Cyberpunk 2077, a game about ruthless corporations in a dystopian future, has unfortunately lived up to its premise. The corporation that made the game, CD Project Red, have been forced to issue an apology for launching the game in a poor state.
One of the most anticipated games of all time, and likely to be the number one selling title this Christmas, Cyberpunk 2077 was in development for over seven years and delayed multiple times before finally releasing last Friday. CD Project Red, until now considered the gold standard of developer integrity, always insisted the game would only release ‘when it was ready’ and won lots of trust in the process. Clearly, however, the game was not ready.
“We would like to start by apologising to you for not showing the game on last-gen consoles before it premiered and, in consequence, not allowing you to make a more informed decision about your purchase,” CD Project Red said in a statement. “We should have paid more attention to making it play better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.”
So what are the issues with the game? And should you buy Cyberpunk 2077 this Christmas?
On ‘base’ PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, which the majority of players own, the experience has been shown to be technically deficient. Some people have even called the game ‘unplayable’ in certain moments. The list of documented bugs is long, but there are problems with driving, where cars and collisions often glitch out and cause the game to crash. There are problems with textures, where graphics take too long to load or look 20 years old as they do. There are issues where the framerate of the game (essentially the ‘smoothness’ of the experience) drops to as low as 10-15 frames per second. Most games are expected to run at 30 frames per second at minimum for smooth gameplay. In short, the game is not finished.
Where CD Project Red have been accused of leading customers astray is in their portrayal of the game on last generation consoles in the promotional campaign for Cyberpunk 2077. They deliberately showed little of the gameplay on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles during marketing, focusing instead on PC and next-generation consoles, and then refused to deliver review copies for those older platforms to industry media. This meant that gamers who bought the game for PS4 and Xbox One – the vast majority of the customer base – were not aware of the game’s unfinished state on those older systems before making a purchase.
Although there is a potentially strong game underneath the bugs and glitches, and the PC version is faring better, our advice is to wait on a purchase until Cyberpunk is updated over time, which may take a number of months. In their apology statement, CD Project Red committed to these updates (something they have proven capable of in previous games such as Witcher 3 and also offered refunds to all gamers who wished to return the game.
“We would appreciate if you would give us a chance, but if you are not pleased with the game on your console and don’t want to wait for updates, you can opt to refund your copy,” the statement said.
Ultimately, Cyberpunk 2077 released before it was ready, so that sales for the holiday season would not be lost and shareholder expectations would be met. If nothing else, that’s about as close to the dystopian source material as you can get.
Meanwhile, the controversy over Cyberpunk has completely overshadowed the annual Game Awards, where new games are often announced, albeit via cinematic game trailers rather than with gameplay. We saw announcements for a new Evil Dead game, a spiritual successor to Left4Dead called Back4Blood, an intriguing space horror called The Callisto Protocol, made by the creator of Dead Space, and the soothing Season, a game about recording the history of a peaceful village before the end of the world.
In saying that, there were a few announcements that trumped the rest. A full reboot of Perfect Dark was revealed, bringing back a Nintendo 64 classic, plus we got teasers for new Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Although Cyberpunk 2077 has given us a timely reminder to keep expectations in check, we can’t help but be excited about a new Mass Effect – let the hype begin!
