Have 2 years of updates and 'Edgerunners' redeemed 'Cyberpunk 2077'?

Two years ago, the biggest video game in the world flopped with critics and fans. Have steady updates and ‘Edgerunners’ saved it?

Two years ago, the most promising game of the generation hit the market to resounding and widespread disappointment. First teased in 2012, Cyberpunk 2077 continued to build hype all the way to its devastating release.

The game came out in a pitiable state, with bugs and glitches so lethal that Sony removed the Playstation 4 version from its stores and Microsoft offered refunds on it for the Xbox One. After its launch, publisher CD Projekt Red’s stock plummeted, costing them $1 billion in value. The company even faced a lawsuit from agitated investors saying it had misled them about the game’s performance. 

But now, two years later, the game seems to have a shot at redemption. With patch 1.6, the game hit the bestsellers’ list on PC platform Steam. Only a handful of games, such as No Man’s Sky and Final Fantasy XIV, have turned shaky launches into success.

Has Cyberpunk 2077 done enough to get its own redemption arc?

PRE-RELEASE

Polish game developer and publisher CD Projekt Red made its mark with The Witcher, a series of gritty fantasy RPGs. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was a major breakthrough for the studio, building its reputation for its quality, scope and customer service satisfaction.

The initial planning for Cyberpunk began before Witcher 3’s launch. Eight years passed from the first tease of the game to its eventual release. Witcher’s success only fueled the fires of hype. As did CD Projekt’s executives, who claimed Cyberpunk would be a genre-defining game, capturing the same audience as the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series. The game’s tagline – “Welcome to the future” – made its own promises.

The hype reached its apex at E3 2019, when movie star took the stage, revealing his in-game role as iconic Cyberpunk character Johnny Silverhands.

Though every bit of marketing looked sleek and steady, things were in turmoil behind the scenes. The first hint was the delay of the game’s release from April 2020 to Sept 17. Minor though it may seem, it was just the start. The game was delayed twice more, once after it ‘went gold’ – became playable from start to finish without any major issues.

RELEASE

RELEASE

Gamers everywhere had hoped the delays would iron out the major bugs. But when Cyberpunk finally hit the market on Dec 10, 2020, it was badly undercooked - a game that needed years of work to be functional, let alone great. From cars automatically flying into the sky to massive framerate drops to guns disappearing to regular crashes, the list goes on.

It seemed like CD Projekt Red had poured more money into marketing than the development of the game. And it wasn’t just the bugs. The people in the open world weren’t programmed to act like humans. The game’s setting - Night City – felt empty. Despite the open world nature of the game, it offered little outside the main campaign.

It was more than a simple failure. CD Projekt Red not only took on a more ambitious project than they could digest, but also made knowingly made unrealistic promises.

The backlash was vehement. So much so that shareholders filed lawsuits against the company for fraud. CD Projekt eventually settled these cases out of court.

Night City – that dream of the next great gaming metropolis - was on its way to becoming a necropolis. In 2021, the CEO of the company apologised for the state of the game, saying the developers were not at fault. He also brought up the 2020 pandemic lockdown, saying it blocked them from working at full capacity. But the lockdown started only in March. The game had been in development from 2012.

Thus began the long, grinding work of adding hotfixes and patches to fix the game.

THE REHABILITATION

It wasn’t just the monetary loss that hurt CD Projekt Red. There was also the significant setback to its reputation. Mike Pondsmith, the creator of Cyberpunk 2020, the tabletop game Cyberpunk 2077 is based on, worked on the video game and spoke of how wholesome the approach by CD Projekt was. He believed they were genuine fans of his creation. And, to be fair, the company’s other works have shown its dedication to making impressive games and looking after its fanbase.

Following the disastrous launch, the company started a new campaign - to regain its fans’ faith. They started to release regular patches. Initially, these patches were subject to mockery. As the number of players dwindled each day, the biggest challenge was not to give up. And, to their credit, they did not. After two years of patches, the game was finally functional or balanced. But, by then, most players had already moved on. At that point what Cyberpunk needed was an external boost. That’s where Edgerunners came in.

EDGERUNNERS

The Netflix anime mini-series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, helmed by the storied Studio Trigger, aired in September this year. With its futuristic setting of Night City and the Cowboy Bebop-ish vibe, the series became an instant hit.

Edgerunners is everything Cyberpunk 2077 promised to be. The show follows a high school boy named David who, in a series of tragic incidents, loses his mother and starts to lose touch with reality when he comes into ownership of a piece of advanced military cyberware that belonged to an outlaw group. Instead of selling it, he decides to install it on his body, which leads him to the criminal underworld, and to eventually becoming an edgerunner – someone who lives on the outskirts of the law.

The anime starts with a bang, but is a slow burn until about episode seven. In that time, however, the show successfully manages to explore the humane and inhuman sides of Night City. It shows how a failed city has become a puppet of corporate interests while common people rot in the filth. Despite this dystopian vision, humanity still exists on its streets. David's devotion to his mother, the leader of the outlaws, and the bond he shares with a girl named Lucy create a web of relationships that tethers the audience emotionally.

The show also highlights one of the most compelling themes in the Cyberpunk lore - the limitations of the technology. Grafting cyberware onto your body can give you superpowers, but the more you add, the more the mind loses its connection with the body. Those with extensive body modifications eventually put their own sanity at risk. The series explores this idea in a personal and melancholy way, showing how poverty and circumstance force people to bargain away more of themselves to keep going in a harsh world.

Edgerunners is visually stunning, using the entirety of Trigger’s extensive bag of tricks. It is also gripping, dark, brutal, and sometimes funny. By the end, it has given David an absorbing and tragic arc that makes for a great standalone introduction to Night City and the world of Cyberpunk, regardless of its connection to the game.

And, thanks to its warm reception, it paved the way for Cyberpunk 2077’s revival.

THE REDEMPTION ARC

There were many plans for Cyberpunk, but only Edgerunners was an unqualified success.

Then, something unusual happened. Once Edgerunners brought it back to the limelight, players began flocking to Cyberpunk 2077. The game reached Steam’s list of best-sellers and announced that it had sold 20 million copies, Thousands of players returned every day, the hype was back. CD Projekt reported that the game reached 1 million active players for four continuous weeks. The new mods made by the game’s community also made it more interesting to explore. And so, with proper planning and execution, Cyberpunk found its way back to the top. There was hope for Night City.

Everyone loves a comeback story, and while CD Projekt should take heart in its success, the cautionary tale at its core must be internalised as well - gamers should be wary of allowing hype to overtake proven quality, and companies should not release broken games.

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE. IT DOESN'T WORK

While that story is nice, the most important question remains - is it really worth it? Would I recommend Cyberpunk 2077 to anyone? After its revival, I gave the game another try on PC.

To give you a sense of how messy the game was at launch – I nearly jumped for joy when I managed to drive my car without it suddenly flying off into the sky.

Well, I suppose flying cars are signs of the future. And if Cyberpunk 2077 is now ready to show us the future, we have to ask – does it work?

What intrigues me the most about Cyberpunk is its setting - Night City. To me, fictional cities are characters from their fictional worlds. And what makes a good character is their arc. Take Gotham City, for example.

It has a backstory. One about how corruption and crime took over, making it a failed city that can’t even be saved by a caped crusader. Night City has a similar sensibility. By 2077, unfettered capitalism has made the city extremely unstable. The city is run by giant, cuthroat corporations that control people’s lives while the people on the bottom scrabble to get by or choose a path of crime.

This lack of balance in the social structure gives rise to a group of people who live on the margins of legality. That’s where the story begins. Full of funky lighting and mixes of dystopian and futuristic vibes, the city is a treat to roam. A near perfect selection of music only elevates it.

The scope of the city, its design and its people are a true credit to creator Mike Pondsmith. For future side projects like Edgerunners, the city, in all its flash and intensity gives this setting a Blade Runner-ish universe full of potential that they can make their own. And I can't wait to see what comes of it.  

But an open world game is not just about having a massive city with stunning visuals. In order to make that exploration meaningful, it needs to offer a breadth of exciting things to do. The truth is, however, that there is little to this ‘open world’ aside from the campaign. And this has been Cyberpunk’s fatal flaw since Day 1. Though the city functions, there is still very little to do that immerses you in the setting.

The second major issue is combat. With the first-person view, you might expect the game to function like a shooter. However, the changes necessary in the shooting to include the RPG elements gets in the way – so much so that it detracts from both the shooting and the role-playing.

And, finally, there’s the campaign. My biggest concern with Cyberpunk since launch has been the lurking feeling that even minus the bugs, the campaign would fall short of expectations.

Sadly, that seems to be the case. The problems start with the cutscenes. I have never seen cutscenes that drag on for so long while adding so little to the plot or characterisation. Worse still, you can't even skip them.

The truth is, Cyberpunk 2077 is a badly written game that doesn’t live up to its promises. It seems that CD Projekt while focusing on the breadth and scale of the city, forgot to focus on the small details. Which is sad, because it is that particular attention to detail that saw them become a cornerstone of the industry with Witcher 3.

And yes, even after two years, the game hitches and stutters during long periods of play.

So no, Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t earn its redemption for me. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone personally. But, if you just want to spend some time as a tourist in Night City after watching Edgerunners, you can install some mods and get a painless, if somewhat shallow, experience.

WHAT NOW?

After two years, what we have is a more polished version of a not particularly good game.

However, even getting the game to this state of popularity is a win for CD Projekt. Without owning up to their mistakes and trying to fix them, CD Projekt would not have lived up to their reputation as a company that cares about its fans. There are only a few companies that care about gamers these days, so kudos to CD Projekt for putting in the effort to fix the technical problems.

Coming off this success, CD Projekt has announced Cyberpunk DLC and more games in the Witcher series. I don’t know that I’ll return to Cyberpunk again, not as long as the gameplay stays the same. But the company’s efforts have not been in vain. I am interested in both Project Orion and the Witcher’s return. And that may not have happened if they had not fixed Cyberpunk.