“Cyberpunk 2077” was supposed to be the biggest game of the year. Two weeks after launch, it’s the biggest failure of the year — and perhaps, the entire generation.
The comedy of errors that is CD Projekt Red’s once-magnum opus continued to feed on itself this past week as Sony and Microsoft began offering refunds without questions for all digital purchases, with the former even going as far to completely pull the game from the PlayStation Network Store. Microsoft, which secured the marketing rights to what should have been the surefire most successful game of the year, added a disclaimer to its store listing, warning users of potential problems with the title.
The fun didn’t stop there. No, the snowball that is the troubles surrounding ‘Cyberpunk 2077” continued to grow throughout the week into the weekend. Reports surfaced of extremely disgruntled developers who are furious with the management team that mandated the Dec. 10 ship date, even knowing about the poor performance of the game on the base Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Management openly lied about the condition of those versions of the title as little as two weeks before launch, when CD Projekt joint-CEO Adam Kaciński told journalists on Nov. 27 that the console versions ran “surprisingly good.” Perhaps, that quote would make sense if he didn’t even think the game would boot on those consoles.
Now Kaciński and other management team members are facing the potential of two lawsuits from investors. Lawyers in Warsaw, Poland, where CD Projekt is based, are weighing options to file a lawsuit that accuses the developer of, “misrepresentation in order to receive financial benefits.” Essentially, they maintain Kaciński and others knew how poorly the game was running on the legacy consoles and purposefully hid that information by only showing carefully curated PC footage for all promotional materials. Many media outlets have even reported any console footage or impressions were embargoed until after the release date.
As mentioned last week, “Cyberpunk 2077” is in a near-unplayable state on the legacy consoles. It works somewhat well on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X by pure brute force with the extra console power. While the Xbox Series X version seems to be somewhat stable, albeit still subpar compared to similar games, the PS5 version can reportedly crash at random.
The developer acknowledged these issues within a few days of launch, releasing a statement that directed anyone who wanted to get a refund for the game to contact Sony or Microsoft, or whichever retailer they purchased it from. The message made it seem like CD Projekt Red had reached an agreement with the two console manufacturers to issue refunds. Both Sony and Microsoft are notorious for not allowing refunds, except in the most extreme of circumstances. So when many reached out to both — especially to Sony — they found their requests initially rejected. It wasn’t until several days of outrage that Sony issued a statement saying that it would issue a refund for anyone who purchased the game, and was immediately pulling it from the PSN Store. If that doesn’t seem drastic, look up a game called “Life of Black Tiger” to see just what Sony is willing to allow on its storefront.
This backlash was felt by the development team, which held a very contentious meeting with management. Among the more fitting questions asked by the developers was how could management create a culture of crunch by forcing developers to work 60-100 hour weeks while developing a cyberpunk-based game that called out corporate corruption and power abuse. The irony was lost upon management, but not by developers. Management had been on record throughout the year saying “Cyberpunk 2077” did not have a mandated release window, and that it would release when it was ready. It was not ready Dec. 10.
This entire mess of a situation saw the price of CD Projekt’s stock drop by 40 percent from a 52-week high earlier in the month. Investors were riding high on the anticipated success of ‘Cyberpunk 2077,” only to see the end result not live up to any expectation. Never mess with a shareholder’s money. That has prompted investors in both Poland and the United States to contemplate lawsuits, according to the “New York Times.” None have been filed yet, but it could be only a matter of time.
For their part, developers seem to be trying to salvage “Cyberpunk 2077.” Despite yet another major bug surfacing this weekend, prompting the game to simply stop reading a save file if it gets too big, the team has already issued one major patch, and is readying another soon. The PC version isn’t without issues, but is starting to be cleaned up a bit better. It’s just a shame that developers who spent the last eight months working long hours of crunch with the expectation of a respite at the end of the year are now back to work trying to salvage a product that should not have seen the light of day until next year. They are the ones who will suffer the most, and they’re the ones who should suffer the lease — the living embodiment of the very themes that their game is trying to criticize.
Josh Rouse lives in Lawton.