Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a mammoth-sized update, titled Update 2.0, tomorrow, September 21, and it promises to be a bit of a game changer. A police revamp, a progression overhaul, a new cybernetics system, vehicular combat, DLSS 3.5—it’s vast, and thankfully separate from the Phantom Liberty expansion due next week, so you’ll get all of this for free. With so many changes, the developer is naturally recommending that you experience it all on a fresh save, starting a new game rather than continuing an existing one.
It’s entirely possible to just carry on with an old save, but making a new character will ease you into all of the big changes, most notably the skill system, which might be a bit jarring if you have to rebuild an existing character. “Due to the number of changes, starting fresh will enhance your overall gameplay experience,” reads the tweet from CD Projekt Red.
Hey, chooms! While you’ll be able to continue the game with your current character on an existing save, we recommend starting a new game after @CyberpunkGame
Update 2.0. Due to the number of changes, starting fresh will enhance your overall gameplay experience!
Seems like you’d have to jump through hoops to avoid updating and continuing to play it while connected to Steam normally. #1 you should go into the Properties of the game and set it to not automatically update. But that won’t fix your issue, as it will trigger the update when you attempt to launch it. Also set it to not allow updates while playing the game, just in case.
Some games you can go into the steam directory and launch the .exe yourself, and that might work. There’s also Steam Offline Mode, but you may want to set it up today before the update drops and test how it works (I’ve never used it). Maybe you’ll have luck disconnecting from the internet before launching the game after the update is available. If you’re not able to completely disconnect your machine for whatever reason, you can get a program like NetLimiter and block the steam applications from accessing the internet temporarily.
GL
If you find the appmanifest file for the game (it’s in the steamapps folder where your games are installed) and set it to read-only, Steam can’t update the game. I think it’s based on the appid so the file should be called appmanifest_1091500.acf. You can open it up like a textfile where it’ll have the name of the game inside if you wanted to make sure.