’t have anything on this matter to share now."

Cyberpunk 2077

I’d argue that time is probably now, and given this cozy relationship with Xbox, Game Pass seems like the most likely option.

While releasing games day one on Xbox Game Pass, especially for third parties, feels like a much larger risk, given the forgone sales, doing so three years later for Cyberpunk 2077 feels like something that’s much more plausible, especially given CDPR’s past comments about being open to it, and the upcoming DLC which could be sold on top of the free base game (which you can easily sink 100 hours into). I have no idea if this might be announce at Gamescom, given the obvious current partnership with Xbox, but I think it’s a good idea. We’ll see if CDPR agrees. You know Xbox would.

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