I mean if you're gonna compare it to NMS then expect CP2077 to be a phenomenal game with fantastic free expansions... a year or two from now.

 

True, I can only recommend this No Man's Sky Documentary by The Internet Historian. It's amazing how the hunkered down, took the criticism onboard, and bit by bit fixed the game and delivered what they promised. It's a real unicorn in the industry in that regard, especially because every fix, patch and content update so far has been free of charge.

 

So I've been listening to gaming podcasts out of boredom over the past few weeks and one thing I'm noticing is the... almost rage at CDPR over this game. I have some questions as someone who hasn't played yet.

Aside from the previous gen console versions, did they promise anything (features etc) and fail to deliver?

Is the game truly as buggy on PC and PS5/XB?

Are people truly furious about not having prompt fixes yet, knowing about the cyber attack issue?

I'm seeing a lot of rhetoric that this is the worst launch in history. The particular podcast I was listening to even goes as far as to say CDPR's rep is ruined. My stance on that is that's patently ridiculous and OTT horseshit, but I'm holding back on going in because, as I've said, I haven't played it.

Of everyone I know who's played it, (no one has played it on PS4 that I personally know), the worst they can say is that it crashed on them a few times in their entire playthroughs, and it was a bit overhyped.

I don't want to sound like a CDPR stan, but when people go OTT on these things my inner contrarian rears up. I think it's fair to say the launch was pretty botched, and it came out too early (the reason I've yet to play it), but in a world where Bethesda release buggy shit release after release and still sell for $7bn, the complete vitriol CDPR is getting seems too extreme - especially given the current state of the world and the challenges therein.

Is it because they billed themselves as consumer friendly during the W3 days and even took shots at the likes of EA and other publishers and their practices maybe?


If they move on to their next project without addressing any of the legit issues I'm seeing, then I'd say people have a much more concrete leg to stand on, but all the evidence points to the contrary on that front given what they did with the Witcher (a game I thought was a buggy mess at launch, btw).

I'm just trying to understand the issue I guess. I've been mostly ignoring all coverage of this game to avoid spoilers for when I eventually pick it up.

 

1) There's a handful of features they talked about wanting to include but then got cut (wall running, "peaceful" police interactions (paying them off or siccing them on people and the like), multiple safe houses, etc), but as far as I'm aware none of them were particularly huge or central to the game.

2) The game is quite buggy, with a number of fairly minor issues, and as of a couple weeks ago a small handful of severe/progression-blocking bugs. It's definitely on the high side, in terms of bugginess, but even at its worst it's generally better than most Bethesda games at launch (as low of a bar as that is)

3) I haven't seen anyone crying about fixes not being fast enough, but I've also not really seen many people who still care enough to talk about the game at all, for better or worse.

On the whole, most of the backlash against cyberpunk is from people who bought into the hype competely and were then disappointed when the final result was a decent, if unpolished, product that did not, in fact, fellate then while playing.

 

This was my uninformed kneejerk reaction too. It's why I felt so profoundly annoyed by the take that their rep was 'ruined forever.' It was so ridiculous it made me angry.

 

Oh, the performance on consoles is definitely pitchfork mob worthy.
They should've just admitted that announcing it for what is now last gen years before they even started working on the game was a mistake and admitted its a next gen title.

But on a decent PC... it's just a meh game.

It's very pretty, but it's no GTA IV/V, or Watchdogs, or Red Dead Redemption 2 if you're willing to trade Cyberpunk for horses. It tries to be like those games, but it fails. There's really no reason to play it if you haven't already played those to death.

It's also obvious why it falls flat, the game was already behind schedule when covid kicked it while it was down, and CDPR management were so far up their own asses after the success of Witcher 3/GoG that they ignored the state of the project and acted shocked when the product they pushed out the door wasn't done. They tried something ambitious and it failed, maybe they'll successfully finish the game, maybe they'll just patch the worst of the bugs, rush out some DLC and call it a day.

 

Okay so I haven't read the rest of this thread because I don't want spoilers but I picked up the game last week and I'm having a blast. The world is just so dense and packed with shit to do.

I literally can't make money fast enough to spend it, like I want to buy cool cars but I can't justify it because I want expensive upgrades and the cars and bikes I've gotten through playing the story will do.

It's a little buggy at times but I haven't run into anything gamebreaking and loading times are quite quick. I don't want to expand into a rant about everything I love about this game so I'll settle for this... At what point do you know you've gone too far down the story? I want to have awesome tech and gear by the time I get to that level but because of the RP aspect I don't want to get stuff too early.

 

Define "too far". There's a point of no-return at the end of the story, but the game will make it very clear that it's happening, auto-saving and then promoting you to make sure you've done everything else you wanted to do.

If you're looking for something other than that, you'll have to elaborate.

 

Nope, can't really define further, I've generally been putting off the main quests as much as possible as I tend to get hooked by the urgency and spiral down them. Like the Aldecaldo storyline, I ripped right through that.

 

Expressing an opinion on the game and whether it was a disappointment and to what degree is ridiculous if you haven't played it @Gengar All you're doing is picking the response you want that matches what you'd like the case to be. The answer is purepy personal based on what each person was expecting and how they interpreted the things they got compared to that. The game was definitely not what was expected of or promised by CDPR, but to what extent that matters is up to you. Play the game and find out.


Personally, I did enjoy what there was in the game, but it was very disappointing in many ways, and yes, I would say that CDPR's reputation took a big hit. Before this, I would say that CDPR has my trust until they break it. I consider this a breach of trust.

 

The way they handled this from a marketing/business side is what really is annoying people the most. While not outright lying, the way they phrase things in trailers was deceptive and fanned people's already unreasonable high expectations

They came out and said there was no vehicle customization - then in the vehicles trailer for the game said " sport cars - they're powerful engines and exchangeable parts make them perfect for tuning" - If someone didn't read the news story about no vehicle customization and only watched official promo, you'd be lead to believe there was vehicle customization.

In the 2018 50min demo (45:47), the announcer says "so many options, So many possibilities, and each will have consequences that will ripple out through your game story. And that's just one quest" - while not direct, this implies that most quests in the game will be as in depth if not to a similar quality to the one show in the demo. As shown by powerpyx, this quest is one of the most dynamic and a lot of your choices don't matter.

Then there is not giving review copies of the PS4 and Xbox one versions of the game. The PS4 trailer shows the game running much smoother than it turned out to run. They knew how the game ran on those consoles and purposely prevented consumers from seeing it and making an informed purchase.

You can be an asshole as a game company and most people will eventually grow to just accept it like with EA, Ubisoft, and Bethesda. But when you set yourself up as the consumer friendly company that has good consumer practices, only to then falter and do the exact same terrible shit every other company does, it makes you the thing people hate the most - a hypocrite.

 

This:

Is the best breakdown of the game that I've come across. It's from an otherwise great youtuber who I would recommend subscribing to, as he always brings out long-form, well written content that ties into gaming.
I would imagine that this video will tickle people on this forum well, since it digs deep into the literary backgrounds of the genre and how these have been adopted.

TLDR: He focuses mainly on the flaws that go beyond broken promises, to dig into the game that is actually there. He finds several aspects lacking and rushed, and concludes with answering the question if the game can be redeemed by future patches like No man's sky: "You can't patch in imagination".