After its anticipated launch, Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be generating more headlines about its buggy glitches and underwhelming graphics than its actual content. Add to that news about unbearable crunch culture for its developers, refunds by the busload, and CD Projekt RED's reported misleading of Microsoft and Sony about the game's ability to pass both companies' certification processes, and it's all the harder not to focus on the negative. While the developer's last blockbuster, 2015's The Witcher 3, also had its share of bugs, it overcame them to become regarded as an all-time classic. Right now, Cyberpunk 2077 is far more reminiscent of other hyped AAA titles in recent years that stumbled out of the gate with technical misfires galore.
Perhaps the most embarrassing issue for CD Projekt RED's sci-fi RPG is how bad Cyberpunk looks on PS4 and Xbox One. Some characters are so blocky and featureless they wouldn't even pass for Nintendo 64 models, while the graphics on PC and current-gen consoles are more up to speed. This bears similarity to the calamity that ensued when Batman: Arkham Knight dropped in June 2015. Upon release, the game worked just fine on consoles but was derided for performing far worse on PC, suffering from impediments like locked framerates, lag, and characters and objects frozen in place or floating. When a title doesn't perform up to expectation evenly on all available platforms, it casts the developer's approach in an especially negative light.
Cyberpunk 2077's bugs and glitches have greatly impeded players' experiences thus far. Some NPCs will randomly lock in a T-pose, while others will suddenly drift across the floor. Characters driving in cars or sitting in chairs will clip and get stuck to them. Other times, a character's head will be missing, leaving nothing but disembodied hair, eyeballs and a mouth floating in the air. Moments like these recall the terrifying bugs that marred 2014's Assassin's Creed Unity, from getting stuck in hay wagons to the bulging, disembodied eyes and mouth that became perhaps the most infamous graphical glitch in gaming history.
How Cyberpunk 2077 Could Recover From Its Buggy Launch
Of course, there is a chance that, as embarrassing as all this may be for Cyberpunk 2077, it won't mean a permanent end for the game's life cycle. One only needs to look back to 2016, when No Man's Sky was pilloried for falling far short of the amount of content its developers had eagerly promised. Today, after multiple patches and updates, No Man's Sky is the multifaceted experience that was originally anticipated. CD Projekt RED has already announced fixes for Xbox One and PS4 ports for Cyberpunk 2077, a promising step in the right direction.
After such a painful development hell and many delays, hopefully Cyberpunk 2077 can put its troubled launch behind it. As some of the aforementioned titles show, a game can still attain sustained popularity and acclaim, even after a rocky launch. Right now, though, the legacy of one of the most anticipated games of 2020 looks underwhelming. While some of Cyberpunk 2077's issues were known well before launch, unlike the other games discussed, the extent of the game's dysfunction on last-gen consoles wasn't apparent to the public until it was too late. Add to that Sony removing Cyberpunk from the PlayStation Store and Microsoft now offering refunds for all digital sales, and the near future for CD Projekt RED's latest looks very grim.
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