Cyberpunk 2077 to Be Available for Free as Part of Limited Trial on Current-Gen Consoles This Weekend

You'll be able to play Cyberpunk 2077 for a five-hour period until April 1 as part of a free trial, but only after you download the entire game.

Written by David Delima | Updated: 27 March 2024 18:29 IST

Cyberpunk 2077 to Be Available for Free as Part of Limited Trial on Current-Gen Consoles This Weekend

Photo Credit: CD Projekt Red

Cyberpunk 2077 was released on current-generation consoles in February 2022

Highlights

Cyberpunk 2077 will be free for five hours on consoles this weekend
CDPR says the trial is only available on current-gen consoles
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty won't be part of the free trial

Cyberpunk 2077 will be available to play at no cost as part of a limited trial over the coming weekend, according to developer CD Projekt Red. The popular game will be free to play for a few hours on current generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony, but not for PC gamers. You will have access to the base Cyberpunk 2077 game — which will need to be downloaded in its entirety in order to access the trial. The Phantom Liberty expansion won't be part of the trial this weekend.

According to details on the Cyberpunk 2077 website, the free trial will begin on March 28 at 4pm CET (8pm IST) and end on April 1 at 8:59AM CEST (12:29pm IST). You will be able to play the game on current-gen consoles — PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S — for five hours, during the trial period. CDPR says trial doesn't include PC gamers due to "technical reasons".

During the trial period, you can only play Cyberpunk within the five-hour period, after which you can purchase the game to continue playing. According to the developer, your save progress will carry forward to the full game, if you choose to buy Cyberpunk 2077 after the trial ends.

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Five hours of gameplay is considerably short for a free trial, especially considering that the game will include several cutscenes with dialogues will take up a considerable amount of time of the limited time trial. If you already own the base game, you won't be able to try the Phantom Liberty expansion as it isn't part of the trial.

In order to try Cyberpunk 2077 as part of the upcoming trial, you'll need to download the entire game — that's a 99.3GB download on the PlayStation 5 and around 103GB on Microsoft's current-gen consoles. You won't need a subscription (like Game Pass) in order to play the title during the trial, and more than one player can try the game on one console, as long as they have a separate user account.

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Cyberpunk 2077

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Good
Good voice acting
Lots to do in Night City
Multiple ways to play
Three lifepaths, multiple endings

Bad
Terrible graphics
Low frame rate that impacts gameplay
Filled with bugs, frequent crashes
Too many loading screens
Enemies are bullet sponges
No cover system
Repetitive NPCs
Too much loot

Read detailed CD Projekt Cyberpunk 2077 review

Genre Action-Adventure

Platform PlayStation 4 (PS4), PlayStation 5 (PS5), Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC: Windows

Modes Single-player

PEGI Rating 18+

More CD Projekt Games

Sony PlayStation 5

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Good
DualSense is great
Very powerful
Reduced loading times
Friendlier storage expansion
Capable of 8K / 120fps
4K Blu-ray player (finally)

Bad
Expensive
Lack of truly next-gen exclusives
Not a generation leap over PS4 Pro at launch
Game prices now go up to Rs. 5,000
Missing next-gen upgrades for PS4 games
No "Quick Resume", as on Xbox Series X
Limited backward compatibility
No support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos
SSD storage amount is restrictive

Read detailed Sony PlayStation 5 review

HDD 825GB PCie Gen 4 NVMe SSD

Processor Custom 8-core AMD Zen 2 CPU @ 3.5GHz with SMT

Graphics Custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU 36 CUs @ 2.23GHz (variable frequency)

RAM 16GB GDDR6

USB 4

Weight 4.5kg

Ethernet Gigabit

More Sony Gaming Consoles

Microsoft Xbox Series X

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Good
Really powerful
Delivers constant 4K 60fps
Reduced loading times
Great backward compatibility
Support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos
Capable of 8K / 120fps
Network transfer feature

Bad
Expensive
Lack of truly next-gen exclusives
Not a generation leap over Xbox One X at launch
Proprietary storage expansion
No rechargeable battery with controller
Implementation of Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos

Read detailed Microsoft Xbox Series X review

HDD 1TB PCie Gen 4 NVME SSD

Processor Custom 8-core AMD Zen 2 CPU @ 3.8GHz

Graphics Custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU 52 CUs @ 1.825GHz

RAM 16GB GDDR6

USB 3

Weight 4.45kg

Ethernet Gigabit

More Microsoft Gaming Consoles

Microsoft Xbox Series S

KEY SPECS
NEWS

HDD 512GB PCie Gen 4 NVME SSD

Processor Custom 8-core AMD Zen 2 CPU @ 3.8GHz

Graphics Custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU 20 CUs @ 1.565GHz

RAM 10GB GDDR6 RAM

More Microsoft Gaming Consoles

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Further reading: cyberpunk, cyberpunk 2077, cyberpunk 2077 free trial, cyberpunk 2077 trial, cd projekt red, playstation 5, ps5, xbox seris x, xbox series s

David Delima

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As a writer on technology with Gadgets 360, David Delima is interested in open-source technology, cybersecurity, consumer privacy, and loves to read and write about how the Internet works. David can be contacted via email at DavidD@ndtv.com, on Twitter at @DxDavey, and Mastodon at mstdn.social/@delima. More