"Ten minutes remaining."
As midnight approached, many people in Japan were destined to have a sleepless night.
Because a video ga that countless people had been waiting for was about to be officially released.
Due to ti zone differences, Asia would be the first region to experience Cyberpunk 2077.
Japan, because of its location, would be just slightly later than so other Asian countries.
At this very mont, for many Japanese players, every passing second felt like an entire year.
Even before its release, Cyberpunk 2077 had already beco a global topic due to its unprecedented level of investnt.
With that ca an extraordinary level of attention.
So much so that even the Japanese governnt had stepped in to help promote the ga, hoping to use it to solidify Japan’s position in the video ga industry.
"Five minutes remaining."
Murakami Kazuo was the world’s most famous ga dia reviewer. In the past, he had always been granted early access to Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s gas, allowing him to publish detailed evaluations ahead of release.
But this ti was different.
This ti, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt did not distribute full versions of the ga early to well-known figures. Instead, they chose to let everyone experience the ga at the sa ti as regular players.
According to Takayuki himself, allowing anyone to play early because of their status or position would be unfair—both to the players who were waiting, and to the person who played early.
Murakami Kazuo found the reasoning quite sound.
A ga of this caliber didn’t need any pre-release review hype.
All it needed was the official launch day—when everyone could experience it together.
That feeling, he believed, was the best of all.
"Three minutes remaining."
Starting today, Murakami Kazuo had given everyone in his company a long holiday—a full week off.
And if anyone felt that wasn’t enough, they could apply for additional leave, which he would approve without question.
In the end, everyone had at least ten days off to fully imrse themselves in Cyberpunk 2077.
Even Murakami Kazuo’s review website had temporarily halted updates. Basic maintenance would continue, but all other work was suspended.
After all, as a ga review dia outlet, playing gas was part of their job.
Playing Cyberpunk 2077 was work.
And Murakami Kazuo’s company wasn’t the only one doing this.
Many well-known ga developnt studios also granted their employees ti off during this period.
In fact, they had no choice.
Anyone working in the industry had already been completely captivated by Cyberpunk 2077—to the point where they could barely focus on work.
They talked about it every day.
Counted down to release day obsessively.
So rather than forcing low-efficiency work, it was better to let them take ti off and enjoy the ga.
After all, once Cyberpunk 2077 launched, other gas would have little chance of competing for at least one or two weeks.
Every ga company wisely avoided releasing their own titles during this window.
They all knew they couldn’t compete with Cyberpunk 2077.
At the very least, they would wait until the hype died down.
The sa was true for Suri Electronics’ gaming division.
Having learned from past experience, Uehito Hayakawa also approved a long holiday for that departnt.
He even noticed that so of the younger departnts had been requesting a lot of leave recently.
Hayakawa estimated that at least half of them were taking ti off because of Cyberpunk 2077.
Just like people taking leave during the World Cup to watch matches.
There were only a handful of top-tier gas like this in the world—so why not just let them go?
Still, Hayakawa was also deeply curious.
He wanted to see just how well this ga would perform.
Did it truly deserve this level of attention?
At Mickfow’s headquarters, Myron Case could only look helplessly at recent attendance records.
His company had a lot of young employees.
They had all requested leave at the sa ti.
Their reasons varied—so said a child had been born, others claid their parents were gravely ill, so said they were going to inherit family property.
One even claid he was going to "burn Night City to the ground."
Mad.
They were all mad.
That was the only conclusion Myron Case could reach.
The younger the workforce in an internet or electronics company, the more severe the collective leave situation beca.
When everyone broke the rules together, managent could only turn a blind eye.
"One minute remaining."
In Japan, the ga’s release countdown had entered its final monts.
Midnight was the official release ti for the digital version.
At the sa ti, many Gastar Electronic Entertainnt official stores in Japan already had long lines of people waiting to buy physical copies.
Late at night, so larger stores already had hundreds of people in line.
This was a spectacle that hadn’t been seen in a long ti.
Even the release of Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s latest consoles hadn’t drawn crowds like this in years.
"Thirty seconds remaining."
Murakami Kazuo sat upright in front of his console, frantically pressing the confirm button on his controller, desperately trying to force his way into the already pre-downloaded Cyberpunk 2077.
But every response from the console was cold and unyielding.
"Sorry, this ga has not yet been released. Please wait until the official release ti to begin."
"Release countdown: 00:00:29"
The countdown continued.
But Murakami Kazuo refused to give up.
He kept mashing the confirm button.
He felt that if he tried hard enough, he might trigger so kind of bug—just enough to get in a few seconds early.
"Ten seconds remaining."
He pressed even faster.
Still, the console’s response remained unchanged.
anwhile, at Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s headquarters, the night-shift internet maintenance staff were staring at the server monitors without blinking.
They all knew this was a special day.
Even before the ga’s release, the servers were already under enormous pressure.
Countless users were continuously accessing Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s servers—the load comparable to a high-frequency DDoS attack.
Sweat ran down everyone’s faces as they feared even the smallest problem at this critical mont.
"One second!"
Ding!
Across Japan, countless Gastar Electronic Entertainnt consoles simultaneously popped up a notification.
"Cyberpunk 2077 is now officially released. Welco to Night City—enjoy life in Night City!"
Murakami Kazuo, Oda Okin, Oda Okin Sr., and countless other players all pressed the confirm button at the exact sa mont.
The Cyberpunk 2077 logo filled the screen.
The ga had released.
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