On PC, Cyberpunk 2077 has received glowing review scores despite bugs present in the game. On console, it’s a whole different story due to a proliferation of bugs, gameplay issues, and game crashes. In a conference call today, CD Projekt Red admitted this was because they spent too much time looking at the game on PC and next-gen consoles. They didn’t spend enough time looking at the game’s performance on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Throughout the entire advertising campaign, the developer mostly showed off PC gameplay footage. This was mostly because the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game weren’t ready. As CPR’s Board Member responsible for publishing, Michał Nowakowski, stated: “It is more about us looking… at the PC and next-gen performance rather than current-gen. We definitely did not spend enough time looking at that.” The studio was “updating the game on last-gen consoles until the very last minute,” hoping they’d be able to fix the bugs before its release. That didn’t happen. CPR Joint-CEO Adam Kiciński said:
After 3 delays, we as the Management Board were too focused on releasing the game. We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles. It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy.
Many people are wondering why Sony and Microsoft certified the game in its current state. There was a rather bizarre statement from Nowakowski that he could “only assume that they trusted that we’re going to fix things upon release, and that obviously did not come together exactly as we had planned.” As other developers have confirmed, though, this just isn’t how things work:
I am so sorry to bring more Cyberpunk 2077 takes but this… is not how it works? The platforms don't "assume you fix" anything unless you apply for a waiver stating you'll fix it – but those are tech/cert issues. Game QA is something you choose to do as a dev, as is ignoring it. https://t.co/FmbgZcveFv
— Rami Ismail / رامي (@tha_rami) December 15, 2020
CD Projekt Red are now on a charm offensive to try to regain the trust they’ve lost from players. The game recently got a patch to fix the first batch of issues. A second patch will be released later this week. There will then be major updates planned for January and February, as well as smaller patches in between those. According to Nowakowski:
If your expectation is that the game is going to be equal to, say, next-gens or PC in terms of performance, that definitely isn’t going to happen. Having said that, I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad game –but if your expectations regarding, say, visuals or other performance angle, are like this, then we’re openly stating that’s not going to be the case. It will be a good, playable, stable game, without glitches and crashes, though. That’s the intention.
Whether this is good enough for disgruntled players remains to be seen.
[Source: CD Projekt Red Conference Call]
