Cryptic Mystery That Took Cyberpunk 2077 Fans 3 Years To Solve Sets An Impossibly High Bar For The Sequel

Cyberpunk 2077 incorporates a hidden, (most commonly) fan-solved thriller that its sequel can have a troublesome time residing as much as. Cyberpunk is understood for its plethora of sidequests; from one-off encounters with strangers in the street to city-spanning mini-epics nearly worthy of a sport of their very own, there is a lot to get misplaced in out of doors the primary tale.
And whilst we all know there is a Cyberpunk sequel within the works, we all know rather little about it. Many fanatics have already began hanging in combination their wishlists, bobbing up with all means of items they might like to peer added, modified, or got rid of from the bottom sport. Even if its exploration has frequently been criticized for missing intensity, there used to be no less than one attention-grabbing thriller hidden underneath the skin of Cyberpunk 2077 – and its sequel can have a hard time organically developing one thing an identical.
What Was once Cyberpunk’s FF:06:B5 2.01 Thriller & How It Was once Solved
Cyberpunk’s Worst-Saved Secret
FF:06:B5 used to be the title given to a type of in-game thriller that gamers found out, mentioned, and therefore solved inside Cyberpunk 2077 (with a brief detour to The Witcher 3). It performed out nearly like an in-game ARG, with cryptic clues unfold out all the way through each video games, aimed toward sparking interest and conversations between gamers that might ultimately result in an answer.
The seeds of the FF:06:B5 thriller have been planted a very long time in the past, when gamers found out {that a} sequence of bizarre statues, hidden all the way through Evening Town, all bore the inscription FF:06:B5. Even if many claimed this used to be merely a mistake, or a meaningless element, others insisted that the statues had an excessive amount of in not unusual for it to be unintended. They have been frequently surrounded via Bhikku clergymen, and have been nearly all orientated in an identical instructions.
However the seek started in earnest with the discharge of Cyberpunk‘s 2.0 replace. When gamers logged in after downloading the replace, they found out a brand new location: a rundown outdated church secreted away within the Biotechnica Protein Farms. Heading within, they discovered a computer containing a number of messages between two customers, Polyhistor and Tyromanta, who’re themselves looking to remedy FF:06:B5.
Tyromanta claims to have first encountered the cryptic series in a sport that is “over 60 years outdated,” and believes his protection is compromised because of this. He encourages Polyhistor to seem into it, too. The general message ends with Polyhistor expressing the similar fear, celebrating his step forward as he prepares to unfold the phrase to his pals in Evening Town.
Many gamers brushed aside this as but some other adorable, however in the long run meaningless Cyberpunk Easter egg. However some made up our minds to make an earnest try to remedy the thriller. Briefly order, some other participant found out a computer discarded in a landfill, its display coated in characters from the Glagolitic alphabet utilized in The Witcher 3.
The Glagolitic script is an actual, ancient Slavic alphabet – it used to be simply utilized in The Witcher 3 for taste.
It took a while and sustained collaboration via more than one gamers to resolve this clue. Within the intervening time, some other workforce of gamers have been interested in a unique element present in Polyhistor’s church hideout: an arcade sport referred to as Arasaka Tower 3-d.
Arasaka Tower 3-d can most effective be performed within the deserted church. It is a Wolfenstein-inspired first-person shooter sport, wherein you play as Johnny Silverhand all the way through his mythical raid of Arasaka Tower, preventing your method to the go out sooner than a bomb is going off and takes the entire thing down.
Past its location, more than one components attach Arasaka Tower 3-d to FF:06:B5 – first, one of the crucial top rankings is held via a consumer named “PLHSTR,” who earned a rating of FF06B5; the sport additionally incorporates a lot of secrets and techniques, hidden at the back of unassuming partitions. This can be a connection with the pushwalls used to cover secret rooms within the unique Wolfenstein 3-d, but additionally ties again to Polyhistor’s point out of “a door that we took for a wall,” referenced in a diary access discovered within the deserted church.
Lots of the secrets and techniques are slightly harmless, even supposing a couple of of them do tie again into the thriller in surface-level techniques: some rooms include low-res recreations of the FF:06:B5 statue that sparked this entire thriller, whilst others include numbers – different gamers’ top rankings – etched into the partitions. Some rooms also have magenta columns, which is what FF:06:B5 issues to when used as a hexadecimal colour code.
Ultimately, gamers found out that you must get admission to a secret house – point -10 – via coming into positive different spaces inside a server room in a selected order. The world functioned as an enormous keypad; you have been anticipated to go into Spider Murphy’s top rating via strolling across the room as though there have been hidden buttons at the ground.
Stage -10 contained a lot of secrets and techniques of its personal, together with a QR code that ended in an unwinnable sport of Tic-Tac-Toe, and messages at the partitions studying “It sees you.“
As soon as this point used to be finished, a cable operating from the arcade cupboard to the mainframe can be powered on, permitting you to go into numerical codes into newly-activated keypads. For some time, gamers struggled to decide the codes with the proof they might been given; some have been ready to resolve them via trial and blunder.
At this level, you must free up a singular monster truck, the Demiurge, which led many gamers to claim the thriller solved. You’ll additionally see a mysterious cutscene, and in finding some new messages from Polyhistor that might divulge what used to be actually happening – Polyhistor, Tyromanta, and, in the long run, V, too, had grow to be a part of a seek for a mysterious entity whom Polyhistor calls a “watcher.”
They have been ready to grow to be self-aware of their very own lifestyles as characters in a online game.
It is repeatedly theorized that the “watcher” is a sport dev, and even the participant. The characters discuss of them like a god – it appears, via finding a secret house in a online game illustration in their international, they have been ready to grow to be self-aware of their very own lifestyles as characters in a online game.
However there used to be nonetheless one thing lacking – how may we bridge the distance from the name of the game room in Arasaka Tower 3-d to the mainframe codes? They indubitably were not meant to be brute compelled, now not in any case those hints and clues. Fortunately, an actual answer used to be nonetheless coming near near – and it might be hidden in a wholly other sport.
How The Witcher 3 Helped Clear up FF:06:B5
The Velen Connection
In a while thereafter, CD Projekt Crimson – developer of Cyberpunk 2077 – launched a reputedly unrelated venture. It used to be the next-gen replace for The Witcher 3, loose to all gamers who already owned the sport on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Now with 4K textures, ray tracing toughen, and a few new pieces encouraged via The Witcher Netflix sequence, it inspired many Cyberpunk gamers to dive again into the sector of The Witcher 3, the place they discovered the overall key to fixing the FF:06:B5 thriller.
Hidden inside the Destroyed Bastion in Velen used to be a puzzle that gamers may remedy to get admission to a secret house. Inside of that house used to be the mural pictured above – a glyph of types that gamers have been in the long run ready to decode and convert into the passwords had to turn on the mainframe and result in the overall cutscene.
I would possibly not get into the trivialities focused on fixing this cipher, however you’ll seek the advice of Dangerous_Grounds‘ unique Reddit submit above for the main points if you are into that type of factor.
Cyberpunk 2077 2 Faces A Problem If It Desires To Best This
FF:06:B5 Is Exceptional
As a hidden sidequest, FF:06:B5 used to be inventive in the way it broke the limitations of sport design, forcing exterior participant collaboration over more than one years. It additionally completely fits the Cyberpunk surroundings with its conspiratorial pondering and technological existentialism. The best way clues have been disbursed, together with the sheer choice of useless ends, imply portions of the thriller nonetheless stay unsolved these days.
If you happen to adopted alongside because it opened up, each and every new divulge and answer used to be exciting, forcing you to immerse your self extra deeply on the earth of Evening Town as you sought for clues of your personal. The best way the preliminary denial light into awe as we jointly learned the statue inscriptions were not simply some other glitch, or a meaningless developer in-joke, used to be one thing no different sport has ever completed sooner than or since.
It is nearly inevitable that Cyberpunk‘s sequel will strive one thing an identical, however I will’t believe it will succeed in the similar heights. For something, a miles better portion of gamers are attentive to the lifestyles of FF:06:B5 now – they’re going to be on the lookout for tiny main points like this one once the sport drops, and anything else that even remotely resembles a clue shall be dissected to demise. It’s going to suck a large number of the joys out of any thriller CDPR tried.
Although it’s well-thought-out and distinctive, the successor to FF:06:B5 would possibly not reside as much as the joy of the unique. So, fairly in truth, I believe the most efficient (and funniest) factor CDPR can do in Cyberpunk‘s sequel is to keep away from any more or less FF:06:B5-level hidden sidequest. I need them to go away us meaningless riddles, needless main points, breadcrumb trails that lead nowhere, however stay us without end guessing about the opportunity of some other thriller.
It might keep away from any more or less unhappiness within the sequel being worse than the unique, and it might retroactively solid doubt at the unique thriller in an fun and setting-appropriate means. Skipping the ARG this time is actually the one means for Cyberpunk 2077‘s sequel to keep away from adverse comparisons to the unique – up to I’m going to leave out the revel in of fixing FF:06:B5, the sport shall be at an advantage that means.
Supply: Dangerous_Grounds/Reddit