Just over six months after it was first delisted, Cyberpunk 2077 finally returns to the PlayStation Store on June 21, 2021. But this doesn’t actually mean that the game is fixed. CD Projekt RED announced the return in an investor press release, saying that Sony had decided to make the game available on its digital storefront again on that date.
…the Management Board of CD PROJEKT S.A. with a registered office in Warsaw hereby publicly discloses the decision by Sony Interactive Entertainment to reinstate the availability of the digital edition of Cyberpunk 2077 on PlayStation Store, effective on 21 June 2021.
While CD Projekt RED hasn’t yet issued any additional comments about Cyberpunk 2077 returning to the PlayStation Store, Sony did offer a statement to IGN about the game coming back to the storefront. They still recommend that players don’t play on a base model PlayStation 4 console, citing ongoing performance issues.
SIE can confirm that Cyberpunk 2077 will be re-listed on PlayStation Store starting June 21, 2021. Users will continue to experience performance issues with the PS4 edition while CD Projekt Red continues to improve stability across all platforms. SIE recommends playing the title on PS4 Pro or PS5 for the best experience.
This statement comes despite comments last week from PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan, who said that they had to make the decision to remove Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store because they couldn’t “knowingly sell a game that might result in a bad experience” for consumers. It seems that with its return to the PSN, Sony will indeed be once again knowingly selling a game that might result in a bad experience for the community.
It also does not appear that there is a new update or patch on the way to address any notable issues that would suddenly warrant the game’s return to the PlayStation Store out of the blue.
Instead, this seems to once again confirm that Cyberpunk 2077’s initial removal from the PlayStation Store was not in fact about the quality of the game itself, but rather CD Projekt RED breaching its contracts with PlayStation when it put the platform on the hook for refunds while wildly mishandling the botched launch. The almost exact six month timing of the delisting, along with no notable new patches that would fix quality issues (and a continued warning from Sony about the issues with the game) seem to point to Cyberpunk 2077 being removed as part of those disagreements, and not about the inherent quality of the game.
Ryan’s comments last week also never mention anything about the quality of the game, but rather a “bad experience” for the PlayStation community, which seems to refer to the entire refund process and players getting put in between CD Projekt RED directly everyone at Sony and Sony’s own refund policies that would not allow players to return the digital game.
Cyberpunk 2077 was first removed from the PlayStation Store on December 17th, 2020, just one week after its release on December 10th. It will return to the PlayStation Store on June 21st, though buyers should beware that there may still be issues with the game, particularly on PS4. A native PS5 version is in the works, but it’s slated for the latter half of this year with no further updates at this time. We’re also scheduled to get DLC—both free add-ons and paid expansions—but there haven’t been any word on when we might be able to expect those yet.
CD Projekt RED blames the removal of Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store for its lower than expected profits in the first quarter of this year. It remains to be seen if its return will give them the surge of additional sales they are looking for.
