Commodore's new C64 Ultimate is a Cyberpunk 2077 edition

Commodore and CD Projekt Red announced the Commodore 77 at Gamescom today. It is a Cyberpunk 2077-themed variant of the Commodore 64 Ultimate, featuring a weathered yellow breadbin case, graffiti, warning labels, and a brushed metal function key plate.

The collaboration includes upgraded internals, specifically a faster AMD Artix XC7A100T FPGA. It boots to a custom themed BASIC 2.0 screen. Buyers also get a 2MB 'Arasaka' shard demo cartridge with an original chiptune track by LukHash and demo group Arise, plus a lore-packed spiral-bound user guide. The 1980s microcomputer aesthetic fits perfectly with the retro-futurism of the Cyberpunk universe, considering the original hardware was sitting on desks when the genre was born.

The other colorways

We covered the launch of the other variants of the Commodore 64 Ultimate previously. The base model, known as BASIC Beige, starts at $299.99. If you want something different, the official Commodore store lists several options. The Starlight Edition, Knight Black, and C= White versions add $49.99 to the base price.

The Founders Edition adds $64 and includes a gold seal commemorative share certificate, a Commodore flag, 24k gold dog tags, and a necklace. Every unit ships with a USB drive shaped like a cassette tape, loaded with over 100 classic and new titles. The box also includes a long HDMI cable and a modern power supply with world adapters. You can add a TAC-2 joystick, a 32GB microSD card, or analog video cables during checkout.

Cycle-accurate hardware

The Commodore 64 Ultimate is not a software emulator like the C64 Mini. It relies on FPGA technology developed by Dutch engineer Gideon Zweijtzer. Zweijtzer spent years engineering cycle-exact recreations of Commodore 64 hardware and 1541 disk drives. His Ultimate-64 architecture is the internal foundation for these newly licensed systems.

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays allow the hardware to physically configure its logic gates to match the original custom chips of the C64, like the SID audio chip and VIC-II video chip. The board supports 99.9 percent of original software and includes legacy DB-9 joystick ports, a user port, and Datasette edge connectors. It also has modern conveniences. The back panel includes 1080p HDMI output, Wi-Fi, and USB flash storage.

The original Commodore 64 launched in August 1982 under founder Jack Tramiel. It remains the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with estimated sales reaching up to 17 million units before it was discontinued in 1994. The platform launched thousands of software titles and nurtured the 1980s demoscene.

The active modern homebrew scene is still producing physical cartridge games today. This hardware targets people who want accurate operation without relying on original hardware. We all know how 40-year-old power supplies behave, and it usually involves smoke. The new boards solve that problem while keeping the original cartridge slot intact.