Skip to main content

Cyberpunk 2077 is still the same game with the same issues

Cyberpunk 2077 is in trouble. It has been since the game launched and people couldn’t play it on their PS4 or Xbox One consoles. Trouble has followed it through every patch, hotfix, and update that rolled out through 2021. And even now, with another massive update that’s given the game a suite of improvements on current-gen consoles, Cyberpunk 2077 is still in trouble.

Cyberpunk 2077 — Next-Gen Gameplay | PlayStation 5

While Cyberpunk 2077‘s 1.5 update makes the game look prettier and run smoother on consoles, I’ve been playing it on PC since launch, and nothing’s different. I understand that the game isn’t suddenly going to have ray-traced shadows on my computer when I boot it up, and that’s not what I expect. This update has been positioned as the game’s next big change, the version that should have been released in the first place.

But the issue is that nothing is different. When I boot up Cyberpunk 2077 now, I don’t feel like I’m playing a different game than I was when it launched in 2020. Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t something that will be radically changed from what it was in December 2020, and it’s time for us all to come to terms with that.

Skin-deep changes

If you’re playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PS5 or Xbox Series X, you’ll find that the game runs and looks better than it did before. That’s a great thing, don’t get me wrong. Having played it on PC since 2020, I get the appeal in that. Cyberpunk 2077 is a gorgeous game, and when it’s running at 60 frames per second (fps), Night City can really come to life.

But a majority of the bigger changes in this patch are simply skin-deep. Cyberpunk 2077 is the same game with the same story, sidequests, and weirdly transphobic advertisements. You can change your character’s appearance whenever you want now, and you can throw knives properly, both of which, again, are nice things to have.

Cyberpunk 2077 — Next-Gen Update Launch Trailer

Cyberpunk 2077‘s gameplay loop is unchanged, though. While a heap of quality-of-life features have been thrown into the game, actually completing its quests or driving around Night City remains unchanged. Sorry, that last part isn’t completely true — you can perform burnouts in cars now. Whoopee!

A lot of the changes are what I’d describe as “pretty neat.” Players can buy new apartments for V and have them play guitar inside. Cool. But it’s not gameplay-changing, and that’s true of everything in Cyberpunk 2077‘s 1.5 update. Anyone picking the game up today on consoles will get the same thing they would’ve gotten a year ago, save for higher frame rates and all-important ray tracing.

Bad to the bone

The fact of the matter is that Cyberpunk 2077 will seemingly always be a bug-filled game, whether those bugs are just visual or actually impact gameplay. These traits seem like they’ve almost been baked into the game like they’re part of its core. And for what it’s worth, Cyberpunk and its bugs are inseparable at this point. It wouldn’t feel right playing the game without something going awry.

A hacker uses a computer in Cyberpunk 2077.

In the four or so hours I’ve played the game since its 1.5 patch went live, I’ve experienced some of the same quirks that have been around since it launched. I saw characters T-posing during cutscenes, sound effects not playing during specific animations, and cars driving through solid objects. While Cyberpunk 2077 runs better across all platforms now, little of the game has actually changed.

If anything, that’s evident from the content of every patch leading up to 1.5. Over the course of the past year, post-launch development for Cyberpunk 2077 has seemingly been dedicated entirely to making the game playable for everyone without game-breaking bugs and glitches. For what it’s worth, CD Projekt Red has managed that much. You can play through the game without being softlocked 20 hours into it.

Cyberpunk and its bugs are inseparable at this point.

But the only actual gameplay changes to Cyberpunk 2077 have come in this past update, and even then they’re not huge. Players can throw knives at enemies now without losing them forever, and some perks have been rebalanced. There isn’t any new content. Cyberpunk 2077‘s story expansions seem like a long-forgotten promise.

If you didn’t like Cyberpunk 2077 the first time you played it, the game’s latest patch isn’t going to change that. Really, all the game’s 1.5 update does is give console players the PC experience. The game can run at 60 fps, at a 4K resolution, with some light ray tracing. But those visual features don’t reinvent the game — they just polish the mess that’s always been there.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Otto Kratky
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…
Cyberpunk 2077 support bleeds into 2023 with story expansion
Holding a gun to an enemy in Cyberpunk 2077

During an investor relations call, CD Projekt Red revealed that its long-awaited story expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 will not be released this year. Instead, the expansion is set to release sometime in 2023.

https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1514646107434987532?s=20&t=RlvdedDMZ8OHf66Mznx86Q

Read more
The Witcher 3’s current-gen port has been delayed yet again
Geralt looks at a tower in the distance in The Witcher 3.

CD Projekt Red has announced that its current-gen port of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt will not be releasing any time soon. In a post on the game's Twitter account, the developer said that the game's port, which was supposed to come out during the second fiscal quarter of this year, has been postponed "until further notice." The game had earlier been delayed to this year.

https://twitter.com/witchergame/status/1514285274553008135

Read more
The Witcher reveal repeats Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest mistake
A player points a gun at a cyborg in Cyberpunk 2077's reveal trailer.

On March 21, CD Projekt Red confirmed a new The Witcher game while revealing a new Unreal Engine 5 partnership with Epic Games. Shortly after that announcement, CD Projekt Red's Global PR Director Radek Grabowski had to clarify some crucial details about this new game and the Epic Games partnership in a tweet:
https://twitter.com/gamebowski/status/1506022957591797760
While this tweet clarifies the biggest misconceptions about CD Projekt Red's The Witcher announcement, it also highlights that the developer announced this game way too early and vaguely. CD Projekt Red is already losing control of some of the discourse around the game and risks repeating one of the biggest mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077's development and marketing: Overpromising.
Cyberpunk 2077's big mistake
CD Projekt Red announced Cyberpunk 2077 in May 2012 at a press conference. At the time, the developer promised features like a "gripping non-linear story filled with life and detail" and a variety of character classes, weapons, upgrades, implants, and more to choose from. It said the game would "set [a] new standard in the futuristic RPG genre with an exceptional gaming experience."
Cyberpunk 2077 would not release until December 2020, over eight years later. But in the meantime, CD Projekt Red continued to tease the title with trailers and interviews, highlighting the game's ambitious scope and vision. CD Projekt Red developers hyped up how the main story and sidequests intertwined, how the game would feature multiplayer, how cops would be very reactive, and more. Although the game looked and sounded very impressive prior to its release, many of these features and promises were either missing or half-baked in their implementation into Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk 2077 Teaser Trailer
For eight years, an RPG that was supposed to change the genre forever was promised, but in the end, all we got was a fairly standard open-world RPG with a bevy of technical problems at release. The massive backlash happened because people were so excited for Cyberpunk 2077, partly because CD Projekt Red hyped up all of these ambitious features over eight years.
The reality is that game development is an arduous journey that doesn't always go according to plan. Designs change, features are cut, and sometimes the finished product just doesn't come together. CD Projekt Red probably never meant to lie to its fans, but priorities and development timelines shifted and what the developer ultimately delivered with Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't up to snuff.
As CD Projekt Red made the mistake of announcing Cyberpunk 2077 too early and overpromising, I thought the studio would what to share more details on its next game until it was close to release. That was not the case. 
Initial Confirmation
CD Projekt Red was not willing to share a development time frame or release window as part of The Witcher announcement, so it's likely that this game is still several years away. Although the developer didn't reveal many details at this time, announcing the next The Witcher game so early gives s the Polish studio plenty of time to do so. For example, the game's director is already promising that there will be no crunch during the development of this game, something people may hold him accountable for as stories about the game's development emerge. CD Projekt Red must be cautious about what it shares about this new game before launch if it doesn't want another PR disaster, and it already seems to be getting a bit out of hand.  
Grabowski's tweet indicates that there are already some misconceptions about the game. That will likely exponentially worsen as CD Projekt Red continues to tease this title in job listings, interviews, and trailers. It's a dangerous approach, so why did the developer make this "initial confirmation" happen so early? There are several reasons why this could be the case. First off, most of this announcement was focused on CD Projekt Red's partnership with Epic Games and the use of Unreal Engine 5, and the developer wanted to confirm the first game that will be part of this partnership to make it more exciting for fans. 

Meanwhile, CD Projekt Red is still recovering from the backlash toward Cyberpunk 2077's rocky launch. Announcing a follow-up title to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt now not only restores a little bit of goodwill with fans and investors but will also attract some Unreal Engine-experienced developers who might be nervous to come to CD Projekt Red following Cyberpunk 2077. 2022 has been a year of anticlimatic and purposefully vague game announcements. CD Projekt Red's The Witcher announcement is simply the latest one to be part of this trend, but it's also one of the most worrying because this developer has made this mistake before.  
While CD Projekt Red felt pressured to confirm this game early, they need to be very careful if they don't want to repeat the mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077. The best course of action for CD Projekt Red to take now is to stay completely silent until it has a clear idea of what the finished game will entail. If that isn't the case, this could all be building to disappointment in the year 2030. 

Read more