Cyberpunk 2077 triggers epileptic seizures, devs working on solution

Posted on December 9, 2020

Less than 24 hours before Cyberpunk 2077 is to be released reports have surfaced that there are a number of gameplay elements that trigger epileptic seizures. Gaming journalist Liana Ruppert has come forward to warn those with epilepsy of the seizures she experienced whilst playing a review copy of the game. Unfortunately Cyberpunk does not come with a health warning and therefore Ruppert was not prepared for her epilepsy to be triggered whilst playing.

Ruppert, who writes for Game Observer, wrote that she “suffered one major seizure and felt several moments where I was close to another one.” In her article, she discussed where exactly she experienced these seizures to warn other epileptics. These include “moments when walking into clubs and bars” which were “immediate ‘danger zones'” and “interactions with Johnny Silverhand” which are “highlighted with a flickering pale blue glitch effect.”

The part in the game that triggered the seizure was the game’s Brain Dance mode, which “allow(s) players to interface with memories, often of the deceased, by plugging into a mainframe and diving in.” Ruppert discusses how “everything about this is a trigger and this is something that caused me to have a grand mal seizure. This is also a trigger on many levels, starting with the device itself.”

The games developers, CD Projekt Red, released a Tweet saying that they will be “adding a separate warning in the game, aside from the one that exists in the EULA.” The EULA or the End User License Agreement is a document that is just under 7,000 words long and of course isn’t something that players will be aching to read. Therefore, it is important that Projekt Red do warn players who suffer from epilepsy of the possible elements that may trigger them in their game.

They also stated that “Regarding a more permanent solution, Dev team is currently exploring that and will be implementing it as soon as possible.” There was no comment on whether these changes will come in when the game launches or sometime post-launch.

Ruppert understands how many epileptic players will want to “push past their limits” due to the “excitement” of the game, however she stressed that people stay “as safe as possible.” Hopefully CD Projekt Red will make the changes needed so that the game is able to be played by all players.

Cyberpunk 2077 epileptic seizures

Cyberpunk 2077 comes out on the 10th of December, 2020 on PS4, Xbox One and PC with PS5 and Xbox X/S versions to release sometime in 2021.