Xbox Owners Are Switching Their Region to Play Cyberpunk 2077 Early

With every high profile game launch, people try whatever tricks they can think of to get a head start on playing. Some tricks are more reliable and repeatable than others, and one of them is getting Xbox owners off to the races in Night City this morning.

Andy Robinson, Editor-in-Chief of VGC, pointed out on Twitter that Xbox owners (yes, that includes Xbox One or Xbox Series S/X) can easily switch their region to New Zealand to get the leap on Cyberpunk 2077. There, in the UTC+13 time zone, it’s the morning of Dec. 10 already, so the game’s unlocked and ready to play.

Judging by the number of feeds active on Twitch right now (and setting aside the high-profile streamers like Shroud and Jacksepticeye, who’re playing the PC version) plenty of folks are posing as New Zealanders to play 2077 right now. According to Marcin Momot, CD Projekt Red’s Global Community Lead, the Xbox preloads already include the day zero update which should hopefully fix some stability issues and other bugs that early reviewers pointed out.

As for players on PC and PlayStation consoles, switching regions isn’t nearly so easy. Cyberpunk 2077 is scheduled to go live at 12:00 a.m. on Dec. 10 in every time zone, so if you’re reading this today in the US, then you’ve only got about half of a day of waiting left.

Anyone eager to leap into the action with Cyberpunk 2077 should heed a word of caution, though. On Monday, Game Informer posted an article about potential epilepsy triggers in the game, including one that’s quite similar to actual medical equipment for inducing seizures. The editor in question suffered a grand mal seizure while playing through that scene and pointed out that there are currently no accessibility options designed around those flashing light sequences.

CD Projekt Red has since responded to the report by saying that it is working on a more prominent epilepsy and photosensitivity warning for the game. A “more permanent solution” will then be implemented “as soon as possible.”