The return of "Cyberpunk 2077" to the PlayStation store today marks the biggest milestone yet in the game's road to recovery.

Why it matters: Video games are the rare pieces of entertainment that do not remain static. The industry's turn to DLC and updates has made gaming into a living medium.

• On Twitter, CD Projekt Red noted that there are still performance issues with the PS4 version of the game. Sony recommends players to play on at least a PS4 Pro or PS5.
• CD Projekt Red's commitment to fixing "Cyberpunk" will be a months-, if not years-long endeavor. A free update is coming in the second half of 2021, with more fixes "to be released throughout the year."

In the six months following the game’s launch, CDPR has continued to add major patches.

• Its latest patch was released last week to address even more crashes and bugs.
• PlayStation head Jim Ryan previously told Axios that cutting the game "was a tough decision for us to make, but ultimately, we had to act in the interests of the PlayStation community, and not knowingly sell a game that might result in a bad experience for them."

The big picture: Bad launches happen, and games can still recover.

• The most prolific example is Hello Games' 2016 release of "No Man's Sky." The hugely anticipated game launched with game-breaking bugs and problems that a day-one patch couldn't fully fix.
• Hello Games has spent the last five years fixing and updating"No Man's Sky." Today it's practically unrecognizable from the game it was at release.

The bottom line: "Cyberpunk's" return to the PlayStation Store is far from the end of CDPR's woes, as the damage done to their reputation will be harder to fix.

Chinese gaming sensation "Genshin Impact" has been tweeted about more than any other game on the platform, according to data that Twitter shared with Axios.

Why it matters: Tweets don't necessarily sell more copies of games, but they can convey the excitement around what people are playing.

Here's the full list of top-tweeted games in 2021:

1. "Genshin Impact"
2. "Apex Legends"
3. "Ensemble Stars!"
4. "Final Fantasy VII: Remake"
5. "Animal Crossing"
6. "Knives Out"
7. "Fortnite"
8. "Monster Hunter"
9. "Fate/Grand Order"
10. "Minecraft"

Between the lines: The battle royale game "Knives Out" (no, it's not tied to the Rian Johnson movie) and "Ensemble Stars!" are hits in Japan.

As for E3:

• The most tweeted games were "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel," "Elden Ring," "Battlefield 2042," "Halo Infinite," and "Forza Horizon 5."
• The most tweeted video from E3 was the trailer for "Elden Ring."

One more list: Most Talked Esports Leagues (Globally, YTD)

1. CBLOL (@CBLOL)
2. Call of Duty League (@CODLeague)
3. Overwatch League (@OverwatchLeague)
4. VALORANT Champions Tour (@VALORANTEsports)
5. League of Legends European Championship (@LEC)

Disney-owned characters and franchises were all over E3 this year, signaling the resurgence of a powerhouse that has struggled in video games.

Why it matters: Gaming has been one sector of entertainment that Disney doesn’t dominate — for now.

Driving the news: Three major gaming showcases prominently featured Disney-owned series.

• Xbox showed a surprise "Pirates of the Caribbean" crossover (out tomorrow) with its pirate game "Sea of Thieves."
• Ubisoft ran a show-closing trailer for its game based on James Cameron's "Avatar" series.
• Square Enix spent half of its showcase on a new "Guardians of the Galaxy" game.

Between the lines: Disney has done fine with mobile games, but stumbled for years with big-budget console and PC titles.

• The mid-2010s saw Disney shut down its biggest internal studios, including Blackrock Studio, Junction Point, and Propaganda, which had worked on original games and games tied to characters as popular as Mickey Mouse.
• In 2016, Disney ended its "Disney Infinity" gaming series and switched to a licensing model.

The big picture: Disney's current approach ties its biggest franchises to acclaimed mega-studios across the industry.

• Marvel gaming is exploding with "Guardians" from Square's Eidos Montreal studio, "Spider-Man" games coming from Sony's Insomniac, and more.
• "Star Wars" is expanding beyond EA for big-budget games, to include an upcoming project from Ubisoft's Massive team, who are also on "Avatar." Zynga has a mysterious "Star Wars" game coming to the Nintendo Switch and mobile, too.
• "Indiana Jones" is in the works at Microsoft/Bethesda's MachineGames.

Xbox and Sony are making an unusually public push for independent studios to make games just for them.

The big picture: Studio acquisition and creation are popular ways for the big platform holders to generate exclusive hits, as is simply writing a third-party studio a big check.

• But partnerships with indie studios — sometimes called second-party deals — are another viable path.

Sony said in March that it was working with Haven Studios, a new independent studio overseen by original "Assassin's Creed" producer Jade Raymond.

• Then came the April news of a deal with ex-"Destiny" developers at Firewalk Studios for a multiplayer PS5 game.
• June brought another partnership with independent studio Deviation Games, run by former top "Call of Duty" developers.

Microsoft countered with a promotional push around Xbox Game Publishing.

• XGP recently teased a co-op game called "Contraband" with Avalanche Studios.
• It highlighted the success of 2020's "Microsoft Flight Simulator," which was made by outside studio Asobo.
• Microsoft today announced the hire of Kim Swift, project lead on all-time classic "Portal" and veteran of Amazon, EA and Google Stadia, to help build its partnership business.

Between the lines: Swift, along with Raymond and other principles from Haven are all ex-Google Stadia, meaning the shutdown of that tech giant's internal game dev efforts has been the rest of the industry's gain.

EA will let people who want to buy its lucrative but controversial FIFA Ultimate Team card packs see what's in them before purchasing.

• Players can preview the contents of one pack per 24 hours (among some other catches).
• EA has only committed to offering "preview packs" during its "Festival of FUTbol" event, which ends in mid-July.

🤬 Tips to stop your kids from using your credit card on videogames. (Julie Jargon, WSJ)

🎮 This heartbreaking demo puts you into the boots of a Chernobyl firefighter. (Morgan Park, PC Gamer)

🙅 Don't touch "Call of Duty: Warzone's" deadly door. (Wesley Yin-Poole, Eurogamer)

"Super Mario World Widescreen" is a new ROM hack that presents the classic early-'90s Super Nintendo game in format literally fit for modern TVs.

• "This is possible by expanding the horizontal resolution by 96 pixels, increasing resolution from 256x224 to 352x224," modder Vitor Vilela wrote.