Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen update confirmed on Xbox with "Optimized for Series X|S" tag

Cyberpunk 2077 was last year's controversial sci-fi RPG set in Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk universe. It received major backlash for being a technical disaster as well as a lackluster gaming experience. The developers vowed to make things right, following up with a roadmap that included regular fixes, patches, tweaks and updates to bring the game closer to its original vision.

Now, in an interesting turn of events, it looks like Cyberpunk 2077's promised next-gen update might be closer than expected. Twitter user Tom Warren noted that the game has been updated with the "Optimized for Series X|S" tag in the library.

The Optimized for Series X|S tag ensures the best possible experience on those systems (Image from @tomwarren/Twitter)

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Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen rendition to be unveiled soon?

Games with the aforementioned tag will utilize to the fullest the hardware on which they are played on. This means better visuals, higher frame rate, higher resolutions and next-gen exclusive features like ray-tracing and faster loading times. Additionally, thanks to Microsoft's Smart Delivery service, (Xbox One versions of) a game will be updated to the correct next-gen versions depending on the console they're played on, i.e., Series X or Series S.

Plus, the game is also tagged as "Gen 9 Aware":

This refers to Xbox One versions of games that have certain enhancements - essentially Xbox One games running at improved performance/resolutions on Series consoles. Note that this is not the same as a native Series X|S port. Additionally, Gen 9 Aware games can be installed on external hard drives (like backwards compatible games) while Series games cannot.

On a very related note, this is suspiciously in line with a recent announcement from the game's publisher CD Projekt RED about a Cyberpunk 2077-centric livestream.

It airs on February 15, 2022 (that's today) at 7:00 am PT/3:00 pm GMT/4:00 pm CET/8:30 pm IST on CDPR's official Twitch channel. On a humorous note, the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account also reacted to the aforementioned reveals of the Xbox tags:

This just leads to further credibility that the upgrade is real and just around the corner. But whether it is enough of an improvement to sway fans' opinions remains to be seen.