It just goes to show that even the most controversial launches aren’t a problem for good games.
Remember, it’s the very end of 2020, and while the COVID-19 pandemic is still on everyone’s mind, CD Projekt RED is working around the clock to release the biggest project of its short history: Cyberpunk 2077. A project that absolutely couldn’t afford to miss the holiday season, as another delay would have severely jeopardized the Polish studio’s financial health. We all know how it turned out: Cyberpunk 2077 was released on December 10, 2020, on Windows PC—more than six months after the originally planned date. It launched simultaneously on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as well as, to a lesser extent, on Google Stadia.
Remember the texture issues at the game’s launch?
The PC launch was marred by quite a few bugs, placeholders that were still present, and subpar performance. However, it was on consoles that the issues were most glaring. On both Xbox and PlayStation, the problems were endless. Bugs are everywhere, and, worst of all, performance is so abysmal that, in the face of user backlash, Sony was forced to remove the game from its PlayStation Store. Even worse, the Japanese company decided to refund players. It’s almost unbelievable. Some believed at the time that Cyberpunk 2077 would be a real liability for CD Projekt RED and that the studio might never recover from it.
Path tracing made its debut in 2023: Cyberpunk 2077 became a technological showcase.
We know how the story unfolded. CD Projekt RED didn’t give up, and—driven by the game’s intrinsic qualities—the studio addressed many of the issues mentioned earlier. Today, while things may not be perfect on consoles that are arguably underpowered for a title of this caliber, the results are there—on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series—and Cyberpunk 2077 has even been bolstered by a fantastic expansion, Phantom Liberty. Given all the work that’s gone into it, it’s easy to understand the pride of the Polish studio, which announced on X that it has surpassed the 40-million-copy sales mark across all platforms. This now-considerable success bodes well for CD Projekt RED’s upcoming releases—and, in particular, the highly anticipated The Witcher IV.
