There are a lot of perks you can buy for your character in Cyberpunk 2077, allowing you to customize your version of V to fit your play style and the ways you want to approach the game. There’s one perk, however, that you should absolutely avoid–at least in the early part of the game when you’re trying to earn money. That perk is called “Scrapper,” and it will rob you.
You’ll find the Scrapper perk under the Technical Ability attribute, on the Crafting skill tree. At first, it sounds useful enough. Scrapper allows you to automatically break down junk items into crafting components. Cyberpunk 2077 is littered with things that are considered “junk,” like old vinyl records, ashtrays, packs of cards, lighters, and dildos. (It’s worth noting that a recent update seems to have drastically reduced the number of dildos appearing in the game. For a while, though, there were so. many. dildos.)
Most of the junk items you find in Night City really are junk, and if you check them out in your Backpack, you’ll find that they’re pretty worthless. Most junk items will net you about 3 Eurodollars (or “eddies” in Night City parlance), so they’re basically not worth the effort you’d expend in picking them up and lugging them to a vendor to unload them. Along that line, you might think Scrapper sounds great, since you can instantly break down junk you don’t actually want, and that way it’s not littering your backpack, weighing down your character (in a literal sense, because if you become over-encumbered by the stuff you’re carrying, you won’t be able to move quickly).
You’d be wrong, though, because Scrapper will steal money for you, especially during a time when earning money is very important.
Although it’s rare, you’ll occasionally find junk items worth a lot more than 3 eddies. Some pieces of jewelry that you can loot off enemies or find scattered in buildings are classified as junk, but they’re extremely valuable, going for 750 eddies if you can sell them. Since Cyberpunk calls those items junk, they get automatically disassembled same as an ashtray or a dildo, and all those eddies vanish for a handful of super-cheap crafting materials. Especially in Act 1 and the first half of Act 2, eddies are pretty important–you’ll need to save up quite a bit, as there’s a story mission that requires you to pay a hefty sum, more than 20,000 eddies, to advance it.
Do not pick this perk.
Most cyberware enhancements are also pretty expensive, and you’ll want the eddies for those. Cyberware changes how Cyberpunk 2077 plays pretty significantly–for instance, buying the ability to double jump opens up a huge number of otherwise-unreachable options throughout Night City.
Meanwhile, the Scrapper perk is next to useless. You can safely ignore crafting much of the time in Cyberpunk, unless you really want to lean into it. Even if you do, however, the crafting materials you get from junk aren’t really that useful. So this is a perk that mostly does more harm than good, but you wouldn’t know that until after you’ve unlocked it.
So save your perk points and get something better than Scrapper. It might sound like it’ll save you some time, but it’ll actually rob you of an easy way to earn some quick cash. The costs of this perk far outweigh the benefits.
At this point, it’s well-documented that the Nintendo Switch has had an incredible year, with sales of the console up across 2020. Now, Nintendo of Canada has announced some sales milestones the Switch has achieved in the country this year, and they’re very impressive.
So far, the system has sold 790,000 units through the end of November. In that last month alone, the system sold an incredible 148,000 units. In 2019, the Switch sold 628,000 units in total in the country. Canada has a total population of 37.5 million, and now a lot of them are Switch owners.
These figures include the combined totals of the standard Switch and the portable-only Switch Lite.
Even with the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S launching, the Switch was the top-selling console for the month–and it has been the best-selling system in the Canada for 25 months straight now.
The Switch has also been the top-seller in the US, as well as in China. Nintendo’s next quarterly earnings report isn’t due until February 1, but the Switch is expected to comfortably exceed 70 million total sales by then.
Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t just have a massive arsenal of weapons and cybernetics to acquire; it also has an enormous suite of vehicles to drive. With more than 30 cars and bikes to find throughout your career as a Street Samurai in Night City, you have plenty of options when it comes to getting around town in style and with astonishing speed.
However, Night City and its surrounding areas also hide some vehicles that will take some effort to find and acquire. In this quick roundup, we pulled together a list of some of the more iconic cars you can see in the game. While most vehicles in the game can be stolen or bought, we’ve rounded up the ones you can find by doing quests or just by heading to the right part of town.
Jackie’s Arch (Motorcycle)
This motorcycle will be one of the first bikes you’ll add to your catalog of vehicles. Custom made for Jackie, this souped-up and well-designed motorcycle–with some fantastic decals–is an excellent pick for anyone looking for a reliable bike to cruise Night City.
Requirements: You can acquire Jackie’s Arch following the events of Act 1. Once you regain control and can explore Night City in Act 2, you’ll get a quest called Heroes, which will get you in contact with Jackie’s mother–who made a brief appearance in the prologue. After reaching out to her, you’ll be given the keys to Jackie’s bike, which will be added to your catalog of cars.
Rayfield Caliburn (Car)
This luxury car is not only one of the sharpest-looking cars you can find, but it’s also one of the fastest vehicles in the game. Though you’ll find it on the outskirts of the metropolis, this vehicle is more suited for city life, and it’s an incredibly cool way to cruise around town.
Requirements: To get this car, you’ll first need to finish the Act 2 mission Ghost Town, which involves the character Pan Am. During the mission, you’ll be taken to an area in the Badlands, just north of the junkyard, leading into a tunnel. Remember this location. Once that mission is complete, wait about three days in-game time, and return to the tunnel. Inside, you’ll find an open storage container that has the luxury car inside. Once you get into the car, it will be loaded into your quick select menu for vehicles.
Quadra Turbo-R (Car)
This vehicle is one of the cars shown prominently through over the years in Cyberpunk 2077’s many trailers and gameplay demos. Though it’s not a luxury car, it can hit high speeds pretty quickly.
Requirements: To find this car, head to Heywood’s southeastern section and look for an undiscovered quest location–marked as a question mark on the map. Once there, you’ll get a call from Padre, Heywood’s resident fixer. He’ll give you a new gig called Life’s Work, tasking you to steal a car from the area. Once you complete the quest, wait 24 hours in-game to get a message from contact from the last gig. He’ll give you a parting gift, which he left in a secure location in a car garage in Heywood.
Colby CX410 Butte (Car)
The Colby CX410 Buttle is a custom pick-up truck designed for durability and off-road driving. Given that you will spend a lot of time in the city, you’ll likely be comfortable driving fast sports cars and bikes. However, once you get acquainted with the game’s Badlands area, you’ll want something a bit more suited for the uneven and rough terrain. This car is a great find, and you can get it without spending any eddies.
Requirements: This car is one of the more comfortable vehicles to get in the game. To get it, all you’ll need to do is to drive out to the Badlands and head northeast from the Rocky Ridge residential area. You’ll then reach a small trailer park that has the vehicle. Once you get in, it will be added to your catalog.
Delamain No. 21 (Car)
For those who played through Act 1, you’ll encounter the automated taxi service Delamain, which has numerous driving cars powered by an A.I. You’ll get to know one vehicle in particular, but then you’ll part ways with it. Later on, however, you can acquire a particular Delamain vehicle of your own. While it isn’t a speedy car, it’s a reliable town car that will get you to your destination in style and with friendly navigation.
Requirements: This one will take some effort. To acquire your own Delamain car, you’ll need to start the quest Tune Up following Act 1, which leads to a multi-step quest called Epistrophy. The chain of events to get this vehicle can be started after getting your vehicle back from the parking garage, leading into an unexpected encounter with rogue Delamain cars. From here, you’ll be able to start the questline leading you to find other rogue vehicles throughout the city. Once that’s done, you’ll be led to the final car, which will then get you access to your own Delamain vehicle.
Apollo “Scorpion” (Bike)
This motorcycle has ties to the Aldecaldos, a pack of Nomads who roam the Badlands outside Night City who are known to be the first Nomad clan in the world of Cyberpunk. The Apollo bike reps their Nomad sign and decals, and it’s a bike that’s well-suited for travel in the rough terrain outside the city.
Requirements: To get the special Apollo “Scorpion” bike, you’ll need to complete the Life During Wartime main mission. Once you finish the mission, you’ll get the bike added to your catalog of vehicles, letting you call it in whenever you want.
Porsche 911 (Car)
This vehicle is one of the rare retro cars found in Night City, and it also belonged to Johnny Silverhand during his time. As the only licensed car in Cyberpunk 2077, this vehicle is modeled after the classic Porsche vehicles of the 1960s, making it one of the oldest pieces of machinery found in the game. Despite its age, it can still put in the work.
Requirements: To get this car, you’ll need to progress in Act 2 and get the side quest Chippin’ In, which occurs after the Tapeworm, Life During Wartime, Automatic Love, and Search and Destroy side missions. During the Chippin’ In quest, you’ll be presented with a choice to shoot a character or spare their life. If you spare them, then you’ll get access to Johnny’s signature gun, his jacket, and his classic car.
Yaiba Kusanagi CT-3X (Bike)
Yes, this bike is very similar to the one from the animated film Akira, and it can be yours for a relatively small price. Along with being incredibly stylish, this bike is also the fastest motorcycle in the game. So if you’re looking for a bike that has some stellar speed to match, this is your ride. Unlike the other iconic vehicles on this list, you’ll need to save up some money to earn this one, but we assure you that it’s worth it.
Requirements: Throughout the game, you’ll get messages from various fixers and allies who will clue you in on opportunities. To get the message that lets you know the Kusanagi bike is available to purchase, you’ll need to have your Street Cred at level 12. After that, you’ll get a message from Wakado the Fixer, who will clue you in on the location of the bike. Located in a garage in Westbrook, make your way there and spend the 22,000 eddies to unlock the bike for your catalog.
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Hitman 3, the conclusion to the current Hitman trilogy, releases on January 20, and now the first cinematic has been revealed. If you didn’t finish the first two games, you might want to do so before watching it, though.
The trailer shows Agent 47 teaming up with Lucas Grey, the Shadow Client, as they go after Providence together. The organization has been pulling a lot of strings behind the scenes across the entire trilogy, and while Grey was an enemy for much of the first two games, things changed at the end of Hitman 2.
You can watch the full cinematic above, and get excited for Hitman 3’s release early next year. The trailer also gives us a brief glimpse of the outside of the Dubai map building, which will be the first mission.
Over the next week, we will be posting features for what we’ve nominated to be thebest 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 ourBest Games of 2020 hub.
Spiritfarer is a cozy resource management and farming sim with a dreamy, colorful art style and adorable talking animals. It’s also a game about death, grief, and the process of letting go. Though these two aspects may seem at odds, Spiritfarer finds a delicate balance between its lighthearted adventure gameplay and the heavier themes woven throughout, offering a large, intriguing world to explore and characters you’ll come to love along the way.
Spiritfarer has an amusing connection to one of our other Game of the Year nominees, Hades, both of which feature the mythological ferryman Charon, who transports souls to the world of the dead. But while he plays a more minor role of shopkeeper in Hades, Spiritfarer dives deeper into the role of Charon–the Spiritfarer–and what it might entail if someone else stepped into his shoes. In this case, Charon’s successor is a young girl named Stella, who, with the help of her fluffy cat Daffodil, must take on the responsibilities of the Spiritfarer and accompany recently deceased souls to the world beyond this one, marked by an ancient bridge called the Everdoor. Charon’s role has ended, and even he must pass through the Everdoor–an early reminder that no one can escape death in the end, even the ferryman of souls.
Stella radiates warmth and compassion with every facial expression, movement, and gigantic hug she gives throughout the game, distinguishing her as a much more caring Spiritfarer than her predecessor–it’s a safe assumption that Charon (described as “cold” by one character) wasn’t baking pies and decorating the homes of his passengers. Stella is the perfect protagonist for Spiritfarer, exuding relentless optimism and empathy for her passengers, who, in turn, open up to her about the stories of their lives, including their greatest memories and deepest regrets.
This close bond extends to you as the player as well–you truly become invested in these souls, who range from an 8-year-old boy who suffered from a fatal disease to an elderly woman with dementia. Presented as animals rather than in human form, these passengers are the shining light of Spiritfarer, and it’s so satisfying to make them happy, whether it’s making their favorite meal, finding decorations for their home, or playing a minigame with them. One of the most charming aspects of Spiritfarer is its hugs–every character has their own unique reaction to Stella giving them a hug, and each time, it’ll absolutely melt your heart.
As the Spiritfarer, Stella has no shortage of tasks to attend to on her ever-expanding boat, from adding new buildings and homes to growing crops and cooking meals, and it doesn’t take long to fall comfortably into the rhythm of Stella’s day-to-day routine. You’re able to customize your boat, moving different buildings around and stacking them to eventually form a towering community. You can also add structures like ziplines that allow you to more easily move around the boat with Stella’s expanding arsenal of platforming abilities. This customization allows you to personalize your boat and make it feel like your own. It also allows you to emphasize whatever aspects you enjoy the most by keeping them close and quickly accessible–for me, those were my kitchens and gardens–while moving some structures further away that you find yourself using less.
For a game about death, Spiritfarer is filled with joy, whether you are gliding across an island, whipping up one of your passenger’s favorite meals, or fishing off the side of your boat at night under the gentle glow of the moon.
As much as there is to do on your boat, there’s even more to discover in the world beyond it in Spiritfarer. One of the most surprising aspects of the game is just how large this world is, with dozens of different islands and cities to explore. While Spiritfarer may seem like a shorter game, it’s actually quite long–I spent over 40 hours exploring the seas and completing side quests, and it never gets old. From major cities to small factory towns and rural forests, you never know what you’ll find when you discover new land in Spiritfarer, and it’s a blast to explore each one, gathering resources, talking with locals, and sometimes meeting a new person to join you on your boat. You also unlock new abilities throughout the game to enable you to push exploration further, reaching the highest areas and finding the most valuable resources. All of this makes Spiritfarer’s world thrilling to explore, motivating you to discover all of its secrets and hidden areas.
Despite all the fun of exploring new areas, expanding your boat, and meeting charming new passengers, you can’t escape Stella’s real responsibility as Spiritfarer. At some point, every passenger will realize it’s their time to pass over, and together you’ll climb into Stella’s rowboat and make your way to the blood red waters of the Everdoor. It’s these quiet moments as you row along, carrying someone whom you’ve grown to love and care for, that are the most impactful in Spiritfarer. In these final moments, the passenger begins to muse about life, death, and what they’ve learned–whether they can forgive a past wrongdoing, how they’ll be remembered by loved ones, the nature of humanity. These quiet monologues are beautifully written and culminate in one final hug as the soul passes through the Everdoor. It’s hard to express how impactful these moments are, letting each character move on after you’ve cared for them and listened to their stories. More than once, I broke down crying after an Everdoor scene–the level of emotion they evoked often surprised me.
And then, it continues. With each goodbye, the story moves on, just as Stella must move on, and you carry a little bit of each companion who has passed with you in the form of lessons they’ve taught (as well as their physical homes, which remain behind). There are always more crops to be farmed, more items to be crafted, and more islands to explore, but as with life itself, it’s the people you meet that define this journey over the everyday tasks you perform. Spiritfarer teaches a powerful lesson about cherishing your relationships and the memories you shared together over regretting that someone has moved on.
Ultimately, you could keep farming and traveling around in Spiritfarer forever, but eventually, you’re given the option to end your game and complete Stella’s final journey. This prompt hits you sharp in the chest–you know it’s coming from the beginning, but you think, I thought I had more time, more things to accomplish. The game gives you as much time as you need to wrap up any loose ends and make your choice to go to the Everdoor, but eventually, as I looked around at my fully expanded boat and my single remaining passenger, who lingered behind to keep me company, I realized I was ready to move on. Sure, I hadn’t 100% cleared the game and collected every item and recipe, but I reached a point where I was satisfied and at peace with everything I’d done. I could accept Stella’s fate. I took her where she needed to be. I sobbed for a full 15 minutes afterward, and since, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this game.
Spiritfarer feels like an essential game for anyone who has ever experienced a painful loss or who has stayed up at night worrying about death. It’s also a fitting game for 2020, a year wrought by so much pain and isolation. For a game about death, Spiritfarer is filled with joy, whether you are gliding across an island, whipping up one of your passenger’s favorite meals, or fishing off the side of your boat at night under the gentle glow of the moon. Its world feels like home; its characters become not only passengers, but beloved friends and family. And just as much as you help each character fulfill their needs, they help you in return, giving you the strength to keep living and accept your time when it comes. Spiritfarer is a truly special game from beginning to end, and its message of compassion, acceptance, and courage is one we could all benefit from hearing, now more than ever.
Just a few days ago, The Game Awards 2020 revealed a battery of trailers for highly-anticipated games, like a new Perfect Dark, the Left 4 Dead-like Back 4 Blood, and the dreamy Open Roads. However, for some, the most notable game barely made an appearance at all. Despite receiving the Most Anticipated Game award, From Software’s latest project, Elden Ring, didn’t receive any new details or trailers, which caused the game’s community to explode in a memetic meltdown that still shows no signs of stopping.
To be clear, the Elden Ring subreddit is a surprisingly non-toxic environment compared to other video game spaces on the internet, and most of the memes and posts in the community are all in good fun. Still, there was definitely a sense of deflation in the subreddit when The Game Awards ended without an update on the game. One of the top posts all-time on the subreddit came just moments after the event ended, and it speaks for itself:
Another highly-rated post from the evening of the Game Awards shows a representation of the subreddit giving the game’s director Hidetaka Miyazaki the Most Anticipated Game award, only for Miyazaki to casually toss it behind him, a template based on Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Yet another appears to be a summoning pentagram made of the 3 previous Dark Souls games, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. Vaati, a well-known figure in the Souls community, tweeted that he is “very happy” for the Elden Ring team winning the award, joking that he “looks forward to them winning it again in 2021.”
Since The Game Awards non-reveal, the community has split itself into two major factions: Woopers and Hollows. Hollows are long-time users of the forum named after what the community calls “the Hollowing,” the continuing 1.5 year period since From first revealed Elden Ring via a trailer at E3 2019. The subreddit’s new obsession with the Water/Ground-type Pokemon appears to stem from a joke post, which proclaims that the Elden Ring community is now devoted to Woopers due to the lack of updates on Elden Ring. That joke was due to The Game Awards hosting an ongoing Pokemon GO event where Woopers appeared. In the interim, Wooper-themed memes have dominated the subreddit, leading the mods to create a Wooper user flair to compete with the Hollow flair.
Besides the continuing trickle of impressive fan art that the community calls “fake lore”–essentially fans imagining what might be in the actual game, based on FromSoft’s previous work–some users have speculated that this a hypothetical new trailer will debut at the Taipei Game Show on January 28, 2021. Purported leaks from ResetEra and unverified hints from VentureBeat reporter Jeff Grubb seem to support this rumor, but it’s far from concrete. Elden Ring subreddit users replied to the thread with “oooooh,” a memetic sound from the original trailer that fans use to indicate their excitement. Other users are skeptical. An indicative reply reads: “Elden Ring will debut at the WWE Royal Rumble in January.”
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Very Very Valet is a new cooperative game about parking cars in zany ways. The game, developed by Los Angeles-based studio Toyful Games, debuted during Nintendo’s Indie World broadcast on Tuesday.
“One to four players control an ‘elite’ team of puppet valets, working together to overcome any and all valet-related challenges,” reads Toyful Games’ official site. “It’s going to take teamwork and a certain ‘just park it anywhere’ mentality to save the world from a severe parking crisis! It’s not enough to just be a valet – be a VERY VERY VALET.”
Very Very Valet will include more than 20 levels, including city streets, cliffsides, bowling alleys, airports, and trainyards. Toyful Games will also offer “accessible driving controls” for easy pick-up-and-play fun.
Very Very Valet looks to be another entry in the increasingly popular genre of madness-inducing cooperative games. Its crazy premise, while unique, could lead to gameplay that feels similar to Overcooked, Moving Out, and other games that are as fun as they are stressful.
Toyful Games is a two-person studio made up of former Disney and NBCUniversal developers. Very Very Valet, which launches in early 2021, is their first project as a studio.
The game is a 3D action-brawler with up to four-player local and online multiplayer featuring fighting cats. Players can create their feline fighter and dress them with an assortment of accessories while clawing at their friends. There are six fully-destructible stages to play on with five different game types, including a cat food defense mode called Kibble Defense.
A demo of Fisti-Fluffs is available on both itch.io and Steam for Windows PCs, with a release planned for early next year. The game hits Nintendo Switch early next year as well. It’s also coming to Android and iOS devices, though a release date for those has not been specified. Check out some screenshots, as well as the system requirements for Fisti-Fluffs, down below.
There are many engineers out there who solve problems that the vast majority of people can’t even properly comprehend, and there are others who go the extra mile to find problems that most of us aren’t even aware of. A software engineer and game developer named Ben Carter has figured out a way to get ray tracing working on an SNES, and the results are pretty incredible.
As any hardcore SNES fan knows, several of the console’s most popular games relied on a chipset that was included as part of the cartridge itself in order to help the SNES achieve certain technological goals. The best-known example of this is the Super FX chip that powered the original Star Fox. Carter has designed a chip in that mold that he calls the SuperRT that allows the SNES to perform ray tracing.
Carter’s video shows off what the SuperRT is capable of, and it includes all of the very finicky details on how he got it to work. Essentially, however, it works on the same principle as the Super FX chip: the SuperRT constructs the scene and feeds it to the SNES’s processor in language it can understand. The nest of cables shown in the video isn’t due to any particular technical wizardry on Carter’s part; most of them are level shifter cables that allow the SuperRT’s field-programmable gate array board and the SNES to run at the same voltage.
As far as whether or not this would have been possible to make during the SNES’s lifespan, Carter says that it would have been possible, but way too expensive to use in a shipping game. Still, as a proof of concept, it’s very impressive.
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Apple TV+ has released the first official trailer for Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, a documentary film centered around the titular singer-songwriter. As the movie subtitle suggests, the documentary chronicles the artist’s experiences recording her explosive debut 2019 album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, which catapulted her to fame and irreversibly changed her life. Check out the trailer below.
As the trailer above shows, the film rewinds well before and zooms way out beyond that album’s recording sessions and shows childhood home movies of Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, acting out a concert performance in Eilish’s bedroom. Given that Eilish is 18 (and turning 19 later this week), the movie promises to be a fascinating look at how someone so young comes to terms with massive fame so early in life.
Directed by R. J. Cutler (The September Issue, The War Room), the film is due for Apple’s streaming service and also expected to hit theaters February 26, 2021.
