Category: Video Games

CD Projekt has deemed Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty a commercial success after revealing it hit similar numbers to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.

Speaking to IGN, CD Projekt confirmed Phantom Liberty has an attach rate of approximately 23%, meaning 23% of players who bought the base Cyberpunk 2077 also bought the expansion. As revealed by co-CEO Michał Nowakowski on X/Twitter, The Witcher 3’s Hearts of Stone expansion had a 22% attach rate and Blood and Wine had a 24% attach rate within three months of launch.

What propels Phantom Liberty even further, however, is its release around two years and nine months after the base Cyberpunk 2077 launched. Hearts of Stone arrived around five months after The Witcher 3 and Blood and Wine arrived around one year after, when downloadable content is traditionally released and general engagement is typically higher.

Obsidian Entertainment studio design director Josh Sawyer pointed this out on X/Twitter in November 2023, when CD Projekt revealed Phantom Liberty had sold 4.3 million copies with an attach rate of 20%, saying his studio hopes for around a 25% attach rate on DLC released within a few months, “so a 20% attach rate on an expansion two-and-a-half years after launch is pretty impressive”.

This extended length of time between the base game and Phantom Liberty launching — sparked by CD Projekt having to address myriad issues that even saw Cyberpunk 2077 removed from the PlayStation Store after its initial release — seemingly caused the developer to question making the expansion at all.

“To be honest, the decision to go through with the expansion so long after launch of the single-player game was a bit counterintuitive,” Nowakowski said in the post. “But what happened is proof to us that solid content that people are happy with is the way to go.”

CD Projekt previously revealed Phantom Liberty sold more than five million copies in 2023 after it added a new area to Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City and a spy thriller storyline starring Idris Elba upon its launch in September. The expansion was received very well by critics, with IGN giving it a 9/10 in our review.

The developer released the final major update for Cyberpunk 2077 in December 2023, essentially ending the game’s three-year journey of active post-launch development. Attention at CD Projekt Red has now switched to its next projects, which include Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel, codenamed Orion, and the next mainline Witcher game, codenamed Polaris.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Stephanie Tyler Jones, who provided her likeness for the Mary Jane character in Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man series of video games, has called out fans who recently “crossed boundaries”.

Taking to Instagram, Jones said one fan in particular had left multiple voicemails “wanting to speak with me and requesting I call back” at her place of work. This behaviour, Jones said, was “unacceptable” and “considered stalking”, with the voicemails leaving her feeling “unsafe” and “uncomfortable”.

Video game accessory maker Hyperkin has remade the original Xbox’s Controller S, which was a slimmer version of the infamous Duke, calling it The DuchesS.

As reported by The Verge, the DuchesS takes the original gamepad’s design and updates it with modern features like hall effect joysticks. These use magnets and electrical conductors instead of the electrical resistance used in standard joysticks, essentially extending the controller’s life span as there’s no actually friction.

Larian Studios has kicked off 2024 with a beefy Baldur’s Gate 3 hotfix that tackles multiple bugs and blockers, and makes accessing trinkets much easier.

“Have your party members been hoarding trinkets?” Larian wrote with typical flair in the Baldur’s Gate 3 patch notes published on Steam.

“Did you accidentally send Minthara’s lute to your camp supplies, thinking nobody could possibly need a lute in this day and age? In this hotfix, you will now be able to access certain quest-related items on the spot – even if they’re not held by your current party! How’s that for magic pockets?”

Elsewhere, the hotfix added categories to the Waypoints list, grouping Waypoints by location. Also of note is yet another fix for a kiss: “Fixed Gale’s dialogue ending abruptly when asking him for a kiss,” Larian said. “Enjoy the moment.”

Meanwhile, Larian told Mac players of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game that it’s “restructuring” to make sure future updates on Mac arrive alongside their PC versions. “It’ll take a bit of time but once finished, there shouldn’t be delays anymore,” Larian said. Until then, Larian expects a delay for updates of a maximum of two weeks. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience and understand this is frustrating,” Larian said. “Thank you for your patience.”

Here are the Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix #16 patch notes in full:

HIGHLIGHTS

• The cross-save functionality will no longer sync modded saves, as they cannot be accessed by console players.
• Added categories to the Waypoints list, grouping Waypoints by location.
• You will now be able to access certain quest-related items on the spot, even if they are currently in the camp chest or in the inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp.
• Added a couple of Potions of Animal Speaking to the Epilogue.
• Karlach will now get her scene in Avernus regardless of whether she’s an avatar or a companion.
• Wyll will now follow Karlach to Avernus correctly.
• Fixed the Hide Helmet option resetting for companions after saving and loading.
• Cazador now has 3 variations of his Legendary Action depending on how many Ritual charges he has. The more charges he has, the more dangerous his Vampiric Swarm is.
• Fixed several issues with low resolution textures appearing after extended playtimes.
• Fixed a visual bug where certain doors would reappear briefly when destroyed.
• Fixed Gale’s dialogue ending abruptly when asking him for a kiss. Enjoy the moment.

CRASHES AND BLOCKERS

• Fixed a potential crash related to quickloading.
• Fixed a crash that would occur when unloading and then loading a region.
• Fixed a crash when changing VSync settings.
• Fixed a crash when destroying the spiderweb under the Spider Matriarch.
• Fixed the potential cause of not being able to save the game (Error 701, crashing the game).
• Fixed a crash that could happen when showing a pop-up message after lockpicking an item.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the grenade launchers during Gortash’s fight to bypass Turn-Based Mode and deploy grenades in real-time, which could result in a crash. We call that cheating.
• Fixed a crash that would occur when removing condition-based auras from modded savegames.
• Fixed a possible crash when getting the available party gold during a trade.
• Fixed some issues that could prevent savegames made under rare conditions from loading up.

COMBAT AND BALANCE

• The Spectral Form passive is no longer hidden.
• Fixed Balthazar’s Spectral Form not triggering when Balthazar succeeded in a Saving Throw but still got damaged.
• Fixed Auntie Ethel not using Weird Magic Surge when struck by Repelling Blast in Honour Mode.
• Fixed the scrying eyes’ damage mitigation mechanic in Tactician Mode not working the first time they are damaged.
• In Tactician difficulty, Cazador now transforms into a unique mist form that threatens his foes with a necrotic aura.
• Ability Drain will not be able to reduce a target’s ability below 1.
• Improved the way Legendary Resistance works, now only triggering when it is actually useful.

GAMEPLAY

• Fixed Astarion not being available through the companion menu at camp if you sent him directly to camp during the recruitment dialogue.
• In Honour Mode, the Eggbearer condition is now also applied when the mummy owlbear is dead but the daddy owlbear is alive.
• Fixed an issue in Honour Mode where the damage from Smite spells wouldn’t trigger items that activate when damaged.
• You can no longer trade with Grukkoh the bugbear via the dialogue button before you’ve, uh, caught his attention.
• Using a weapon that uses your Spellcasting Ability Modifier instead of the normal Ability Modifier will now choose the Spellcasting Ability with the highest value.
• Fixed Group Hide not working properly when a party character is Downed.
• Myrmidons’ weapons cannot be looted from their bodies after Long Rest anymore.
• Fixed the Elemental Weapon, Magic Weapon, Heat Metal, and Daylight conditions persisting on the weapon after a Long Rest.
• Fixed an issue that would affect some players controlling more than one avatar, which caused several naked characters to appear over them after the first Dream Visitor dream.
• Fixed an issue where reconnecting to a multiplayer session would assign a player an avatar in Withers’ Wardrobe without taking said avatar out of the wardrobe. They don’t open from the inside!
• Stealing a couple hundred items in one go no longer results in the game becoming unresponsive for quite some time afterwards while it deals with your kleptomaniac overindulgence. It may still freeze for a short period while processing the inventory transfer, though.
• NPCs on the floor below you, can no longer ‘see’ you looting corpses up there.
• When handing back stackable stolen items (such as healing potions), you will no longer lose all of them, but only the number you stole.

FLOW AND SCRIPTING

• Fixed an issue preventing some players from advancing into Act III, looping them back to Act II.
• Barcus Wroot should now show up correctly at Last Light Inn if you have saved him from his previous predicaments.
• Fixed avatar Karlach being able to initiate the first romance scene with Lae’zel after proving her worth to Lae’zel, which should not be possible for her due to her engine still not being upgraded.
• Tweaked the trigger conditions for Lae’zel’s initial romance dialogue after proving your worth to her so that it only triggers if the player controlling her has a single avatar. This is to avoid accidentally triggering the dialogue with an unintended avatar in case you have multiple.
• Fixed some wrong character behaviours likely introduced in Patch 4.
• Fixed an issue preventing some dialogue options with Alfira and Nadira from showing up.
• Fixed Auntie Ethel prematurely teleporting to Act III if you pick up her corpse in Act I.
• Gale is now less likely to lie to you about wanting to return the Crown of Karsus when making his decision in the endgame.
• Raphael will no longer make a surprise appearance during the Epilogue if you made a deal with him and then decided to kill him.
• Wyll will now appear during the initial Epilogue scene if he’s the Blade of Avernus and does not have a partner.
• Fixed a couple of issues with Mizora’s dialogue getting stuck.
• Fixed a blocker in the House of Hope in which Raphael wouldn’t appear if he was Silenced in Sharess’ Caress.
• Fixed a blocker where you were able to banish Hope while she’s chained, preventing you from saving her.
• The avatar dismissal dialogue will now be closed if the user rejoins the session while it is still active.
• Duke Ravengard will now correctly hold the bars of his cell door while imprisoned in the Iron Throne instead of staying idle, seemingly unbothered by everything going on.
• Characters that are attacked while disappearing out of sight will now resume their disappearing after combat ends. Back to the shadows with you.

PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMISATION

• Fixed an issue where switching between party members would cause performance to drop.
• Fixed a texture issue in Character Creation at Low and Medium settings.

UI

• The proficiency bonuses on Explorer difficulty are now correctly accounted for in Character Creation.
• Fixed an issue causing the Level Up screen to display the incorrect HP gain when increasing Constitution.
• Fixed some instances where incorrect items would be selected when dragging them in the Trade menu.
• Fixed an issue that prevented respeccing into a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer if you chose a spell that was already available from the Draconic Bloodline.
• The values in the Skill tooltips on the Level Up screen will now update when you add Expertise.
• Fixed the ‘Can’t control’ warning not disappearing under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue that briefly prevented you from interacting with an item in the inventory if it had been unequipped or equipped previously with the X button.
• When a tutorial pop-up refers to an option in the shortcuts radial menu on controller, the option will now be highlighted.
• Fixed ‘(Empty)’ sometimes briefly appearing next to an item’s name when highlighting it on Xbox.
• Added descriptions for the different difficulty levels in the Additional Combat Mechanics options on Custom Mode.
• Fixed a caching issue in the radial menus. This could, for instance, cause some Disguise Self options to not appear after cancelling and returning to the spell.
• The lovely dark veins you get on your face when you become part-illithid now show up correctly in the Magic Mirror.
• Fixed surface names sometimes appearing above characters on controller.
• Increased the opacity of certain text boxes in the Reactions UI on controller to improve visibility.
• Fixed a blocker where UI pop-ups wouldn’t close if the window behind them was closed first. This could happen, for example, when a cinematic dialogue triggered and closed the map while you were still naming a custom marker.
• Fixed the loading screen not showing an image when joining a multiplayer session.
• Fixed the damage type in the Crushing Fist spell tooltip.
• The Legendary Resistance: Incapacitation tooltip now mentions that it can only be used 3 times.
• Made sure the grid shown in inventories is correctly drawn if the grid becomes smaller.
• Removed a low resolution version of one of the loading screen images.
• Fixed an issue that caused some Video Settings like VSync and Refresh Rate to reset back upon starting the game.
• Removed the option to confirm or reset options in the Alter Custom Mode menu for players who are not the host of a session.
• Total party gold is no longer seen in barter mode.
• Fixed an issue with the radial menus on controller causing the same items to get re-added to the same submenu and the Action radial menu to sometimes appear empty.

LEVEL DESIGN

• Removed some world labels that were showing up for a pair of dice in Withers’ chapel in the Epilogue camp that made it look like they could be picked up. Also swapped out a cutting board.

ART

• Optimised the appearance of platforms with chains in Grymforge.
• Fixed some minor visual issues with weapons.
• Fixed impact VFX/SFX not working for some projectiles.

ANIMATION

• Fixed a zombie that would T-pose when dragged from your inventory.
• Fixed some destruction animations that weren’t working properly.

SOUND

• Fixed the wrong ambience sounds playing in the Last Light region and Wyrm’s Rock Fortress.

WRITING

• Wyll is now appropriately celebratory upon the Netherbrain’s defeat.
• Added text to the tooltip for Cazador’s Misty Escape ability on Tactician Mode.
• Fixed Gerringothe Thorm’s Sublimation ability tooltip incorrectly stating that it should kill the target instantly.
• Wyll now has a line during the ending scene when realising the tadpoles are gone.
• Added an extra dialogue option when talking to Shadowheart in the Epilogue to fix a path that only gave you one choice.
• Fixed the Wrathful Spirits condition saying the affected entity is Immune to all damage instead of Vulnerable to all damage.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

While the winds of Christmas and New Year are behind us, there’s another name on the lips of PlayStation fans in 2024: PlayStation Portal. While the initial reaction to the ‘play PS5 on your sofa’ device was mild, stock levels have proved extremely limited, and now everyone wants one. We gave the device an 8/10 in our review, stating that it’s a great second screen for your PS5, but lack of Bluetooth and an internet browser limit its use outside the house.

For now, we’re all on the hunt for one of these tidy devices, as the allure of fighting over the TV during the holidays quickly becomes a reality. You’re in the right place, as we’ve got all the details on where and when you can buy the PS Portal for the foreseeable future in the UK. For stock news in the US, check out our other relevant PS Portal buyer’s guide.

PlayStation Portal: When Will It Be Back in Stock?

PlayStation Portal is currently out of stock. There have been little to no new stock updates on the PS Portal in 2024, so we are still awaiting a massive new restock across all retailers again. We’re anticipating there will be one soon, so for instant updates on PS Portal stock, ensure you are following @IGNUKDeals on Twitter/X, or join our dedicated IGN Deals Discord server here where a friendly IGN writer will be happy to answer any queries. Stay tuned for more updates across other retailers who may be restocking this year and beyond.

Where to Buy PS Portal in the UK

• See at Amazon
• See at Argos
• See at PS Direct
• See at Very
• See at Smyths
• See at GAME

What is the PS Portal? – Cost, Release Date, and More

PlayStation Portal launched on November 15 in the UK and costs £199.99 RRP. Unlike other handheld consoles like the Nintendo Switch, the PS Portal is a purely a second screen for your PS5. If the TV is being used, or you just want to play on the sofa or in bed, this is the perfect compansion piece for your shiny console — especially those who have just invested in the PS5 over Black Friday deals.

PlayStation Black Friday Deals

Xbox and Nintendo fans, don’t feel disheartened if they’re getting a little bit of special treatment right now — the deals are pretty amazing. For starters we’ve got the PS5 for £360, or the PS5 bundles including two free games for £400; unbelievable jeff.

There’s also a PS5 2TB SSD for less than £100 to maximise that storage, and a DualSense controller for just £39.99. PS Plus is also up to 30% off right now for new and current members, but you can save even more with a ShopTo gift card deal. For example, new members can get 12-months of PS Plus for £83.99 (down from £99.99), but the ShopTo £84 gift card costs just £74.85 so you’re securing a total saving of £25.14.

See More PS5 Deals

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.