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Note: This guide contains spoilers for one of the story quests in Cyberpunk 2077. Read on at your own risk!

The stakes get raised pretty significantly in Cyberpunk 2077 as you work through Act 2. After protagonist V acquires the biochip and finds Johnny Silverhand in their head, you set out on a journey to find out all you can about the chip and how you can get rid of it before it kills you. Your investigation goes down several avenues, including working with Goro Takemura, a former Arasaka bodyguard.

You'll spend a lot of time with Takemura as you investigate Arasaka and try to get in touch with the corporate brass, without getting yourself killed in the process. But eventually, things take a turn and you're separated from Takemura at a key moment during the story mission Play It Safe. When the pair of you are attacked during a meeting in an apartment building, V falls through a collapsed floor, separating you from Takemura. At this point, you have a choice, although it's not immediately clear: run for your life, or return to Takemura and save him from being overwhelmed by enemies.

Cyberpunk 2077 hasn't had the smoothest launch, and for some PC players the problem has been exacerbated by the game's issues with certain components. Right now, players AMD CPUs are having issues with performance--but there's a way to improve things.

A Reddit thread has discovered a fault with the game, whereby it only recognizes physical cores on AMD chips, not logical cores. While Intel CPUs face no issue, AMD users can see enormous performance drops.

Thankfully, all you'll need to do to rectify the issue is change a single line through a Hex Editor. PC Gamer has a great guide on how to do this, recommending freeware HxD as the editor to use.

There are many, many weapons in Cyberpunk 2077. The most special of these are called Iconic weapons: unique, custom weapons that are a step above the ones you'll find on any old corpse. These come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but none is as distinctive and full of personality as Skippy, the talking smart pistol.

Ostensibly based on Microsoft's Clippy, the pop-up paperclip that used to help us with Word documents, Skippy is an AI-operated smart pistol. A shot from a smart gun will automatically seek targets mid-air, which is as useful as it sounds. Normally, you need cyberware in your hands that will enable you to use smart weapons; however, a major advantage to Skippy is that it doesn't require cyberware to use.

To find Skippy, head to a back alley in the Glen, southeast of Corpo Plaza. See the map in the image below to pinpoint the area.

In 2020, when leaving the house and being with friends and loved ones has been harder than usual because of the COVID-19 pandemic, socially distanced game nights have become part of many people's social routine. The newly released Jackbox Party Pack 7, and the six earlier games in the series, are excellent games to play with friends--and doing so through Twitch just got a little easier.

Twitch has announced the Jackbox Audience Kit, an extension for streams that makes it possible to join Jackbox games without needing to open a separate browser. This extension lets audiences join the game through the Twitch app, making it easier to join in on games.

As long as the Twitch streamer has installed and enabled the extension, joining a game is a simple process of following the on-screen instructions.

2020 is the year of consoles battling for supremacy, and China is another arena for the big three--Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo--to duke it out. The country, however, is a complicated place for gaming corporations to distribute their products officially due to its strict and opaque media regulations. Consoles were banned in the country until 2013, though they were available through unofficial channels even before then.

But with the aid of native multimedia giant Tencent, Nintendo Switch gained a sales edge in China. Market tracker Niko Partners estimated that over 1.3 million Switch units sold this year through both formal and informal channels (via Bloomberg), a number bigger than the combined sales of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the same timeframe. In lifetime sales, Niko Partners reported that the Switch has sold almost 4 million units in China since the end of 2019, more than either of Xbox One's and PS4's lifetime sales in the country. The PS4 and Xbox One both launched in China in 2014.

Over the next week, we will be posting features for what we've nominated to be the best games of 2020. Then, on December 17, we will crown one of the nominees as GameSpot's Best Game of 2020, so join us as we celebrate these 10 games on the road to the big announcement. Be sure to check out our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best Games of 2020 hub.

Half-Life: Alyx is familiar. In comparison to previous installments in the franchise, it even looks a bit samey. You get guns, you fight terrifying headcrab-controlled zombies, mow down the militant Combine, solve puzzles, and try to liberate a world from a multi-dimensional alien takeover. On paper, it’s hard to pinpoint a hugely notable difference between Half-Life: Alyx and Half-Life 2, a 16-year-old game. Yet, Half-Life: Alyx is unlike anything I’ve ever played before. Yes, it’s a VR game, and the immersion that comes from that defines the experience. However, beyond the virtual reality is a video game so meticulously crafted and so spellbinding in its execution that the familiarity and simplicity becomes a stroke of brilliance.

In the opening moments of the game you have time to interact and play with the world. Before you get your hands on any guns, one of the first things you can arm yourself with is a marker. Using my actual real-life hands and the Vive’s controllers, I picked up the marker and began drawing on a window with it. I could clean it off with an eraser or smudge it off with my fingers. This moment, seemingly inconsequential in the moment, actually served as the bedrock for what would come by rewiring my brain and opening my mind to possibilities that the game would execute on in the hours following.

A lot of watchers of The Game Awards were surprised to see actor Vin Diesel make an appearance at the proceedings to promote the unexpected sequel to Ark: Survival Evolved. However, it turns out that Vin Diesel isn't just doing his best Turok impression in Ark 2; he's helping developer Studio Wildcard make it, too.

In a press release, Studio Wildcard says that Vin Diesel will both portray the hero Santiago in Ark 2 as well as serving on the production team as Wildcard's President of Creative Convergence. Since it's not really clear what this fancy title means, the press release later clarifies that Diesel will perform an executive producer role. Ark 2 is said to be exclusive to the Xbox Series X / Series S, but it's unclear whether it's a timed exclusive or not. There's also no word on a release date.

This isn't the first time that the actor has been personally involved in the creation of a game. Diesel founded the developer Tigon Studios back in 2002, which produced several games that he starred in, most notably Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay and its remake/sequel, Assault On Dark Athena. Diesel is also a well-known fan of Dungeons and Dragons.

Pokemon Go's annual holiday event is returning next week, developer Niantic has announced. The event kicks off at 8 AM local time on December 22 and will feature a ton of festive activities and bonuses, including increased appearances of Ice Pokemon, exclusive Research tasks to complete, and more.

Throughout the holiday event, Ice-type Pokemon such as Spheal, Snover, Snorunt, and others will appear in the wild and hatch from 5 km eggs more frequently than normal. The Fresh Snow Pokemon Vanillite and its evolved forms will also make their debut in the game during the event, while Alolan Sandshrew, Dewgong, Jynx, Walrein, and more will appear as Raid bosses.

In addition to all the Ice Pokemon, a couple of festive costumed Pokemon will be available during the Holiday 2020 event as well. You'll be able to catch Pikachu, Delibird, and Cubchoo wearing holiday-themed outfits. You'll also have a chance to encounter Shiny Jynx in Raids.

CD Projekt Red became one of the biggest names in video game development thanks to the success of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt back in 2015, but it looks Cyberpunk 2077's release is having a negate impact on its parent company. Though the open-world game beat Steam's concurrent player record for a single-player game, its messy launch has caused CD Projekt's stock to slip more than 33% since its early December high in Polish markets.

The downturn has caused some in the industry to question CD Projekt's strategy. Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at Niko Partners who often tweets about industry happenings, said that this reflects an "overreliance on one large game release every few years...Any sort of uncertainty/issues will lead to this. Ultimately the decline isn't because the game isn't selling well, but because of future prospects / current known issues."

An update for NBA 2K21 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S is now live and it makes some visual changes, particularly regarding players and teams. The patch notes are outlined below.

Several teams have had their City uniforms updated, including the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets, and Los Angeles Clippers. Players on those teams, like the Celtics' Kemba Walker and Clippers' Paul George, have had their likenesses updated as well to bring them more in line with their real-life counterparts. Other players have improved signature facial animations, though it's unclear which players this applies to. There are also updates for the Toronto Raptors' logo and City courts for teams like the Nuggets and Philadelphia 76ers.

Along with updates to the City for various teams is a holiday makeover. The City in NBA 2K21 will be decked out in Christmas accouterments starting December 15.

Call of Duty: Warzone and Black Ops Cold War's Season 1 will launch later this week. Players will get new maps, a new Zombies mode, new weapons, and much more when the season kicks off on December 16.

Treyarch held a 30-minute broadcast detailing some of the new content earlier today. The studio took a look at Rebirth Island, Warzone's newest, smaller map. The island, which is a much denser, more compact map than Verdansk, is a remake from the original Black Ops game that explores where all of the gas comes from lore-wise. The map also features a new gulag system, where players have to break out from being strapped to a chair before fighting.

Warzone will also be getting new operators, weapons, and additional content with a new battle pass. All Black Ops Cold War weapons, including blueprints, variants, and attachments, will be accessible in Warzone right away.

Winter has arrived in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For the next few weeks, players in the Northern Hemisphere will find their islands blanketed with snow, which means they can now catch snowflakes and build snowboys. That's not all; there are also new wintry DIY recipes to learn and craft.

These DIY recipes will teach you how to build various pieces of ice furniture. To get them, however, you'll need to build a perfect snowboy, which can be a little tricky if you're not already well versed in the delicate art of snow craftsmanship. If you find yourself in that camp, we've put together some tips to help you build perfect snowboys and collect all the new DIY recipes below.

How To Build A Perfect Snowboy

Two snowballs will appear around your island each day throughout winter, and you'll need to carefully roll them up and combine them to make a snowboy. All you need to do is walk into the snowballs to start rolling them, but you'll need to take care while doing so, particularly at the beginning; the snowballs will initially be too small to roll by hand, so your character will kick them around a couple of times to pack more snow on.

Over the next week, we will be posting features for what we've nominated to be the best games of 2020. Then, on December 17, we will crown one of the nominees as GameSpot's Best Game of 2020, so join us as we celebrate these 10 games on the road to the big announcement. Be sure to check out our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best Games of 2020 hub.

Ghost of Tsushima is a game defined by moments. These moments all contribute to one singular goal: to uphold the hyper-stylized vision of a western take on a samurai film. Even if your brain knows that parts of Ghost of Tsushima are not historically accurate, the game is full of both story and gameplay sequences all devoted to making you say, "Okay, that was pretty dope." Developer Sucker Punch knows what tropes players likely want to get out of a samurai film-inspired game, and each aspect of Ghost of Tsushima is built around leading the player towards experiencing them.

Bungie has released a new update for Destiny 2 that's available now on all platforms. Hotfix 3.0.1.2 deals with a variety of nagging issues, but most notably it deals with two things: Warlocks' Penumbral Blast melee ability and the Season of the Hunt's Cryptolith Lure item. Read on for the highlights and the full patch notes.

In terms of Penumbral Blast, there are two key changes: Its projectile range has increased by 37%, and its minimum distance to cast the ranged melee ability has been reduced by 32%. With these changes, Bungie says you can throw the ranged melee while you're closer to your target. After Beyond Light's release, there were complaints about the effectiveness of Warlocks' new Stasis melee ability, but a nerf went too far in the other direction for some people's tastes, so this change seeks to get things back into a better place.

As for the Cryptolith Lure, this is the item that you need to charge (by doing things like completing Crucible matches) in order to initiate a Wrathborn Hunt, the central seasonal activity offered by Crow. It can now be charged twice as fast as before, and you can store more charges--five, rather than the previous cap of three. That means you won't have to stop what you're doing in order to use up a charge, if you want to make sure you're not throwing away progress that you could be making toward building up another charge.

Epic Games is offering in-game rewards for you to rope your friends back into playing Fortnite with you. The "Reboot a Friend" program is similar to other referral programs, granting a series of rewards the more matches you play with the lapsed players that you've brought back.

The official site gives details on the program. Just log in with your Epic account and invite a friend who hasn't played Fortnite for at least 30 days. You'll get a reward as long as you play at least one game with your rebooted friend, though there are stacking tiers that will unlock more rewards at up to 20 matches played. You can only pick one friend to reboot, at least for this test run, so make sure it's someone you can stick with for the long haul.

You'll unlock rewards at the 1, 5, 10, and 20 matches mark. Epic shared an image of the rewards on offer, and the event will last for 20 days. As long as your buddy can commit to playing one match per day with you, you can get them all.

Codes for the Mythical Pokemon Zarude are now being distributed to Pokemon Sword and Shield players in the US. The codes are included as part of this month's Pokemon Trainer Club newsletter, so if you signed up for that before the cutoff date last month, you should find the email waiting in your inbox.

Zarude is the new Mythical Pokemon featured in the series' latest animated film, Pokemon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle. The Dark/Grass type is level 60, and it comes equipped with Leftovers and knows the moves Close Combat, Power Whip, Swagger, and Snarl.

To claim the Pokemon, you'll need to fire up your copy of Sword or Shield and follow these steps:

Ubisoft is celebrating the holidays by giving away free daily gifts. Day one of the promotion is live now, and it features a content pack for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Four more gifts will be available this week, one each day through December 18. You simply need to have a free Ubisoft account to claim the freebies, which are available on all compatible platforms.

The Assassin's Creed Valhalla Rewards Pack contains the Seafarer Settlement Pack and a Bayek outfit for Eivor. Bayek was the main protagonist of Assassin's Creed Origins, so if you're a fan of that game, this is a neat little freebie. The Rewards Pack is available on PS5/PS4, Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One, and PC.

Ubisoft hasn't revealed what to expect in the coming days, but we imagine it'll be more in-game content for recently released games--perhaps Watch Dogs: Legion and Immortals Fenyx Rising.

As a role-playing game, World of Warcraft features numerous methods for increasing your power within its MMO realms if you're prepared to engage in some violence to do so. One player has instead adopted a more pacifistic approach to reaching the level cap in the new Shadowlands expansion.

Doubleagent, who plays as a Pandaren monk, managed to reach level 60 without leaving the starting zone of the Wandering Isle that is meant for players who are below level 10.

Leaving that zone would have forced Doubleagent to pick a side, either The Alliance or the Horde, and thus become an accomplice in a faction that was responsible for the deaths of millions. Sticking to his pacifism, Doubleagent instead earned experience points by picking flowers for hours on end.

Both Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S will be available for sale tomorrow, December 15, Best Buy has announced. All three consoles will be restocked "sometime after 8 AM CT" (6 AM PT/9 AM ET) at Best Buy, and you'll have the option to pick up your console in stores with curbside pickup.

If you haven't picked up Assassin's Creed Valhalla just yet, GameStop has a great deal on the open-world action game that you can take advantage of right now. As part of GameStop's Green Monday sale, you can pick up Assassin's Creed Valhalla for $45 on PS5/PS4 and Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One. This is the lowest price we've seen for Valhalla since it launched last month, but the deal is only available today, December 14.

The Xbox version of Valhalla works on both Series X|S and Xbox One, and it comes with a free upgrade. For PlayStation owners, you can pick between the PS4 and PS5 version. The PS4 edition also works on PS5 and has a free upgrade, while the PS5 version is only compatible with PS5.

Electronic Arts has announced that it has made an offer to acquire racing game developer Codemasters for $1.2 billion. Back in November Take-Two Interactive made an offer of $994 million, which would have added racing franchises such as Dirt, Dirt Rally, and F1 to its library of games. EA's announcement was initially revealed by Sky News and officially confirmed this week.

The Codemasters board of directors has approved the bid, saying that EA's experience in creating live service games and its wealth of resources will allow EA to dominate the racing game genre once the company adds the various Codemasters studios to its collection.

"With the full leverage of EA's technology, platform expertise, and global reach, this combination will allow us to grow our existing franchises and deliver more industry-defining racing experiences to a global fan base," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said.

Despite a series of delays for polish for Cyberpunk 2077, the game itself has been performing poorly from a technical standpoint on current-gen Xbox One and PlayStation 4 systems. This means very low frame rates, game-affecting bugs, graphical glitches, and game crashes, all of which have rendered it largely unplayable for many using base-level consoles. It's been bad enough to the point that developer CD Projekt Red itself issued an official statement on the matter, and mentioned options for players who have been unsatisfied with the experience.

The statement begins as an apology, but subsequently promises a series of patches to improve the experience on Xbox One and PS4. CD Projekt Red says that an update is planned in the next seven days and smaller updates will be released when they're ready. The team also said that two large patches are planned for Cyberpunk 2077--the first in January and a second in February--that promise to address the larger problems players have faced in the base-console versions.

Lastly, CD Projekt Red is offering refunds. Those who purchased the game digitally will have to go through the respective routes on Xbox and PlayStation ecosystems to do so, and those with physical copies can go to their respective retailers. If that's not possible, the developer is also offering help directly where you can contact the company at helpmerefund@cdprojektred.com up until December 21 this year.

If you've just upgraded to a PS5 or Xbox Series X, you may be looking for a fancy new TV to go with it. Granted, Samsung's newly revealed 110-inch MicroLED TV is probably out of most people's price range for a new TV, but it's still worth gawking at.

With most consumer-model TVs maxing out around a generous 85 inches, Samsung's new MicroLED is pushing how big TVs can get, at a huge 110 inches. The new model is one of the smaller applications of Samsung's MicroLED TV technology, a system that until recently has mostly been for industrial use. The technology was first seen in consumer products with Samsung's Wall, a humongous 292-inch screen made from modular panels that require professional installation.

The new TV is a downsized version of the Wall, boasting the same LED technology in a smaller package and--more importantly--ready straight out of the box without a complicated installation. The 110" MicroLED is a 4K HDR screen, integrating AI software to boost picture quality. It's also taken a step further in the ongoing war on TV bezels, with a 99.99% screen-to-body ratio.

Phasmophobia players can now accept contracts in a new medium-sized level--the prison. The new level launched in beta at the end of November, but is now available to all players in the live build of the game.

Because the prison is new, it'll always be available in the contract selection for the next few updates, giving players more opportunity to get acquainted with the two-level map. The prison joins a selection of maps including several residential houses and farmhouses, a school, and an asylum--still the game's biggest map.

Phasmophobia is the first game by UK Studio Kinetic Games, which launched in early access this September. The game sees players team up with up to three others to investigate a haunting and try to identify what kind of ghost is causing it. Phasmophobia became a surprise hit after being picked up by numerous Twitch streamers, and ended up taking home the award for Best Debut Game at The Game Awards this month.

Grand Theft Auto V's Online mode is getting a major update this week for the Cayo Perico Heist, which adds a brand new social space and lots of new material, including a huge radio update that has now been detailed. The game is adding five new radio stations, and some major artists are involved.

In a Rockstar newswire post, each of the new channels has been detailed. The first one, Still Slipping Los Santos, is helmed by UK DJ Joy Orbison, and will feature techno and house beats. It sounds like this one will be a pirate radio station, and will tie into some of the new missions coming to GTA Online--"he’s having trouble getting a strong enough signal to reach beyond his neighborhood. If he’s going to take his sound city and statewide, he’s going to need some help getting started," the post says.

The next station is Kult FM 99.1, hosted by Julian Casablancas. This one will feature a lot of throwback tracks from the likes of Joy Division, New Order, and the Velvet Underground, as well as guest appearances from Mac DeMarco, David Cross, and Tony Mac. The Music Locker, meanwhile, will feature various club tracks when it debuts.

NBA 2K21's cover star is Zion Williamson, who features on the PS5/Xbox Series X versions of the game, is obviously a big deal--but when Williamson first heard his own player rating, it was surprisingly low. Williamson got to the bottom of this by getting on the phone to 2K, but as it turns out, he'd misunderstood.

In a video posted to the official Twitter account of the New Orleans Pelicans, Williamson calls up 2K's Ronnie Singh--the man responsible for player ratings--and questions why his in-game rating is only an 81.

"Somebody got that wrong," Singh replies, telling Williamson that he's actually an 86 in-game.

Shakedown Hawaii, the 16-bit styled throwback sequel to Retro City Rampage, is coming to PS5 with enhancements. This means that the game will be available across four different PlayStation systems--the PS3, PS4, PS5, and PS Vita.

Thanks to crossbuy, if you own the game on any previous system, you'll have immediate access to the PS5 version.

Developer VBlank Entertainment announced that the game will use the PS5 DualSense controller's adaptive triggers to give weapons "a more distinct feeling," and it'll use the controller's enhanced vibrations, too. This can be toggled off if you're not interested, though.

The trophy set on PS5 is also being expanded, and a Platinum trophy is being introduced for the first time. The PS5 trophies will be seperate from the other versions, so you can re-earn them if you'd like.

Frosty Fest, which has happened every year since 2017, is back in Rocket League for another year. The event adds new festive cosmetic items, limited-time events, and a snowy makeover to the recently free-to-play vehicular sports game.

The event begins on December 14, and runs through until January 4, 2021. At the beginning of the event, a limited-time Winter Breakaway mode will be available, which will be replaced by Spike Rush on December 21, and then 2v2 Heatseeker on December 28. These modes will all be played on snowy arenas.

Over the course of the event, the Floeberg Antenna will be available for free from the Item Shop, while numerous other themed items will be available through completing Event Challenges. These include some re-released items that were available in previous Frosty Fest events.

A little over a month ago, publisher Take-Two announced it had agreed to purchase Codemasters, a British company best known for its racing franchises. It would have helped to fill a hole in Take-Two's genre output--it doesn't do much in the way of racing games now--but it appears those plans could be on hold because of an apparent bid by Electronic Arts.

According to Sky News, Electronic Arts has made a larger offer than the £725 million (nearly $1 billion) offered by Take-Two, and it will likely be made public on Monday. It doesn't appear Codemasters has agreed to EA's offer yet, and the publisher refused to comment when asked by Sky News.

Take-Two could potentially reignite its Midnight Club franchise with Codemasters' talent, but acquiring such acclaimed racing studios would also make sense for Electronic Arts. Though Criterion Games had success with Need for Speed and resumed development on the franchise, Need for Speed as a whole has struggled in recent years. More racing experts to contribute to the next game could be very valuable to EA.

Genshin Impact has attracted a massive following with its free-to-play take on the Zelda: Breath of the Wild formula, and it's getting even bigger with Version 1.2. The latest content update will add a new mountain region called Dragonspire, filled with dangerous enemies and extreme cold.

The mountain is said to accrue more and more snow, which never melts. In the trailer, we see heroes go up against powerful ice monsters, some of whom resemble yetis. The mountain is located in the southern part of Mondstadt, and once you get into the frigid canyon, you can eventually find a cave filled with a pulsated orb that looks like it's somehow biologically connected to the mountain itself.

Two new characters are introduced in the update--Albedo and Ganyu. The former relies on sword strikes and has a powerful area-of-effect attack to send enemies flying, while the latter is a powerful and deceptive magic user. There are also new weapons and new story quests to go along with the region, so it's a great time to jump back in if you have taken a break. Because it's free, there is also nothing to lose if you haven't played before. Well, unless you count time.

Cyberpunk 2077 released in a pretty rough state last week, and that is especially true on last-gen consoles. PS4 players have run into issues with full-on crashes as well as crawling frame rates and very low-quality textures and character models. These issues appear to be so severe that Sony is actually letting those who bought a digital copy receive a refund.

As spotted by VGC, Reddit users on the Cyberpunk page have reported receiving full refunds for digital versions of the game, even if they went past the two-hour maximum playtime that is typically enforced. There is no quick and easy way to do this, with you still needing to call PlayStation's customer service. One user said Sony is itself complaining to CD Projekt Red about the game's issues.

Unfortunately, it might be harder to get a refund if you aren't in the United States, as not every region has its own customer support hotline. Not everyone who called said they were offered the refund, either. Going through the typical refund request channel is unlikely to work as this is intended for refunds when you haven't downloaded or started the game yet.

It has only been a few days since Cyberpunk 2077 released, and Steam has already broken a record for the most concurrent users ever. As of December 13, the new record is more than 24 million players, with CD Projekt Red's RPG playing an enormous role in making this possible. And it did it all despite another PC platform also accounting for many Cyberpunk sales.

To be precise, 24,776,635 people were on Steam concurrently on December 12, with about a quarter of those users active in a game. This was actually broken since the story was first published. More than 24.8 million people were online the morning of December 13. It has only dipped by about 1.5 million people since then.

Since the pandemic began, Steam's concurrent numbers have steadily increased, albeit with a brief dip in the summer--hopefully those absent players were still practicing social distancing.

It seems like a crazy dream that Windjammers 2 even exists. The original cult hit from the '90s became more popular in recent years, leading to renewed interest in a sequel, and Dotemu is finally making that happen. However, those of you who have been waiting decades for the game will have to wait a little bit longer than predicted.

In an update post on Twitter, Dotemu--which is developing and publishing the game--said that it received plenty of positive feedback during the Steam Summer Festival last June but found that players also had several criticisms. These included the lack of a rollback netcode system in online mode, the absence of which could make things seem less fluid. In order to implement this and make the game as close to players' expectations as possible, it's being delayed to 2021.

"Windjammers 2 is an ambitious project that we love and that we cannot ruin with wrong decisions that could jeopardize its quality," Dotemu added.

Cyberpunk 2077 released on December 10, and despite the game receiving generally good reviews, it has also found itself as the subject of controversy regarding its numerous bugs and poor state on last-gen systems. These criticisms haven't escaped the management at CD Projekt Red, as the company has reportedly changed how it awards bonuses to no longer factor in the game's average review score.

According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Cyberpunk 2077 creative director Adam Badowski emailed the development team to explain how bonuses were changing. He admitted that given the "circumstances"--possibly referring to the work-from-home woes the team has gone through--it wasn't fair to tie these bonuses to a review score.

"We underestimated the lengths and complexity involved to make this a reality, and still you did everything you could to deliver an ambitious, special game," he added.

Cyberpunk 2077 gives you a lot of options in terms of how you can approach its world through gameplay. While you'll have to make your way through plenty of hostile territories throughout the course of the game, there are many choices for how you do so, whether you're fighting enemies, hacking their systems, or sneaking by. All of these choices can shape your path through Night City. And to be able to make many of these choices, you'll need to spend points to unlock specific abilities for the protagonist, V.

Especially if you're new to the game, you might be at a loss as to where to spend your points and which perks you want to snag. After all, there aren't any true archetypes or set character classes to help make your decision easier, letting you create whatever kind of V you want. But if that gives you a bit of choice paralysis, we've broken down the character-building process to show you how it all works and help guide your decisions so you can get the most out of trying to build yourself into a living legend.

Developer CD Projekt Red has dropped a new update for Cyberpunk 2077 on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 that addresses its copious bugs and issues. Update 1.04, which hit Xbox consoles about a day later, also addresses one especially dangerous problem.

It's no secret that Cyberpunk 2077 has been plagued by issues since its December 10 launch, with some players even seeing their main character's genitals through clothing, among other complaints. While this particular issue isn't called out in the patch notes, possibly because it's funnier than it is game-breaking, Update 1.04 does address various problems with Cyberpunk 2077. This includes stabilizing the game and ironing out the myriad crashes. Not all of them appear to be fixed yet. At least on Xbox Series X, the patch came in for us at about 16GB.

Other fixes for Cyberpunk 2077 include reducing vehicle appearance pop-in, addressing issues with missing NPC animations during cinematics, fixing the weapon preview while crafting, and removing copyrighted music through the "Disable Copyrighted Music" toggle. The latter feature was not working as intended after launch, prompting CD Projekt Red to recommend that streamers disable Cyberpunk 2077's music entirely to avoid risking DMCA strikes. That certainly makes car rides less exciting.

Over the next week, we will be posting features for what we've nominated to be the best games of 2020. Then, on December 17, we will crown one of the nominees as GameSpot's Best Game of 2020, so join us as we celebrate these 10 games on the road to the big announcement. Be sure to check out our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best Games of 2020 hub.

I know what you're probably thinking: "Wait, Persona 5 came out in 2017, and you even named it the second best game of the year when you used to rank games!" That's true. This nomination, however, speaks to the fact that Persona 5 Royal expertly builds on what was already a tremendous RPG and delivers all-new story chapters that are genuinely unexpected yet perfect thematic fits. It's a definitive version, yes. But to simply call it a re-release is to sell short the extra 15 to 20 hours of essential content, the clever ways a new narrative is woven into the base game, and the emotional conclusions that follow. When we thought that Persona 5 couldn't be anymore invigorating or inspiring, Royal proved us wrong.

Another Galarian Pokemon is making its debut in Pokemon Go very soon. Galarian Mr. Mime and its evolution, Mr. Rime, will arrive in the mobile game next weekend as part of a Special Research story event--but you'll need to have a ticket to participate in it.

The event kicks off on December 19 at 10 AM local time and runs until 8 PM local time the following day, while tickets run for $8 USD. Those who do purchase a ticket will get access to an exclusive Special Research questline that will lead to encounters with a handful of Ice and sound-based Pokemon including Alolan Vulpix, Jigglypuff, Jynx, Snorunt, and the aforementioned Galarian Mr. Mime. Niantic also says you'll be able to earn enough Mr. Mime Candy through the questline to evolve it into Mr. Rime.

Fans waited for Cyberpunk 2077 for almost a decade, and that sort of time breeds expectations. Now that the game has been out in some form or another for a few days, fans have had a chance to get to know Night City on their own terms, and their overall opinions run the gamut from ecstatic bliss to total disappointment. This fractious discourse has taken over fan communities like the game's subreddit, and the debate continues unabated.

Many fans have pointed to Cyberpunk's dismal performance on the PS4 and Xbox One as a particular sore spot. Some have even gone so far as to accuse CD Projekt Red of misleading advertising, or other unscrupulous behavior. In a highly-upvoted thread, Reddit user "ldillon7777" posted a PS4 trailer for the game that was released back in November, pointing out that the "gameplay trailer" presents a vision of the game with a stable framerate and impressive visual effects, both of which are not representative of the last-gen versions of the game.

"Anyone that has played the PS4 version can clearly see that this trailer is not recorded on the PS4 or on any last-gen console," the user wrote. "This marketing makes the PS4 version look as good as the PC version. This is completely misleading and not representative of the PS4 version being advertised."

Over the next week, we will be posting features for what we've nominated to be the best games of 2020. Then, on December 17, we will crown one of the nominees as GameSpot's Best Game of 2020, so join us as we celebrate these 10 games on the road to the big announcement. Be sure to check out our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best Games of 2020 hub.

It's become cliche at this point to remark on Animal Crossing: New Horizons' fortuitous timing, how it arrived at exactly the right moment to ease us through the first few, uncertain months of a world-changing pandemic. And yet, it's impossible to view the game without also looking at the circumstances surrounding its release. More than any other title that launched this year, Animal Crossing felt like a panacea to 2020. Just as the COVID-19 virus began surging uncontrollably and forced many parts of the world into lockdown, suddenly shattering daily norms and routines that we had all taken for granted, here came this wholesome, candy-colored bit of escapism--this digital playpen where your next-door neighbor is a fitness-minded penguin and your biggest concern is whether the sofa you just purchased matches the rest of the decor in your living room.