Details from a Cyberpunk 2077 expansion may have leaked

A dataminer claims to have found subtitles for an upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion in the February patch that brought CD Projekt's underwhelming open-world game up to version 1.5. An archive containing text files, mostly of English dialogue but some in Polish, has been uploaded to multiple subreddits, including r/GamingLeaksAndRumours.

Inside the archive are folders called “quest” and “open_world”, the second of which has subfolders for “fixers”, “mini_world_stories”, “scene”, “street_stories”, and “world_encounters”. The text lays out a storyline and related sidequests that begin with V infiltrating the Combat Zone, an area of Night City that wasn't previously explored in Cyberpunk 2077. 

The questgiver is a netrunner using the name Songbird who hacks into V's head and temporarily replaces Johnny Silverhand, which seems like a convenient way of explaining Keanu Reeves' absence. Presumably getting him back into the recording booth for even a sizeable DLC wouldn't be worth the cost.

While the meat and potatoes of this expansion seems like a side story, there are also files relating to Cyberpunk 2077's endings, suggesting that if you play through it you can unlock a different version of at least one of them. It all looks pretty legit, but it's also probably an excerpt from a work-in-progress that could change drastically by the time it's done, and is currently scheduled for a 2023 release.

Earlier this year CD Projekt joint CEO Adam Kiciński reiterated that Cyberpunk 2077 expansions were still in development, saying, “I can confirm we are working on expansions; nothing's changed here.” However, the announcement of the next Witcher game mentioned “the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion” in the singular, and during a CD Projekt Q1 2022 results conference Kiciński also seemed to refer to a “Cyberpunk expansion”. Redditors who were expecting two add-ons are not taking the idea there will only be one well, though it's entirely possible they're reading too much into inconsistent plural usage by non-native English speakers. We'll have to wait and see.