You may have heard that Cyberpunk 2077 is a disappointing, glitchy mess if you bought the game for the Xbox One or PS4. But how did it get this way?
According to developer CD Projekt Red, the company was “too focused” on releasing the game before the year ended after previously delaying Cyberpunk 2077 three times. “We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles,” said Adam Kiciński, joint-CEO of CD Projekt Red, in an investors’ call on Monday.
“It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy. On top of that, during the (marketing) campaign, we showed the game mostly on PCs,” he added.
Indeed, consumers who bought the Xbox One or PS4 version of Cyberpunk 2077 may have assumed it was going to be like the PC experience. Unfortunately, the game suffers from some serious bugs, low frame rates, and blurry textures. The experience on the last-generation consoles is so bad CD Projekt Red has apologized for the problems and is telling unsatisfied consumers to get a refund.
To fix the issues, the company is promising two large patches in January and February. But don’t expect the console experience to ever match Cyberpunk 2077 on the PC.
“We have also stated that if your expectation is that the game is going to be equal to, say, next-gens or PC in terms of performance, that definitely isn’t going to happen,” said Michał Nowakowski, CD Projekt Red SVP, during the call.
“Having said that, I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad game—but if you’re expectations regarding, say, visuals or other performance angle, are like this, then we’re openly stating that’s not going to be the case. It will be a good, playable, stable game, without glitches and crashes, though. That’s the intention,” he added.
Interestingly, Nowakowski also rejected the idea that adding 200 to 300 extra developers on the project would’ve create a stable version of Cyberpunk 2077 for last-gen consoles. “It’s really not about the number of people; it’s not like throwing in—in the last month—200 or so people would actually help,” he added.
This may suggest last-generation console hardware is simply too underpowered to run the game as intended. Nevertheless, CD Projekt Red did note COVID-19 prevented it from using more external testers to vet the game for bugs.
According to Nowakowski, the key problem was CD Projekt Red becoming too focused on the PC and next-gen console release of Cyberpunk 2077 over the Xbox One, PS4 versions. "We definitely did not spend enough time looking at that,” he added.
"With regard to not showing the console version—we’ve actually shown console footage, but never on the last-gen consoles. The reason is that we were updating the game on last-gen consoles until the very last minute, and we thought we’d make it in time," he also said.