Cyberpunk 2077 has seen an enormous resurgence as of late, thanks largely to the success of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Netflix’s new and critically acclaimed anime adaptation of the sci-fi property. According to the worldwide PR director at CD Projekt Red on Twitter, viewers watched 14,880,000 hours of the present in simply the primary week, placing it safely in Netflix’s high 10.
This has been a fantastic boon for the sport, which launched in a poor, unfinished state on the finish of 2020, and has been getting gradual updates ever since to make it playable, enhance on options like talent bushes, and add new ones like wardrobe transmogrification. While it offered nicely in the beginning of its life cycle, there hasn’t been a spike within the variety of gamers since then. At the time of this writing, nevertheless, Cyberpunk 2077 is the eighth most performed recreation on Steam, based on SteamDB, and has practically 100,000 concurrent gamers, though it peaked at 1 million gamers.
It’s straightforward to really feel joyful for the builders who labored on the venture, and to see them with the ability to rejoice the current success. “It’s hard to express when you’re putting so much heart and soul into something, and for some of us, it’s been six, seven, eight years sometimes, especially for those who started at the våery beginning,” quest director Pawel Sasko mentioned in a current stream (through Gamesradar).
It’s additionally straightforward to neglect that Cyberpunk 2077 was one of many worst online game launches in current reminiscence.
What went flawed with Cyberpunk 2077
I performed Cyberpunk 2077 at launch on my PS5 with a evaluate code supplied by CD Projekt Red, getting via the vast majority of the story marketing campaign and lots of the facet quests within the first couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I skilled many crashes — 5 in a single hour at its peak — and loads of bugs. Some minimize down on the framerate, making some encounters unimaginable, and brought about me to lose progress. And I used to be one of many fortunate ones since I might play it on a PS5. People who went to play it on an Xbox One or PS4 discovered it to be largely unplayable. It ran so poorly that Xbox and PlayStation supplied unprecedented refunds (Sony additionally delisted the sport for a time).

The recreation felt unfinished. Reloading the sport typically reset your progress, scripting points saved quests from triggering, and enemies might spot the participant via obstacles like partitions. T-posing characters have been widespread and weapons would float in midair. Visually, property and textures would fail to load in or would pop out and in. Past-gen console gamers reported character fashions with out faces or practically empty metropolis areas. I ran right into a bug the place even when my well being reached zero, I used to be nonetheless alive, making me just about immortal.
Despite official apologies and the corporate doubling down on main fixes, the controversies continued. CD Projekt Red was quickly on the heart of some class motion lawsuits from shareholders that claimed the corporate misled traders. While Cyberpunk 2077 offered practically 13 million copies inside the first 10 days, the studio’s inventory tanked as soon as it turned obvious the sport wanted rather more work.
Beyond the sport itself, experiences surfaced that the studio was implementing mandated crunch regardless of a number of guarantees on the contrary. Bloomberg spoke with Cyberpunk 2077 builders and located that efficiency considerations went ignored by executives, mismanagement was rampant, and the hour-long 2018 E3 demo was “almost entirely fake.” While lots of the points and delays have been as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, builders mentioned there was loads of strain to get the sport out in time for the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 releases.
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While the events in these class motion lawsuits settled, you can too discover statements from CD Projekt Red president Adam Kiciński in regards to the supposed efficiency on the Xbox One and PS4 “pro” variations that really feel deceptive.
“Of course, a bit lower than on Pros, but surprisingly good, I would say for such a huge world. So, a bit lower, but very good,” he mentioned throughout an investor name a month forward of launch (through Forbes).
The gaming press by no means obtained an opportunity to flag these points. The PlayStation evaluate copy I obtained was despatched a day earlier than the embargo lifted. PC evaluate copies went out earlier, so primarily optimistic PC critiques obtained revealed come embargo time. It was unimaginable to get console impressions up promptly, main many to take a position that CD Projekt Red had tried to actively cover the state of the sport’s last-gen model forward of launch. The developer finally owned as much as that accusation in an apology.
There was loads of room for enchancment on the event facet, and since 2020, the staff has labored arduous to get the sport up and operating in what ought to’ve been its launch state. I don’t suppose I’ll ever choose up Cyberpunk 2077 once more, however from what I’ve seen, the sport works now. The staff needed to delay the next-gen releases and updates to get it there, however they did. Now because of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’s success, the sport appears primed for a vital reevaluation, proper?
Have we seen this earlier than?
The online game business has a brief reminiscence, and titles which have questionable launches typically discover success regardless. Final Fantasy XIV is an immensely well-liked MMORPG in 2022, however when it launched in 2010, it was virtually universally panned. Blizard’s Diablo III launched in 2012 with server points and a controversial in-game public sale home that utilized real-world cash, however with constant help and a number of other updates, it gained again loads of goodwill.
Cyberpunk 2077‘s newfound success has already been compared to another recent gaming comeback story: No Man’s Sky. Like Cyberpunk 2077, No Man’s Sky’s advertising touted it as a procedurally-generated dream with practically infinite areas for exploration. Hello Games founder Sean Murray advised IGN again in 2014 that it could take a participant 5 billion years to discover all of it. It appeared too good to be true, and in some methods, it was. When the sport launched in 2016, it was marred by bugs, largely barren planets, and lackluster visuals. Sound acquainted?

While it was in a position to construct a devoted neighborhood even in these early days, the net backlash was unavoidable. Many mentioned the sport didn’t ship on Murray’s guarantees, which have been overvalued in some heavy advertising. Early trailers didn’t appear to match the completed product both, which led gamers to marvel if Hello Games had made false guarantees to drum up anticipation and gross sales. Regardless of the reality, it led to a harassment marketing campaign involving demise threats.
In a 2018 interview, Murray blamed the messy launch on failing to handle expectations and a scarcity of communication. The studio has spent the previous couple of years engaged on the sport, with six main updates that added sturdy base constructing, new recreation modes, multiplayer parts, and naturally, mounted lots of the points gamers had at launch.
While there are loads of similarities between Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky’s launches, they differ in some ways. Hello Games was an indie studio of round 15 folks at its peak, and its failure within the leadup to No Man’s Sky’s launch could be chalked as much as a scarcity of expertise, no less than based on Murray. Cyberpunk 2077, alternatively, got here from a veteran studio that was no stranger to main open-world releases. There have been no experiences of crunch popping out of Hello Games, whereas many builders spoke to Bloomberg about poor working situations within the leadup to Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, with one saying they put in 13-hour days.
Cyberpunk 2077 was first introduced in 2012, and plenty of builders spent eight years on the venture. That’s a very long time, even for a AAA title, however builders advised Bloomberg they anticipated the sport to be prepared by 2022, not by April 2020 when it was first slated to launch earlier than getting delayed to December. They needed to reduce on many options to get it prepared, and regardless of all of that, it launched in a damaged state.
Reports regarding crunch, mismanagement, unobtainable deadlines, and deceptive statements within the press and to traders present that is greater than only a common online game redemption story. No Man’s Sky no less than labored at launch. Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t.
We can’t neglect
It’s nice to see Cyberpunk 2077’s builders attending to rejoice their arduous work, nevertheless it subtly reminds us that the sport has a darkish historical past. These are individuals who have spent years fixing and increasing upon a disastrous launch, and that’s an vital level to recollect. As Sasko continued in that stream, “it’s good to be back, you know. It’s fucking good to be back, honestly. That was really so … it was really sort of heartbreaking.”
Unfortunately, it took practically two years to repair a damaged recreation. Not solely that, however CD Projekt Red bungled the event and allegedly misled traders in regards to the recreation’s efficiency. It’s nonetheless unprecedented that two main platforms would provide refunds for a significant launch, with one delisting it for round six months.
Cyberpunk 2077 has offered nicely, nevertheless it had a disastrous launch. If we erase that historical past, corporations might really feel emboldened to launch incomplete video games made beneath horrible situations. Why trouble creating a fantastic product when it’s by no means too late for redemption?

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