“Cyberpunk 2077” is one of the best examples of a cautionary tale in the gaming world. After only four years of development (and eight years of hype), the game was released in December 2020 … and was a complete mess. Developers CD Projekt Red recently released Update 2.0, and while it does make “Cyberpunk” a significantly better game, this does beg the question of why all of this wasn’t part of the original release. And with all of the controversies surrounding the game, it’s difficult to tell if these long-overdue improvements will be able to overshadow any of what came before.
As far as I’m concerned, the game was pretty solid, or at least good enough for me to invest 80 hours into it when it launched. It had an interesting story, cool visuals, fantastic music and an entertaining supporting performance from Keanu Reeves. But there’s a lot that kept this game from being great. It was surprisingly unpolished for a AAA game, especially from the developers behind “The Witcher” series. The driving mechanics were stiff, the upgrading system was bland, the dialogue was iffy and it frequently glitched.
But a lot of that has finally been fixed with Update 2.0, which makes a lot of fundamental changes to the game. It still isn’t perfect, and I’ve run into a few bugs throughout the 18 hours I’ve played, but “Cyberpunk” is certainly closer to the game that CD Projekt had initially pitched.
One of the biggest changes is with the game’s Wanted system, which makes the police response to your crimes more aggressive. This, in turn, makes a successful escape from the authorities feel more rewarding. While it is great to finally see this system in the game, I’m not really sure why this wasn’t present originally. Not only that, but this is a very common feature that has been around for a long time and popularized by Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto” and “Red Dead” series.
My favorite part of the update is easily the improved combat. Enemies actually tend to move around during a shootout in order to find a different angle to attack you, which makes these encounters feel a bit more difficult. There were a few moments where I realized that an enemy was trying to sneak up behind me, and it was pretty cool that this was tweaked.
These are only two of many extensive changes that were made, and while it’s very clear that the developers really care about the game and its fans, this still doesn’t excuse how disastrous the launch was.
While the game was released on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, those latter two systems were barely even able to run it in the first place. Even worse was that these console versions of the game only worked on a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X, both of which had just come out. It’s already a problem to release a game on a last-gen console just for it to only work on a next-gen one, but this was worsened by the fact that both consoles were in low supply thanks to a semiconductor shortage. Because of all of this, publisher CD Projekt started offering refunds, Sony removed the game from the Playstation Store and GameStop even started letting customers return their disc copies of the game.
And that wasn’t even the end of it, as a class action lawsuit was filed against CD Projekt for misleading its investors and downplaying the game’s technical difficulties before launch. The company reportedly settled by paying a measly $1.85 million, in comparison to the 13.7 million copies that were sold within a month of launch (keep in mind that AAA games launch at $60).
Thankfully, this isn’t the end of the “Cyberpunk” legacy, both because of last year’s terrific anime miniseries “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” and Update 2.0. While this updated version of the game still isn’t amazing, as some of its core problems remain (as do occasional glitches), it’s still a good time. “Cyberpunk 2077” might finally be worth that $60 price tag.
RATING: 7/10
118 hours played (18 with Update 2.0)
