CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński declared that Cyberpunk 2077 had finally reached a “satisfying” level of performance and stability at a WSE Innovation Day conference on June 23. All it took was six months of updates after the game was released.
As reported by VGC via TVN24, Kiciński explained that Cyberpunk 2077, which launched in an extremely rough state, especially on older consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, was finally stable enough that the developer could focus on updating other parts of the game and not just fixing things.
“We have also been working on improving the overall quality, which we are also quite happy about,” said Kiciński. “Of course, we also removed bugs and visual glitches and we will continue to do that. Over time, we will also be introducing improvements to the general game systems that players have highlighted.”
Cyberpunk 2077 was released on December 10 for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia. However, it launched in a horrible state on consoles. While folks on the PlayStation 4 Pro, the Xbox One X, and next-gen machines had decent performance, many people who were stuck playing the game on basic consoles reported performance issues that made the game near-unplayable during combat. On top of that, numerous strange bugs were reported and shared across social media in the days and weeks following the game’s release. Things got so bad that, on December 17, Sony removed the game from the PlayStation Store, and Microsoft slapped a warning label on it telling folks that the game had performance and stability issues. Both Sony and Microsoft, as well as retail stores, issued refunds to people who had bought the game.
According to a December 18 report from Bloomberg, employees at CD Projekt were upset with management, questioning why the company suggested the game was complete and ready to ship when it clearly wasn’t. Employees also pressured the heads of the company over extensive crunch and unrealistic development deadlines. There was also the question as to why CD Projekt hid the console versions of the game for so long. Only PC versions of the game, which had far fewer bugs, were available for review pre-release.
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Since being launched and pulled from the PlayStation store in December, Cyberpunk 2077’s performance on consoles has improved as CD Projekt continues updating the game. On June 21, after 187 days, the game returned to the PS store, though it came with a big warning that advised folks not to buy the game if they planned on playing it anywhere but a PS5 or PS4 Pro.
During the conference on June 23, Kiciński wouldn’t give any specific or new information about how well Cyberpunk 2077 is selling on consoles. Though based on numbers from the NPD Group, it’s safe to say it’s not doing great. Still, the game has been financially successful on PC.
These latest statements from Kiciński paint a picture that, in June 2021, is very clear to see: Cyberpunk 2077 should not have been released on consoles back in December. It wasn’t ready, and it needed a lot more work. And while, six months later, Kiciński is happy with the current state of the game, warnings from Microsoft and Sony on each company’s respective online stores seem at odds with his more optimistic opinion.
In the meantime, you can always play Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia. It’s surprisingly one of the best ways to play the game if you don’t have a PC.
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