I still think about that clip sometimes. You know the one—the Cyberpunk 2077 player who lobbed a grenade at a pack of Scavengers and watched one of them turn into a blur, slamming into the camera before the boom even registered. It was equal parts hilarious and straight-up nightmare fuel.
Back when update 2.0 dropped on September 21, 2023, Night City got a whole lot meaner. Enemies suddenly cared about staying alive. They hugged cover, retreated when their health tanked, and even tried to dodge anything you threw at them. It was a breath of fresh air for a game that had previously let you steamroll every encounter without breaking a sweat.
But then there was that one Scavenger. Reddit user DragonSych found themselves facing three of them, grenade in hand. The plan was simple: toss it, watch them scatter, clean up the leftovers. What actually happened was something else entirely. One of the Scavengers didn't just dodge—the guy practically teleported into V's face at a speed that made the whole thing feel like found footage from a horror short.
I mean, talk about an overachiever. The rest of the crew was probably still figuring out which direction to run, and this absolute unit was already inside the blast radius—except he wasn't, because he'd cleared it before the explosion even had time to think about detonating. It scared the pants off the player, and honestly, I don't blame them. If I saw a lanky scav sprinting at me like that from a crouched position, I'd probably need a minute to breathe.
Now, some folks in the comments tried to rationalize the whole thing. They pointed out that hostile NPCs in the 2.0 version can use Sandevistans, those iconic slow-time implants that make everything else look like it's moving through molasses. That would explain the burst of speed, right? But the way the enemy went from crouching to full sprint in a single frame? That didn't look like Sandevistan. That looked like the game engine had a brief existential crisis.
Out of left field, the AI decided that self-preservation meant "get directly in the player's face before the grenade goes off," which is... one way to interpret it. Not the way CD Projekt Red probably intended, but definitely memorable.
At the time, CDPR was still in the habit of dropping hotfixes after major patches, and update 2.0 was no exception. They'd even patched a minor art oversight here and there, so no issue was ever too small. A bug this dramatic wasn't going to slip through the cracks for long. I remember thinking, "Okay, that'll be patched within a week." And sure enough, later patches smoothed out some of those wild AI reactions. These days, in 2026, Night City's Scavengers still put up a fight, but they're no longer breaking the laws of physics to do it.
The funny thing is, even though it was a glitch, it captured something about Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 update that I genuinely love. The world felt more alive, more unpredictable, and occasionally more terrifying than it ever had before. Enemies weren't just loot piñatas anymore—they had agency, even if that agency occasionally manifested as a horror movie sprint directly at your face.
If you ever find yourself overwhelmed by the new AI, here's a little practical advice from someone who's been there:
-
🎯 Start a fresh playthrough. The revamped perk system and faster combat pacing take a minute to click. Starting over helps you ease into it.
-
⚙️ Lower the difficulty. No shame in it. The goal is to have fun, not to get bodied by every random street gang.
-
🧠 Expect the unexpected. Sometimes enemies retreat, sometimes they flank, and sometimes—just sometimes—they break reality for a split second just to remind you who's really in charge.
So yeah, that grenade-dodging Scavenger lives rent-free in my head. He was a glitch, sure, but he was also a perfect little moment of chaos in a city that thrives on it. Try not to lose any sleep over him.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go check my corners before tossing any more grenades in Pacifica.