Cyberpunk 2077: The Dumpster Fire that could Save the Gaming Industry.

In May 2012, Polish game studio CD Projekt Red announced the development of Cyberpunk 2077, an open-world action-RPG that would rival the likes of Skyrim or GTA V. Eight full years of consistent hype for the game brought fan expectations to unbelievable heights. The level of detail, interactivity, and immersion was said to be ground-breaking for the industry. Towards the end of the game’s development, major announcements were still being made; The biggest being at E3 2018, when it was revealed that Keanu Reeves would play a main character in Cyberpunk’s storyline.

Concern began to arise when the delays were announced. Originally meant to be released April 16, 2020, the game was delayed to September 17th, then November 19th, then ultimately to December 10th. Even more concerning were reports that the game’s staff were being brutally overworked to meet tight deadlines, as many staff members were working full days, nights, and weekends to finish their game. To make matters worse for the development team, deranged fans had sent them numerous death threats for delaying the game they had waited 8 years to play.

The moment of truth arrived - December 10th rolled around, the game was released, and it was… underwhelming. On PC and next gens, the game was buggy, unfinished, and clearly missing key environmentally features. On base Xbox and PS4s, the game was deemed by many as unplayable. Texture loading issues, consistent game crashes, bugs that destroyed your surroundings, unfinished immersion physics, the game was in piss-poor condition for a major studio release. The company’s reputation did a full nose-dive. Unfortunately, the event was indicative of a major issue within the gaming industry itself.

For roughly the first two and a half decades of video games, errors like this would be inexcusable. The version of the game that you shipped millions of copies of would be the definitive version, forever. No updates, no patches, no bug fixes. As internet capabilities came to consoles in the early 2000’s, developers now had the ability to update, extend, or fix issues within their games. Sadly, what started as an immense innovation soon became a crutch. Games became far more complicated to make, and deadlines became tight to appease fans. Suddenly, it became the norm to release a rushed game, and fix it slowly though updates. What was once unthinkable had become an industry standard.

However, Cyberpunk 2077 seemed to be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Gamers could tolerate paying $60 for an imperfect game that would be perfected in the near future.. But $60 for a buggy, glitchy, sometimes unplayable mess? No chance. In an unprecedented move, the PlayStation store announced that everyone who bought a copy of the game would be entitled to a full refund, even if they sank hours of time into it. Additionally, they flat-out removed it from the PlayStation store, and made it impossible to purchase digitally. Despite the buggy, unplayable mess that the game currently is, most reviewers have all said the same thing; That under all the terrible glitches, there’s a fun, enjoyable game with a solid storyline. So, what’s the silver lining?

The entire situation has had many people drawing comparisons to the infamous release of No Man’s Sky. (I could write an entire NOVEL about that ordeal, but if you’re unfamiliar with the story, check out Internet Historian’s mini-documentary on YouTube about it). In short, No Man’s Sky was hyped up to be the greatest game ever made. Due to the immense hype, the small and inexperienced dev team was pressured to release an unfinished game that barely had any of the features they had promised for several years. To maintain their reputation, they kept updating the game, and bringing more into it, until they delivered all of their promised features and more. One could only hope that we’re about to see the same thing with CD Projekt Red.

But furthermore, this situation is hopefully sending a clear message to Microsoft and Sony; Unfinished games for a $60 price tag is an immoral practice, and only harms the industry. Forcing dev teams to meet unrealistic deadlines only to release a crappy, unfinished product isn’t what standards the customer should expect. One could only hope that this extreme example, along with the many others which echo Cyberpunk’s core issues, causes change within the industry. My hope is that Cyberpunk’s release is a pivotal moment for video games, where we see this admittedly fun, cool, and unique game buried by these problems which are inherent of the industry; And hopefully, make a change in our standards - for the better.