Cyberpunk 2077 Review thread - Umm....

hanselthecaretaker

My flask is half full
Legacy
Nov 18, 2010
8,738
5,905
118
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be excited for ES6. I'm just saying that the claim of CDPR's CP77 fiasco is the "straw that broke the AAA back" for him, but then to also be excited for a game who's developer last released a utterly soul-less, broken, disaster, just seems like a contradictory.

Unless Samtemdo is being hyperbolic, in which case the comment doesn't come across as such and should be clarified.

I think one thing people tend to forget with AAA-video gaming is that just because the publisher and the higher ups are dogshit, doesn't mean that the people who invest all the time and all the work into making a game are that way. Employee's often have no choice in how a game ultimately comes out because at the end of the day it's business and there are deadlines. You can only postpone any deadline so far and in the end you will get to a point where the company will force it out the door regardless of it being ready.

In a perfect world, cases like Cyberpunk 2077 and Fallout 76, probably should have been cancelled projects years ago, before the game ever got to a point in which it couldn't be made into a workable product within a reasonable amount of time. 8 years is an incredibly long developmental cycle for any game. And it's even longer for a game that does nothing new whatsoever. Cyberpunk is not an ambitious game, it doesn't attempt anything new that hasn't been done in countless other titles before. So it shouldn't really have been that much of a struggle to get right when there are dozens of games in which they could copy systems right out of. For whatever reason though, CDPR could not pull this thing together and they've known for years that it wasn't working, so why continue to invest in it and force your way through it? I couldn't tell you. Games are cancelled all the time, some announced and some we never know about, either way it doesn't really matter.

The thing there is CDPR needed something to come of it, because they don’t have anything else to fall back on. They were fortunate The Witcher 3 continued to reap dividends with different milestones after five years, but they aren’t an Ubisoft, SIE, Microsoft, etc. where a canceled project is an occasional setback. It was a big deal when Santa Monica Studio canceled some unnamed project after God of War 3. The same director was working on it but it just never gained traction, and he ultimately left the studio after it got canned, with them falling back on an underwhelming God of War prequel. That was a major setback for a studio even under Sony’s supportive umbrella, and it wasn’t until five years later they redeemed themselves.

CDPR doesn’t even have that luxury. A do-over would have been much tougher to recover from after scrapping five + years of sunk investment and expenditures. Hell, even as it is recouping costs off preorders alone they’ve sent investors into a tailspin over plummeting share value. They should have delayed the console versions and did a PC release like they've done before, but they also weren’t a public company before either which undoubtedly added new pressures.
 
Last edited:

Gergar12

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 24, 2020
3,359
807
118
Country
United States
Breaking News; Cyberpunk 2077 taken off of Sony Stores. Refunds given by Sony.

A couple of things we know

1. Cyberpunk 2077 is currently at 1.04; crashes, glitches, pop-in textures, FPS dips. A mile better than the start of the game

2. It works better on a good PC, PS5 & XSX, XSS, Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, then the PS4 base and slim, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One

3. They focus more on PC vs last-gen consoles

4. Investors and executives pressured then to release it in a broken state
 
  • Like
Reactions: hanselthecaretaker

hanselthecaretaker

My flask is half full
Legacy
Nov 18, 2010
8,738
5,905
118
A couple of things we know

1. Cyberpunk 2077 is currently at 1.04; crashes, glitches, pop-in textures, FPS dips. A mile better than the start of the game

2. It works better on a good PC, PS5 & XSX, XSS, Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, then the PS4 base and slim, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One

3. They focus more on PC vs last-gen consoles

4. Investors and executives pressured then to release it in a broken state
Wonder if they’re regretting giving up their freedom to call their own shots in favor of better financial footing. In the end it doesn’t mean much when the idiots in charge never seem to understand how valuable strong customer relations and good will are. Looks like they’re learning the hard way.
 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
7,914
2,279
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
The Castle Super Beast podcast brought up something that I didn't know about (because I wasn't paying attention), but just weeks out from the launch CD Projekt Red spokespeople were talking about how well the game was running on the PS4 and Xbox One.


Having recently shown gameplay running on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, the developer is now seemingly happy with how it runs.

...

Company president and joint-CEO, Adam Kicinski, fielded one such question.

“Of course, [the performance is] a bit lower than on pros, but surprisingly good, I would say, for such a huge world,” Kicinski revealed. “So, bit lower, but very good. That’s the answer.”
I didn't know how badly they had lied through their teeth about this which made all of my sympathy for them evaporate instantly. Fuck them.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
9,010
795
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
In a perfect world, cases like Cyberpunk 2077 and Fallout 76, probably should have been cancelled projects years ago, before the game ever got to a point in which it couldn't be made into a workable product within a reasonable amount of time. 8 years is an incredibly long developmental cycle for any game. And it's even longer for a game that does nothing new whatsoever. Cyberpunk is not an ambitious game, it doesn't attempt anything new that hasn't been done in countless other titles before. So it shouldn't really have been that much of a struggle to get right when there are dozens of games in which they could copy systems right out of. For whatever reason though, CDPR could not pull this thing together and they've known for years that it wasn't working, so why continue to invest in it and force your way through it? I couldn't tell you. Games are cancelled all the time, some announced and some we never know about, either way it doesn't really matter.
I totally agree that Cyberpunk isn't ambitious as Ubisoft basically makes these games in their sleep (outside of the writing and attention to detail) but it is ambitious for CDPR as the Witcher games are really simplistic from a pure game standpoint (mechanics, AI, etc). Cyberpunk is trying to shooting, stealth, driving, immersive sim elements. That's a lot when it's a dev's 1st time attempting these things and why I was never really confident in the game. Even if this game came out in a "best case scenario" state, it would basically be a really good looking Deus Ex, which would be nice and all but Deus Ex is 20 years old already.

Though, can't CDPR take their time on stuff because they own GOG? I know GOG is no Steam but it should give them a revenue stream that allows them to take their time on a game and I'd think a bad release (profit-wise) wouldn't cause them to close up shop.
 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
7,914
2,279
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
I totally agree that Cyberpunk isn't ambitious as Ubisoft basically makes these games in their sleep (outside of the writing and attention to detail) but it is ambitious for CDPR as the Witcher games are really simplistic from a pure game standpoint (mechanics, AI, etc). Cyberpunk is trying to shooting, stealth, driving, immersive sim elements. That's a lot when it's a dev's 1st time attempting these things and why I was never really confident in the game. Even if this game came out in a "best case scenario" state, it would basically be a really good looking Deus Ex, which would be nice and all but Deus Ex is 20 years old already.

Though, can't CDPR take their time on stuff because they own GOG? I know GOG is no Steam but it should give them a revenue stream that allows them to take their time on a game and I'd think a bad release (profit-wise) wouldn't cause them to close up shop.
GOG isn't that big. Most casual gamers don't even know it exists.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
9,010
795
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
GOG isn't that big. Most casual gamers don't even know it exists.
I know that but I don't know how much revenue it brings in. Even at just like a 10% revenue stream compared to Steam, it should give them a fairly decent amount of "insurance" for a poor release that pretty much all devs don't have.
 

stroopwafel

Elite Member
Jul 16, 2013
3,031
357
88
In comparison Steam made $4.3bn in sales in 2017
Wow. No wonder Gabe can't be assed to make HL3 with that kind of dough.

Sony removing CP2077 from the store and offering refunds to everyone who bought the game; they didn't even do that with No Man's Sky and FO76. What a shitshow for CDPR. Sony probably figured the abysmal perfomance of the game would start to reflect badly on them as well and that it wasn't worth the hit to their reputation.

Even besides the performance issues and bugs the game isn't really a good open world game. But it does have cool, action setpieces and unique atmosphere and a genuinely engaging storyline. Everything I enjoyed about the game has nothing to do with the open world and only detracts from it. There are a ton of sidequests but 90% is cookie cutter and I can't be arsed to figure which are the good ones. It also has a ton of systems and upgrade trees that aren't worth the hassle. On top of that the loot grind has been made even more tedious by the cumbersome menus.I think I'm close to completing the main quest and after that I'll just leave it at that.

There is a genuinely fantastic game here but it's just buried under a mountain of crap. Haven't experienced that many bugs on PS5 other than occasional glitches and from what I expect poorly programmed AI(like an exploding car in a noodle stand while you have a conversation with an NPC that acts as if nothing happened). The game did crash almost every moment when I completed a main story quest. It was *ploop* back to the main menu again.

Also the game tries too hard with explitive content. Almost every store is a sex shop and the sex scene with Johnny Silverhand just, ugh let me just say no one else was in the room I had to explain this too. I also have never seen this many NPCs gathered around a mannequin with a strap-on in a store filled with similar mannequins with strapons of every size and variation. I don't know what secret desires the developers have on their mind but it's obviously something someone fantasizes about at CDPR. xD Cyberpunk is supposed to be seedy but unfortunately CP2077 is more juvenile and too try-hard.
 
  • Like
Reactions: deleted20220709

bluegate

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2010
2,338
941
118
Good on the game getting delisted.

I hope this deters developers from releasing shit with the mindset of just patching it later.
 

Bob_McMillan

Elite Member
Aug 28, 2014
5,188
1,863
118
Country
Philippines
2077 has me thinking, when was the last time a developer with this much goodwill among gamers crashed and burned this hard?

Arkham Knight comes to mind, except in reverse since it was only good on consoles and not on PC. I was expecting Rocksteady to deliver the ultimate Batman game, what it ended up being was a decent little fart to end the series.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Dreiko

Elite Member
Legacy
May 1, 2020
2,717
912
118
CT
Country
usa
Gender
male, pronouns: your majesty/my lord/daddy
Wow. No wonder Gabe can't be assed to make HL3 with that kind of dough.

Sony removing CP2077 from the store and offering refunds to everyone who bought the game; they didn't even do that with No Man's Sky and FO76. What a shitshow for CDPR. Sony probably figured the abysmal perfomance of the game would start to reflect badly on them as well and that it wasn't worth the hit to their reputation.

Even besides the performance issues and bugs the game isn't really a good open world game. But it does have cool, action setpieces and unique atmosphere and a genuinely engaging storyline. Everything I enjoyed about the game has nothing to do with the open world and only detracts from it. There are a ton of sidequests but 90% is cookie cutter and I can't be arsed to figure which are the good ones. It also has a ton of systems and upgrade trees that aren't worth the hassle. On top of that the loot grind has been made even more tedious by the cumbersome menus.I think I'm close to completing the main quest and after that I'll just leave it at that.

There is a genuinely fantastic game here but it's just buried under a mountain of crap. Haven't experienced that many bugs on PS5 other than occasional glitches and from what I expect poorly programmed AI(like an exploding car in a noodle stand while you have a conversation with an NPC that acts as if nothing happened). The game did crash almost every moment when I completed a main story quest. It was *ploop* back to the main menu again.

Also the game tries too hard with explitive content. Almost every store is a sex shop and the sex scene with Johnny Silverhand just, ugh let me just say no one else was in the room I had to explain this too. I also have never seen this many NPCs gathered around a mannequin with a strap-on in a store filled with similar mannequins with strapons of every size and variation. I don't know what secret desires the developers have on their mind but it's obviously something someone fantasizes about at CDPR. xD Cyberpunk is supposed to be seedy but unfortunately CP2077 is more juvenile and too try-hard.
Funnily enough there's a half life 3 reference in one of the shards in cyberpunk. The game is finally coming out in 2078 lol.


And I dunno I may be lucky but the biggest bug I've encountered so far is my char being bald when looking at himself in the mirror. None of the constant crashing stuff. Maybe turning off some of the graphical elements helps?
 

09philj

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 31, 2015
2,154
947
118
Dataminers have managed to track down one of the major reasons the game's performance on PC is worse than it could be.

This is a config file for the engine. The poolCPU and poolGPU numbers are the amount of RAM and VRAM that is explicitly allocated to the game, with the rest being dynamically allocated. Dynamic allocation is often slow to adapt to changes in demand, which can lead to slowdown when the allocated memory is exceeded. This happens a lot with Cyberpunk in particular because the default values of allocated RAM and VRAM on PC are 1.5gb and 3gb respectively. Performance can be increased 30-40% just by changing those values to more reasonable ones.
 

Chimpzy

Simian Abomination
Legacy
Escapist +
Apr 3, 2020
12,238
8,497
118
4. Investors and executives pressured then to release it in a broken state
Me, one page ago...
Maybe because they're now a publicly traded company, meaning stonks must go up now, everything else be damned? But that's just conjecture born from my cynical expectations that public companies will pull corporate bullshit.

Fyi, I'm not particularly happy about it. Tho not sad either. More like disappointed.
 

sXeth

Elite Member
Legacy
Nov 15, 2012
3,301
675
118
Wow. No wonder Gabe can't be assed to make HL3 with that kind of dough.

Sony removing CP2077 from the store and offering refunds to everyone who bought the game; they didn't even do that with No Man's Sky and FO76.

76 didn't actually have many problems running. Nor did No Mans Sky. They won't refund just because the product failed to live up to someoens hype for it. The one time I have gotten Sony to refund something was Just cAuse 3.... which also had a massive problem where it became basically unplayable as the framerate crashed or failed out entirely.



Over time I've also observed that Sony gives more leeway to some devs then others in terms of patch certs. I'm thinking they may have taken CDPR on a level of good faith for having tested the stability, then gotten burned, promoting the drastic response. That or theres a glitch that is acgtively damaging to the system that was found.
 

Samtemdo8

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 25, 2020
1,501
608
118
Country
Private
Me, one page ago...


Fyi, I'm not particularly happy about it. Tho not sad either. More like disappointed.
Part of me is curious of how long will future patches to the game last?

Like how long and how many patches did Fallout 76 and No Man's Sky took to become polished and stable?
 

SilentPony

Previously known as an alleged "Feather-Rustler"
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
12,050
2,460
118
Corner of No and Where
Okay i'm not super up to date on what's what, so what does it mean that CyberPunk has been pulled from the Sony store? I get they're not selling it, but is it like a forced refund, and you can no longer play it on a playstation? And does CDPR have any say over this?