Where Did Cyberpunk 2077 Go Wrong?

As gamers, we witness that many big games that have been released in recent years bring serious performance problems with them. For example; Elden Ring, which was launched earlier this year. Although it was loved and praised by the players, it had many performance problems, especially on the PC side.

In another example, Cyberpunk 2077, things were a little more complicated. CD Projekt, which managed to achieve one of the highest expectation levels in the game world, could not evaluate this process properly and brought this level of expectation to a level that would negatively affect the game by promising many things that the game could not achieve. So, let’s talk about all these mistakes together.

All the mistakes CD Projekt Red made during the release of Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt’s biggest mistake: How were players’ expectations managed?

As gamers, we have a hard time managing our expectations about the productions we’re looking forward to. If we consider that Cyberpunk 2077 is an open world action role-playing game with a cyberpunk theme; the reach of these expectations is greatly increased. Because; The activities that can be done in such large-scale games are more frequent than other types of games, as you can largely adopt your own unique gameplay style.

Nevertheless, the level of expectation of Cyberpunk 2077 had a different effect on each player. CD Projekt, on the other hand, managed this expectation process well at first, but succumbed to the ever-increasing level of expectations and started making promises to players that they could not keep. The open world of Cyberpunk 2077 and the diversity it contains were so praised even before the game was released that “GTA set in the future” was even started to be defined as “the game that will replace GTA”.

CD Projekt, which started to talk about the gameplay of the game in detail; He also explained the gameplay mechanics and the progression system in a very interesting way. It was later revealed that these gameplay mechanics were designed quite simply and had little effect in the game. Also, when the game was released, there was not even a police chase in the city and the cops were teleporting directly behind you.

After this process, it is seen that most of the promises made by CD Projekt to the players were not actually included in the game; Cyberpunk 2077 achieved an average OpenCritic score of 76 by critics.

Console users’ sad Cyberpunk adventure: On which platforms did the game work properly?

Cyberpunk 2077, which was released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Stadia and Microsoft Windows, could only offer a smooth (!) experience on the PC and cloud side. Although the game contained very serious optimization problems, game-breaking bugs and many problems in general, it was at a level that could not be played especially on consoles. In fact, Sony even removed the game from the PlayStation store for a long time.

CDPR (CD Projekt Red) team focused mostly on the PC version while developing Cyberpunk 2077, and because they wanted the game to be a graphically high-end job, they pushed the console side into the background. Since the game was announced for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 when it was first announced; It did not have a chance to skip these consoles and only go to the new generation consoles. Also, at the time of Cyberpunk’s release, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 had just been released, and very few players had these consoles compared to the old consoles.

CDPR succumbed to its ambition and acted on the belief that Cyberpunk 2077 would qualify as a ‘masterpiece’. If the game had been carefully tested and adapted on all platforms, it would have faced a much lower response level despite all the in-game errors it contains.

Besides the failure on the console side; Although there are huge optimization problems on the PC side, many players claimed that they had a positive experience. Also, Cyberpunk 2077 was not optimized for next-gen consoles when it came out, and was running the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 version.

Players’ wrath: Why is Cyberpunk 2077 constantly delayed?

When the release date of Cyberpunk 2077 was first announced, the game was scheduled to be released on April 16, 2020. Continuing to fuel the expectation on it before the game was even ready, CDPR postponed the game first to September 17, 2020, then to November 19 and then to December 10, 2020.

CD Projekt’s mistake here, while the game is not ready yet; it was constantly raising the expectation level of the players. As such, there was a great reaction in each delay process and the rush for the release of Cyberpunk 2077 began. Thus, a game full of huge problems was released.

Even though it would get a big reaction from players and shareholders if the game was postponed indefinitely during the initial postponement and a small note was made that it would come out when it was ready; After a while, things would settle down and when the time came, we would be able to encounter a very different Cyberpunk 2077 release process.

In addition, a post shared by journalist Jason Schreier on social media: In interviews with CDPR employees, the company; ignoring unrealistic release dates, uncontrolled ambition and technical difficulties; “We made The Witcher 3. It will work.” He revealed that he was progressing with the belief.

Frustrated gamers: How did CD Projekt find a solution?

Considering that Cyberpunk has made such a debut with more than eight million pre-orders, you can imagine how CD Projekt reacted. The company announced that it will offer a refund option to all players, and returns from every platform are accepted.

Thus, every user who was disappointed with the game, regardless of platform, had the option to return the game. During this process; While expanding return policies for Cyberpunk 2077 at Microsoft; Sony, as well as the return option; removed the game from the PlayStation store for a long time.

Let’s come to the most controversial topic: Is Cyberpunk 2077 a successful game?

Cyberpunk 2077, although not technically; A very successful production on the sales side. The game, which left 18 million sales behind in total, received more than eight million pre-orders and managed to meet almost all production costs before it was released.

In addition, despite all the current troubled situation in the game; It is worth noting that it is also loved by a very large player base. We can say that the current state of the game is also much better and that the problems have been seriously corrected with the major updates. So, what do you guys think about Cyberpunk 2077?