Why I Stopped Playing Cyberpunk 2077 For Now

I just want to see what CDPR has in store for the game they hyped so much for years

For almost 8 years, CD Projekt Rekt have teased fans on their long-awaited game featuring a very futuristic setting in the year 2077. Fans all over the world were hyped and enticed as they considered Cyberpunk 2077’s reveal as the “game of the future”, and that future was bright as the birth of the 8th generation of consoles at that time were pretty successful, PS4 was winning the console battle and many were very optimistic on what CDPR can do with the console. The Witcher 3 was released in 2015, and although the game was also plagued with bugs, the developers slowly got back on their feet thus winning that year’s The Game Awards for the G.O.T.Y category. Fast forward to 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 was released on December 10th and the game is literally a clusterfunk especially with the base versions of PS4 and Xbox One, mind you that the game was literally announced even before the release of the said consoles so it’s pretty much unacceptable for people for the game to be not optimized for the consoles. 

For the most part, I liked the potential of the game, like really, an open world RPG set in a futuristic world? Advertised as a really cool “be yourself, be what you want” type of customization paired with realism. If that isn’t interesting enough, I don’t know what is for you. I’m currently playing on the base version of PS4 to review the game in order to get a grasp of its current state and overall quality however, I decided to just release it post-patch as I am giving the game a chance to redeem itself and I firmly believe that I haven’t seen the game at its full potential, and that slight ray of hope is what I’m holding on before I finally give my own verdict. 

The game is currently being ruined by the constant crashes and may vary from one player to another. In my case I experienced these crashed every 2-3 hours or so, which I may say better than the others who are constantly complaining online but even so, it still ruins your momentum and gives a sour taste on your mouth whenever you’re in a middle of a mission, or a specific cool scene. Acknowledging the mess that they made, the developers released a series of hotfixes to address the evident problems, but let me remind you that these are only hotfixes to make the game playable and completable in that case as many of the game’s missions have game-breaking bugs which needs a reload of your save file in order to get fixed, I have experienced this for 5 times already and it’s very frustrating yet, hilarious at times.

I will say this though, Cyberpunk 2077 is really a graphical feat, the problem is it’s just poorly optimized and the engine that it’s using is CDPR’s very own RED Engine IV rather than the usually used engine in modern games that we have today, meaning they have very little testing ground in order to measure the effectivity of the engine which leads to the constant framedrops in base versions of PS4 and Xbox One, heck, even the Pro version of the PS4 experiences these framerate drops but still, because of the hotfixes that were released, the game is now somewhat playable at an acceptable degree. 

The game is fun and I’m actually having a good time playing it. The dialogues and script works well with the current scenes and gun play mechanics are really well-made paired with the respectable difficulty even on Normal Mode. 

Major parts of the map are still what I consider as “photo-mode worthy” which really makes you wonder how the game would be if it’s given more time in the oven and not rushed just because of pressure from investors and fans as well, the problem is some of the textures are so good and detailed that the console system itself is having a hard-time rendering it, which results to visual pop-ins and very bad view distance at some points, and overall just glitchy in terms of its graphics. Earlier patch versions of the game made it very blurry and some changes in the settings may help but still, it felt like you’re playing a 480p game which really ruins the experience in my opinion. 

Spot the difference

Some problems with the game’s AI still persist which majorly affects the authorities and civilians in the game, the civilians and policemen somehow act funny and stupid whenever you interact with them positively or even negatively, add to it the really bad wanted system, inferiorly compared with the Grand Theft Auto series.

The game has pretty great potential and given the developer; CDPR’s track record with fixing their games like what they did with The Witcher 3, It really is giving me hope to play a much better Cyberpunk 2077 on my PS4 in the coming months. Maybe lowering my expectations that their patches will not as much replicate the experience on an high-end PC or even a PS5, but rather a stable, playable and graphically acceptable.

Cyberpunk 2077 is what I hope for the PS4 line of consoles before people truly move on to the next gen. I’m currently in the latter half of the story in the game and what stops me from finishing it and getting the platinum is my belief that this is not the experience that CDPR wants for their gamers to get and this is not the game at its full potential. I may be wrong, but what I hope is that I’m right in believing this. 

On a personal note, CD Projekt Red is one of the few developers that I really like as their passion with the games they make are evident on the final products they release like my personal favorite RPG, The Witcher 3. Maybe I’m hoping on some magic unicorn to come true here but I just want to see what CDPR has in store for the game they hyped so much for years that’s why I decided to stop playing it for now and later assess it after the two major patches they announced which will be completed by February. The game is intended to be very beautiful and alive which gives a certain freedom for the players to do what they want with their main characters, innovating new ideas for the future of gaming and open world RPG genre as a whole. I pray and I hope that the true experience of Cyberpunk 2077 is within our hands soon.