How Cyberpunk 2077 clawed its way back from disaster to complete one of the greatest redemption arcs in gaming history
A 3-year breakdown of Cyberpunk's bugs, lawsuits, and the many, many patches that brought it back.
Cyberpunk 2077 may be the most successful flop of all time. Within weeks of launch, the RPG had sold 13 million copies, even accounting for dissatisfied players refunding the game. It made its eight year budget back in a single day. But those accomplishments couldn't stop Cyberpunk from widely being seen as a disappointment.
It was buggy as hell. The last-gen console version was so bad, it was pulled from sale on PlayStation. It was briefly a particularly dangerous game for players who are prone to seizures. Some investors were so miffed at how CD Projekt Red handled the launch, they filed a class action lawsuit over the share price, which dropped from its high of $31 on December 4, 2020 to only $16 a month later. It's now down to under $9.
CD Projekt's stock price may not have recovered over the last three years, but Cyberpunk 2077 has. In his Phantom Liberty review, associate editor Ted Litchfield called the expansion "a thrilling capstone for Cyberpunk 2077's 3-year redemption arc." The big 2.0 patch released to everyone for free, meanwhile, completely remakes Cyberpunk's progression system, cyberware, vehicle combat, and police. For the last three years, CD Projekt has seemingly been determined to deliver on the potential Cyberpunk 2077 had, but failed to reach, in December 2020.
Here's how Cyberpunk clawed its way back.
December 2020: Launch and rock bottom
The cyberbest of times, the cyberworst of times: CD Projekt's big follow-up to 2015's The Witcher 3 debuted to mega sales and a mixed critical reception. There were some bombastic 9/10s, but we were cooler on Cyberpunk 2077. In our 78% review, we wrote that it was "a pretty good RPG in an amazing setting absolutely sick with bugs," highlighting that the open world of Night City was "an incredible work that the stories within never quite measure up to."
Cyberpunk 2077's quests very quickly became its least significant problem. Within a few days, CD Projekt had held an emergency call with investors, issued an apology to players who were struggling with bugs and poor performance on consoles, and the CEO admitted they'd "ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles," where the experience was considerably worse.
Bugs like this one and this one and all of these became meme fodder. The bad times kept rolling all month.
December 12: CD Projekt patched a graphical effect in braindances that caused a seizure for one Game Informer writer.
December 17: Cyberpunk 2077 removed from sale on the PlayStation Store, a shocking reversal for a big game, with Sony offering all players refunds.
December 10 - 23: CD Projekt releases four hotfixes before the end of the year, repairing broken save games, stopping crashes, and fixing many, many quest issues.
December 27: Class action lawsuit filed over investor damages as a result of "materially false and misleading" statements from CD Projekt as to the quality of the game on last-gen consoles
January 2021: The mea culpa
January 13: In a post on the Cyberpunk website titled "Cyberpunk 2077 — Our commitment to quality," CD Projekt's co-founders offered their "personal explanation of what the days leading up to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 looked like, sharing the studio’s perspective on what happened with the game on old-generation consoles.""We never, ever intended for anything like this to happen. I assure you that we will do our best to regain your trust."
February 2021: Hacked
February 7: CD Projekt Red suffered a hacking breach, with the hacker threatening to dump the source code of Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, and Gwent, as well as other internal documents. "Your public image will go down the shitter even more and people will see how you shitty your company functions. Investors will lose trust in your company and the stock will dive even lower!"February 10: After CD Projekt refused to negotiate, the hacking group began leaking source code, starting with Gwent. CD Projekt fought back against the spread with DMCA takedowns.
February 24: CD Projekt announced its next patch for Cyberpunk 2077 would be delayed as a result of the hacking incident, and the overall scope of the update.
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