CD Projekt Red insists that Cyberpunk 2077's launch wasn't that bad, but 'it became a cool thing not to like it'

Oh, shut the fuck up CDPR.

Besides the ocean of technical issues that are mostly fixed now, the game is not even a tenth of what Mike Pondsmith and CDPR drooled and parroted the whole decade prior to its release.

It’s a beautiful looking FPS with enormous production values, PS2 era AI, no joke Vice City has a more lively world, and it has Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s depth for it’s "RPG" systems. Even when you accept the puddle deep experience and try to like it for what it is, the game gives a huge "fuck you" with how offensively quick the game ends.

As someone who loves the CP TTRPG and was an idiot to trust Pondsmith and CDPR, hating on C2077 was something that came from inside me.

It really annoys me how companies started leaned into blaming "haters" for any kind of criticism. Especially considering how quickly some people turn on whoever says anything critical of something they are hyped for.
- It wasn't really meant to be a game, it turns out. It was just a Hype Delivery Vehicle.
The bugs were the best thing to happen to that game.

Why? Because it distracted every insufferable zoomer and stole all the oxygen away from the completely lacklustre gameplay, narrative, and design.

Man, I hate when companies play the victim and try to tell us why we did/didn't like something. I wasn't following a fad, I was reacting naturally!

You're allowed to rush out an incomplete game, destroy your reputation, and lie to your users; none of that is illegal. But I'm allowed to not like your game, vocally, and stop buying your products in the future...

Yeah. If they can literally pay for thousands of Ads saying the game is "X", why is it rude for us to claim (as a single individual) that is was not so.
Thing is they do it because it works most of the time. Most gamers have the memory of a goldfish and they'll read that statement and go "yeah I guess it wasn't that bad" and keep giving people that constantly lie to them money. That's unfortunately how it is.

lmao that game was so bad they removed it from Playstation's online store, but yeah I guess "it wasn't that bad"

Edit: here's "not that bad" according to CDPR: https://nitter.lacontrevoie.fr/gautoz/status/1407006269047771151#m

It blows my mind so many gaming podcasts I listen to glossed over that when it happened. Like, it was so freaking bad they removed the game from the store, inhibiting anyone from purchasing it digitally. And everyone in the industry covered it like it was just any other bad, poorly launched game. No, it was extremely bad; truly broken in myriad of ways.
It bears repeating that the game was removed from the PS store because no other game had ever been handled that way.
To be fair, the "it wasn't that bad" line is a quote from the journalist, not CDPR. What the VP of PR actually said is ""I actually believe Cyberpunk on launch was way better than it was received." His point probably being that the game wasn't as unplayable as the uproar would suggest if you played it on specific platforms. Obviously it was very bad on old-gen. The hate train was definitely as big as the hype train, both of which were ridiculous.
- What? I had it on PC, and there were enough bugs in that it frankly was unplayable. The reception wasn't just a matter of "oh it has issues on PS4", come on, and it was absolutely deserved.
Because it wouldn't run on older hardware.
- The thing is that the "older hardware" in question included the then current consoles the game was advertised and released for.

Oh, to hell with anyone who has an attitude like this guy. Consumers stating their displeasure about an overhyped, incomplete game IS a “cool thing”. Taking advantage of consumers, and then framing yourself as a victim, IS NOT a “cool thing”.

The FTC needs to get on this. Promising something awesome, then selling a buggy, broken mess, should not be the norm.

hmmm it's almost as if releasing an incomplete/broken game is bad for business/reputation and seems to cause a tough row to hoe to gain back gamer's trust... weird.

Insert Principal Chalmers it's not me meme.

Epic bullshit. Hacking was missing, cyberspace was omitted completely, essentially half the content in a typical Pondsmith game was just not present. And most of the quests in the game just ended abruptly, indicating they were cut short.

CDPR, nobody is buying your bullshit. Just suck it up and move on and BE BETTER. Be like you used to be.

As someone who never followed the marketing material and had a high end PC: I was expecting Witcher 3 in Night City, and that's exactly what I got

I understand that plenty of people were disappointed by the missing features and the stuff they outright lied about, but I had fun with it. Probably a 7.5/10 at launch for me.

I understand that the game had a troubled launch, and that's a super-relevant criticism of the game as it was when it came out. But the sky-high expectations fans put on CDPR are largely self-inflicted. It's not like this is the first game with questionable marketing decisions or pre-rendered trailers selling a fantasy the game never comes close to fulfilling.

If you just go "Hey, a CDPR game set in a cyberpunk future, let's check it out," it's by and large a fantastic game.
and the stuff they outright lied about

That was the part that killed my trust in the company, they lied about so much! And they kept lying with the video embargo, they didn't let reviewers use their own footage if the review came out before the game did. That's such a huge breach of trust. And that's not even accounting for the fact that the game was literally unplayable on PS4.

The game was fine and playable on PC albeit with a ton of weird glitches and broken systems, but I don't think I can give them a single dollar of my money going forward. I can't justify giving people like that my hard earned money.
Agreed - bought it for PC and loved it.
I bought it a few days after the release, so I new what I was getting into.

Still enjoyed it but I'd agree that it's maybe a 7/10 at best even ignoring the bugs. Good writing on a lot of the quests though.
I got it on PS4 as a gift, about a month after it came out. The biggest problem I had was that my PS4 wouldn't read the disc from the factory because it was dirty (???), and that I had to immediately update it. I didn't play the TTRPG, but I've played TTRPGs similar to Cyberpunk. I have enjoyed it immensely. I put it down before finishing it, because I maxed out my level, and even though there was still a ton of storyline and random quests, there was no more advancement. That was kind of a bummer, but that was the only reason I put it down. (Well, that and I've generally lost interest in video games.)

I'd put it at a solid 9 when I first got to play it; I didn't experience any game-breaking bugs, just some annoying things. I very much enjoyed the experience. I understand people being frustrated that they didn't have a solid netrunner experience, but that didn't bother me all that much.

Kinda wanted to see if I could go cyberpsycho though...
I was expecting Witcher 3 in Night City,

So was I, and it was nothing like the Witcher III. It sucked. Dull missions, one-dimensional characters, no atmosphere.

I guess we know all the people who made WIII took their severance and ran.

I definitely followed all of the marketing and was expecting about 3 or 4 more skill trees, more meaningful choices in side quests, and generally a more living world. Plus like, 20 hours of gameplay that got cut out and turned into a cutscene.

Honestly, I'd say I actually enjoyed cyberpunk more because of the public backlash, because I had such low expectations that when I borrowed it off a mate - I was blown away by how fantastic it actually was

If the Phantom Liberty update does the same, I'm hopeful it'll be the expansive sendoff that Blood and Wine was for The Witcher 3."

It's interesting to see them mention the Witcher 3 considering that also had a messy launch and it's fair share of bugs.

And now is remembered as one of the best of the genre. One can only hope for such a thing to happen again with Cyberpunk 2077. :D
I'd heard that they're redoing the first one. Hopefully that's true, because I was never able to get it to run well on my PC. And when Witcher 2 came out, it was XBox and PC, and I'd switched to PS. :/

well he's not 100 wrong. But also, they are 100% to blame themselves for that. They took advantage of the goodwill they earned with Witcher 3 and went out of their way to hide the last get versions of the game because they knew it sucked.

Oh, then why did CDPR apologize for it?

https://www.engadget.com/cyberpunk-2077-apology-video-roadmap-updates-2021-220043550.html

Shit I can't stand -- people fucking up, apologizing for it, and then later insisting they didn't fuck up. People plead guilty to shit in court then try to retcon it. People who write essays about their behavior and then later say they didn't do it. This shit here. They fucked up, they said they fucked up. The followup for this shit needs to be: Were you lying then or now?

No, it was pretty bad. I was the moron that bought it for PS4. It performed EXTREMELY bad. Refunded immediately.

Marketing machine hyped this game up beyond belief and i bought into it.

I came back to it on PC and after all of it's patches up to the path tracing update and it works much better now. Played through the story and it's pretty good but we'll see if the phantom liberty expansion ACTUALLY revamps what they say it will.

Once again it's a lot of big promises.

Ehh, I'd say they are maybe 20% right about that one, the gaming community just piled on top of it like it was the most irredeemable pile of trash ever.

The thing is the other 80% of that story is them telling upfront lies about the game, them intentionally hiding that it was literally unplayable on consoles, and even now years after its launch after numerous updates and bugfixes the game is still just a shadow of what it could have been.

It's a fun good game but the thing I think about most while playing it is usually about missed potential, "damn this could have been so much better". Maybe Phantom Liberty and the free update improves this, I really hope it does, but the game is a mess of gameplay mechanics, terrible progression loops and empty open world.

the gaming community just piled on top of it like it was the most irredeemable pile of trash ever

The past gen versions were so bad that they got pulled from digital storefronts. Literally unplayable. They knew this, as evidenced by not a single reviewer getting an advance copy for those systems. They knew and they happily took consumer's money.

Pretty trash, imho.

So now we're on the "Blame anybody and everybody BUT ourselves" stage. Lovely. <s>Because OF COURSE the consumers are wrong to be unhappy about misleading-to-outright-false marketing selling them a product that didn't actually exist outside of the marketing pages (like a game that was playable on XB1/PS4. ZING!)</s>

Hype culture needs to die in a fire. Preferably one fueled by all the cash that's going to the marketing departments.

Patently false, the launch of CP2077 was horrendous
And frankly, it's not even the worst part (although releasing a AAA game with millions of USD of budget in that state should be an embarrasment), the worst was the way they shamefully kept hyping a game they must have known was still broken beyond belief
Like, props to them for putting the work to make the game playable at a normal level, but that should have been the case at launch, not a year later
It's also become a notable example of a trend a lot of AAA games follow, bigger and bigger budget, scope and team that keep getting mismanaged and release the games unfinished to stick to a schedule made for the shareholder's benefits, and not for the customer's

At the end of the day, this is PR gaslighting to prepare the launch of additional premium content

it was a terrible launch
but the game is better nowadays, I want to play it sometime

You could do so much better if you stopped talking CD Projekt

Game sucks balls