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THE RAMIFICATIONS OF CYBERPUNK 2077’S CATASTROPHIC LAUNCH…
CYBERPUNK 2077 GAME OUT NOW | PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES, STADIA
It didn’t take long for the most anticipated game of 2020 to become the most derided. Three days before release, Cyberpunk 2077 was riding a wave of fan hype and mostly glowing reviews – although questions were being raised about developer CD Projekt Red’s decision to release only PC codes to outlets. Many wondered whether older hardware could realistically handle such a hyper-detailed future world, which even on high-end PCs produces wide-ranging technical issues. As PS4 and Xbox One owners got their hands on the game – mere hours after console codes were finally made available to reviewers – the answer soon became clear.
Beyond a wince-inducing visual downgrade, the console editions were riddled with bugs and glitches. Many were comical, like disappearing traffic or cars cartwheeling through the air, and characters inadvertently exposing themselves or spreading their arms in a T-pose. But plenty more were gamebreaking, with crashes rife and saved data being lost. Twitter and Reddit were soon awash with videos from bemused and angry players, the game’s many achievements drowned out by a torrent of memes and complaints.
The situation became so bad that a week after launch Sony took decisive action, removing Cyberpunk 2077 from the PS Store while promising to refund any unsatisfied players who’d bought the digital edition on PS4. It was an extraordinary move for a game of this size; likewise when two lawsuits were filed on behalf of investors, citing CD Projekt Red’s “materially false and misleading” statements about the console versions prior to launch.
Though the scale of the catastrophe could hardly have been predicted, warning signs had been there for some time. The game’s marketing seemed to actively encourage more toxic elements of the community, with abuse levelled at the handful of reviewers who gave it lower scores at launch, and even towards one writer who highlighted its use of real-world epilepsy triggers (subsequently addressed in a post-launch patch). By September, the studio had reneged on an earlier promise to avoid ‘crunch’ – a distressingly common practice in triple-A game development whereby employees are made to work longer hours, including weekends, to finish a game. The irony of all this effort being in service of a story that wags its finger at horrifying corporate behaviour was not lost on some critics.
Yet if the result has eroded the substantial goodwill CD Projekt Red has built up, Cyberpunk 2077 has been a success in one sense. With preorder numbers alone comfortably offsetting development and marketing costs, the game made its money back before it even launched. Other publishers will doubtless be watching to see if the studio can simply ride out the wave of negative publicity. But as they consider whether last-gen versions of games made for more powerful hardware are worth the risk – Sony’s Horizon Forbidden West and Microsoft’s Halo Infinite will both come under scrutiny – the financial results are hardly an incentive to change. Time will tell whether this leads to more players keeping their wallets closed; until it does, it’s hard to imagine the industry will learn the right lessons from this debacle.