Cyberpunk 2077 has become one of the most controversial games in video game history, thanks to its extremely troubled launch. Due to the poor optimization of the game on the old generation consoles, the title ended up generating revolt on the part of the players, in addition to an extreme headache for CD Projekt Red, the game’s developer.
Almost three years after the release, the studio managed to turn around, relaunching the title with improvements for the current generation of consoles, in addition to confirming the production of an expansion starring Idris Elba, an animated series on Netflix and a sequel.
In a recent interview, CD Projekt Red’s head of communications reflected on the game’s troubled past and claims that people overreacted with negative reactions.
While acknowledging that Cyberpunk 2077 needed improvement when it arrived in 2020, Michał Platkow-Gilewski, Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications at CD Projekt Red, told GamesIndustry.biz that he believes the title deserved a better reception than it received. received and suggested that some people joined the movement to criticize it because it was fashionable to do so.
In fact, I believe that Cyberpunk at launch was much better than it was received, and even the early reviews were mostly positive. Then it became a nice thing not to like it. We went from hero to zero very quickly.
That was the difficult moment. We didn’t know what was going on. We knew the game is great, yes we can improve it, yes we need time to do it and we need to rebuild some things. It took us a long time, but I don’t think we broke. We always thought: let’s do this.
The executive’s statement is curious to say the least, even more so when he cites the initial criticisms, given that CD Projekt Red chose not to send copies of consoles to journalists who would evaluate the game, considering that the PC version was the more reasonable for the time, which certainly impacted the title’s ratings.
After three delays, the highly anticipated RPG was released for PC and consoles with a series of technical issues, resulting in refunds, the game being pulled from the PlayStation Store, and CD Projekt facing lawsuits claiming it misled investors about the title’s quality.
After six months of patches designed to improve the game, it returned to Sony’s digital storefront in June 2021, when CD Projekt said it believed Cyberpunk 2077’s performance had reached a “satisfactory” level.
The events of the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 will certainly be marked forever, even more so when we have so many games currently being released in grim conditions, which make gamers increasingly fearful.
Do you think the reaction to Cyberpunk 2077 was over the top?
