“Cyberpunk 2077” was supposed to be the marquee entertainment product of 2020. The first-person video game promised to plunge buyers into a futuristic dystopia where corporations reign supreme, drastic forms of body augmentation are rampant, and Keanu Reeves portrays a punk rock terrorist who lives in the player character’s head. Publisher CD Projekt posited the game as a mature, immersive role-playing experience entirely unlike other video games. Anticipation for “Cyberpunk 2077” reached feverish heights in the months leading up to its launch and numerous news organizations that typically do not heavily cover video games — including IndieWire — began reporting on the title.
By now, everyone knows that “Cyberpunk 2077” did not live up to audiences’ expectations or the publisher’s effusive marketing claims. The video game released on December 10, 2020 after numerous delays and immediately caused a public relations disaster for CD Projekt. “Cyberpunk 2077” essentially did not work on the old PlayStation and Xbox consoles — constant crashes, slowdowns, and innumerable bugs permeated every aspect of the experience. The situation wasn’t much better on the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. “Cyberpunk 2077” worked best (and continues to do so) on the PC, but consumers’ mileage will significantly vary depending on the strength of their hardware. Even at its best, “Cyberpunk 2077” was rife with glitches, performance issues, and other immersion-ruining problems that often derailed the experience.
“Cyberpunk 2077” was hardly the first video game where expectations failed to match reality, but the unprecedented level of mainstream interest in the title, as well as the sheer mismatch between the finished product and its marketing videos, caused an unusually large consumer push back. CD Projekt issued several apologies, promised to fix the game’s issues, and eventually offered consumers refunds. In an unprecedented move, Sony, the company that operates the PlayStation consoles, pulled “Cyberpunk 2077” from its online store and offered full refunds due to the game’s launch controversies. Given PlayStation’s popularity and the fact that most consumers play video games on consoles, fixing “Cyberpunk 2077” to the point where Sony would allow the game to be sold on the PlayStation store has been one of CD Projekt’s highest priorities in the months following the game’s launch. “Cyberpunk 2077” was on the PlayStation store for eight days; at the time of this writing, it’s been unavailable for 112 days.CD Projekt released the 1.2 patch for “Cyberpunk 2077” on March 30 and the 8000-plus words in the patch notes detail an exhausting list of bug fixes, tweaks, and other improvements. The game’s 1.2 patch includes many changes intended to help the game run better on old consoles and CD Projekt has billed it as the game’s most important update yet. So, is “Cyberpunk 2077” finally in a good state? And what could the game’s controversial launch and ongoing issues mean for CD Projekt going forward?
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