Cognition Dissemination: Don’t Call It a Cyberpunk 2077 Comeback

Cyberpunk 2077 became the key example of a game heavily hyped before its release and subsequently forgotten in the post-release period, for good reason. It shipped in a disheveled state, before the development team wanted to release it, full of glitches and bugs. All its problems were exacerbated on the base PlayStation 4 and Xbox One/S models, the platforms most players planned to experience it on at the time. Worse, the game itself didn’t live up to its potential thanks to many features promised in the promotional videos either not living up to their potential and missing altogether.

Even with the dire period after release, which saw Sony temporarily pulling the game from PlayStation Network and Microsoft offering refunds for the Xbox version, potential existed for the game to come crawling back. The chance of that, however, was low considering the small number of games that developers have successfully resuscitated, most of which have been online-focused experiences and not single-player action RPGs. It’s been nearly one year since release, and while it’s still too early to definitively say that Cyberpunk 2077 has made a comeback, it sure appears to be on the cusp of making one.

Thanks to the plethora of patches it’s received since release to improve its performance on most platforms (outside the base PS4 and Xbox One versions, which cannot be saved), the game now sitting on a “Very Positive” review reception on Steam. The combo of the newfound good reception and the sale price for Black Friday at $29.99 has caused it to roar back into the top 10 best-seller charts on the platform, to as high as second place at one point (just behind Football Manager 2022). It’s a stunning performance for a game once thought forgotten.

This fortuitously happened days after Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita printed an interview with CD Projekt RED president Adam Kiciński, with select quotes printed by VGC. In it, he claimed that Cyberpunk 2077 “will be perceived as a very good game, and like our other titles, it will sell for years” in the long run. “We’re working on updates all the time, and we’re also working on a version for the latest generation of consoles. Of course, the original release taught us a lot. It gave us a kick and motivated us to make changes that will make us better in the future.” This makes it clear that Kiciński knew what he was talking about, and that they’ve perhaps learned how to give their developers enough breathing room to finish games. It’s a shame a disaster was required for them to realize it.

But it will still take a while for the game to repair its sordid reputation, so as the title says, don’t call it a comeback just yet. The game has been the butt of many jokes for the good part of 2021, a time when Sony didn’t even want to sell the game on their service thanks to the pitiful shape it released in, despite its superlative launch sales. All those YouTube videos about the game not living up to its promises aren’t going anywhere. It’s almost tough to remember how good CDPR’s reputation was following the releases of the last two Witcher games, and the superlative reception to The Witcher 3’s well-done downloadable content expansions.

This recent affair shows how it is possible for the game and company to overcome this. But there won’t be any room for error from here on, something you can absolutely be confident in considering the same higher-ups who forced the developers into this disaster are still there after making mountains of excuses for themselves. But it’s also possible they’ve learned their lessons; we’ll see. I cannot emphasize the words “perhaps” and “possible” here enough.

It’s clear CDPR knows this isn’t the comeback yet either; that will happen with the new-gen console version. Kiciński mentioned in the aforementioned interview that Cyberpunk 2077’s last patch was the final one this year, while the team is prepping the native PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions for release in early 2022. Their delays have shown how the team is taking their time with them, another encouraging sign despite how stockholders were watching the higher-ups like hawks waiting to pounce if they screwed up again.

In less important matters: These developments screwed up my plan to make a snarky-as-hell post about how Cyberpunk 2077 had been completely forgotten. I was aiming to post it on or around December 10th, the date on which it released one year ago. But it’s fine. It’s not like it will be difficult to come up with ideas for blatant snarkbait posts — not that I’ve ever gotten too overt here.

It’s good for the CDPR employees who didn’t depart in protest and the higher-ups who were in the aforementioned eyes of the hawks that this game is coming back together, even though it might be too large a task for them to release the game they fully promised in 2020. It’s also good for Studio Trigger, which is apparently still working on the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime series for a release in the near future. There’s lowered potential that it will join Bright: Samurai Soul in company, a Netflix-funded anime movie attached to a doomed property (the Bright movie) that had to live or die on the promotion focusing on having the newly-popular Simu Liu’s voice talents.

It shouldn’t be long before CDPR can proudly show off the new-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 considering its Q1 2022 release, and the new reputation will lead to lowered chances of a bunch of fans rolling their eyes and saying “this game isn’t dead yet?” during the showcase.