“We should have paid more attention to making it play better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One”.

UPDATE: Sony has had enough and decided to pull Cyberpunk 2077 from the PS Store until further notice. They have also promised no quibbles refunds for anyone who purchased the game. Ouch!

If there was a glimmer of hope at the end of a miserable 2020 it was Cyberpunk 2077, millions of gamers collectively thought as we ground our way through this broken level of a year. But with great hype comes great responsibility, and sadly for gamers intent on playing the console version, especially those still enjoying their OG PS4 and Xbone systems, this game chugged worse than anything we could have collectively imagined.

The uber-anticipated title from fan-favourite studio CD Projekt Red had, after multiple delays, finally landed last week and despite highly positive reviews for the PC version (the only version to be extensively demoed prior to launch) console players were not so lucky. I would know, I was one of them!

Not only were we treated to a multitude of game-breaking bugs, but the graphics themselves were so poor – running at crazy low resolutions and a pathetic frame rate – that the game was, at least on day one, virtually unplayable.

Check out some of the ‘highlights’ here. Warning, it ain’t pretty:

We got (cyber)punked

Fellow PC Zoner and Cyberpunk console player Brad Smith had this to say “I’ve never seen anything as borked as this, I’ve played early access games that were more stable and made by 3 people…I think they should have of just released it on PC first, then console, because it’s fine on PC from what I can tell”.

Having tried the game on both PS5 and PC I can confirm that, as of this writing, it is totally different experience on PC, for the better.

As for PS5? Well, I bought the disc version and upon experiencing the horror show that was the game even with the day one patch installed, I decided to reinstall the game without updating it, using version 1.00 from the disc itself, as honestly I was convinced that there must have been some unintended error in the latest patch that had caused texture quality and resolutions to be so low. Sadly, I was wrong, as the unpatched disc version was somehow much worse. Ouch.

I have no idea when the disc version of the game dated from, as its UI design was quite different from the day one release, but what is certain is that this game was nowhere near ready to be released on consoles. Even with the massive day one patch.

As of this writing (running version 1.04) the PS5 version looks night and day better, with surface textures and character models displaying at their full intended quality, although many graphics and text areas are still bugged and blurry. The game also now locks at a solid 60fps, albeit at just north of a paltry 1080p resolution.

Next-gen consoles will, of course, get properly enhanced versions of the game sometime next year, but until then a lot of work still needs to be done to get the game to where it needs to be, especially for the tens of millions of PS4 and Xbox One players CDPR has massively let down here.

A welcome apology from the embattled studio

In response to all of the issues currently blighting the good game that is Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red issued the following statement on Twitter:

It’s always good to see a studio acknowledge problems quickly and in this case, it is certainly encouraging to see the studio layout some sort of roadmap to address them. The tweet promised “two large patches starting with Patch #1 in January. This will be followed by Patch #2 in February.”

Given how poor the last-gen versions of Cyberpunk are right now, we really would have liked to see the studio make the brave move of delaying said versions until the Spring. At least then gamers could have played something representative from day 1, rather than be so disappointed that many have already asked for refunds.

As for the future of the game? I believe that CDPR will quickly resolve most of the issues

If the recent examples of No Man’s Sky and Fallout 76, both promising games that launched in a sub-optimal state, are anything to go by, it’s always better to delay a game until it’s ready. As not only can bad first impressions forever tarnish what can become very good games, but the inevitable crunch that is required to meet an unrealistic release date is only going to further damage a company’s reputation.

In this last area, it was heartening to read that CDPR intends to honour all bonuses for staff who worked 6 days a week finishing Cyberpunk 2077, ditching the 90 or above Metacritic score that was the original criteria for developers to meet before bonuses would be paid.

As for the future of the game? I believe that CDPR will quickly resolve most of the issues that currently plague it. What’s less clear is what long term damage the whole debacle may have done to the studio’s reputation. Time will tell.

Have you played Cyberpunk 2077 yet? What has your experience been? Hit up those comments and let us know your thoughts.