I have to admit, I asked for it.
In September 23, I was chatting with my fellow Gizmodo about it people should put up with buying a next-generation console when it comes out. “There’s only one thing to keep in mind for the launch: you want to play Cyberpunk in the new generation,” I said. “I want to play the future game on the future console.”
As a fool, I decided I didn’t need to make a PS5 reservation. Cyberpunk 2077 would be playable on the PS4, and it’s a long game. It would probably start in one generation and end in the next. And, if nothing else, the severe shortage of PS5 seemed unlikely. He was wrong.
In December 3, after numerous major delays, news broke Cyberpunk street date had been broken. “Free the game, cowards,” I yelled at Slack’s work, and he meant it. I was totally ready to deal with a failed and broken game just to have something, anything to get excited about. At this point, it turned out he was right.
If you’re worried about video games or not, you’ve probably heard of them Cyberpunk was released in a unfinished state on consoles. Based on the first reviews, was pretty buggy on a high end PC as well. What’s worse, the game’s developer, CD Projekt Red, tricked the public by promising a low-resolution version of the game that would work on PS4 and Xbox One, promoting it exclusively with PC images and boxing reviewers to use only the best hardware for testing.
In a matter of two weeks, we’ve seen one of the most baffling investments of an advertising machine in my entire life. First, we had fanboys stacking on reviewers who didn’t bend his knee to the Cyberpunk alteration. Then, we had furious players asking for CDPR refunds. Then, we made CDPR agree to issue refunds. The study then backtracked because Sony and Microsoft did not accept any refunds. Then, on the most unexpected turn, Sony pulled the game from its online store completely and Microsoft agreed to refund purchases made online. And now, CDPR has done it announced a comprehensive return plan aimed at getting a refund to anyone who wishes.
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Despite all this, I have a great time playing on the PS4.
Let it be clear, the game is down. My console struggles to tap an inch of its life to play Cyberpunk. Graphic fidelity revolves around the quality of the PS3 and the next-gen boundary, sometimes within the same framework. There are a lot of glitches and pop-ups. The frame rate is very inconsistent. And yes, it crashes. On a smaller note, I’ve seen many minor typos in notes and menus, while other players have discovered some important examples. The game is not over, period. And users who are lucky enough to have a PS5 report many of the same problems minus the nasty graphics – after all it’s the same game. (The PS5 version is expected next year).
When I first played Cyberpunk on launch day, my excitement quickly gave way to an uncomfortable sense of commitment before giving up. The moment I walked out of the character creator and into the game, the graphics were disappointing. Two NPC passersby passed by a car—but there were no cars, only the seated NPCs floating in the air. Eventually, I got into a firefight that couldn’t be played because the frame rate was so bad I couldn’t hit the enemies.
Video games are not my life, and I was not thrown into rage. I was simply disappointed. I don’t want to degrade the experience of people who have invested more in preparing the game or for whom the purchase price meant a greater sacrifice. I was just annoyed that I couldn’t play it and decided to wait for the PS5 to do well.
Unfortunately, if you think playing it was busted Cyberpunk is frustrating, try to buy a PS5. It’s the least fun game around. Every retailer’s website becomes an inoperable mess every time a new batch is announced. I spent one morning trying to make it happen this week and I won’t repeat the process until next year.
See if an update has been released for Cyberpunk convinced me to give it a try and I’ve played it the last four nights. People, the game works and can be played. It is almost to the point of being in an acceptable state for a day.
The frame rate is still unstable, but my experience has improved a lot. Problems are still present, but they are rare and I have loved them. Errors are totally appropriate in one Cyberpunk game. The game is clearly full of stylized bugs and intentional effects, and it sure would be nice if everything worked the way its creators wanted. But I love video game failures, and they make sense in this world. It crashed once every night after several hours of play, but every time it crashed it was miraculously at the time it should have gone to bed and no progress was lost.
Before I started a game session, I saw it a viral video one that someone shared in which his instructor from the Platoon spin class took a moment to pay tribute to all the people in our lives who died this year when a pandemic ravaged the world. We live in a dystopia that makes the world Cyberpunk feeling like an absolute joy to visit her.
That’s what I want to get out of a video game right now. I want to go visit a place other than this place because I have no other place where I can be locked up. I want to have experiences that my subconscious can chew on because I don’t have many real experiences right now. And I just want to do something fun.
When he played Cyberpunk last night something very dramatic happened and I was totally immersed in the story and my character. Without spoiling anything, Keanu Reeves immediately made his first appearance in the game. It was the perfect time for it to happen and his way of presenting it was impeccable. My partner and I shouted simultaneously, “*** ***** !!!!!!!” I have to censor the exact quote because it’s a spoiler, but suffice it to say we were very excited. It’s probably a memory I’ll keep.
I decided to play Skyrim for the first time earlier this year. For all the reasons I mentioned above, Skyrim it was a good game for quarantine and has a lot in common with Cyberpunk. I remember horror stories of people who lost tens of hours of play Skyrim when it was first launched. That kept me from ever touching him, and all these years later, I still saved like a maniac for fear of happening to me. Today, Skyrim is a beloved classic, and it is still full of problems. The things that ruin the game are mostly fixed and their joke is quaint.
I’m not saying this to defend CDPR or promote the company line that everyone will be happy after a few more patches. I think it’s illustrative of a change in how much we demand of companies when they don’t meet their own standards or deceive the public. Skyrim he did not get out of the shops and life went on.
Circumstances Obviously, this year’s circumstances are a little different. The CDPR is fighting to appease people, and was clever in a much more dazzling and dishonest way than the editors of Skyrim made back in the day. It seems like company executives have had a choice: delay the game again and drive everyone crazy or leave it unfinished and make some people just angry. I’m nice to the puzzle, but the big shots made a wrong decision and now they have to live with it.
CDPR executives deserve all the criticism they receive. Before Cyberpunk was released, there were numerous reports that developers working on the game were forced to carry out extreme overtime (or crises) to prepare it in time. Rather today Bloomberg reported that executives and developers held a disputed internal meeting to address the consequences of Cyberpunklaunch. According to reports, poor planning, the crisis and the false claims that the game ended were at the forefront of the creative team’s concerns.
That’s another thing I thought about a lot while playing Cyberpunk. Aside from the flaws, these artists clearly work at the top of their game. The story is cinematic, the world is rich, the designs are amazing, the music is solid and mercifully uncompetitive. Those people didn’t deserve their work to be thrown into the world before it was ready and they still have a lot of work to do. But in recent years, the public was not even aware that the crisis is a problem in the gaming industry, and it’s now on the minds of fans calling for companies to do better.
But how do we demand a better performance from a company without the threat of consequences? You could say that the only way to send a message is refuse to buy the game or demand this refund. But that hurts the artists who finish the game and build the multiplayer component expected next year.
Cyberpunk it probably is too big to fail, so if you want to give a big middle finger to money men boycotting the game, I think that’s fine. But the anger I see online makes me sad, and I hate the idea of being completely removed from availability. Screw on the CDPR, but if you can handle a bit of a joke, be sure to have fun when it’s currently missing. And when the time comes that you can hug your friends and have a cup of coffee in a dining room, do it.