Cyberpunk 2077 faced a tough reception at launch, but with the Phantom Liberty DLC nearing launch, one CDPR dev feels the RPG was better than history records.
…uh, no. It was a hot mess at launch.
when I saw everyone high on hypium and how they advertised it like it’s the cure for cancer I knew it was gonna be a cash grab
Nevertheless, Platkow-Gilewski also says that he feels the original version of Cyberpunk 2077 was “better than it was received.” “I actually believe Cyberpunk on launch was way better than it was received, and even the first reviews were positive. Then it became a cool thing not to like it. We went from hero to zero really fast. We knew that the game was great, yes we can improve it, yes we need to take time to do it, and we need to rebuild some stuff. “That took us a lot of time, but I don’t believe we were ever broken. We were always like ‘let’s do this.’”Yeah, I actually can get behind this. They got a lot of crap for the technical performance of the last-gen console version, partly because there was no current-gen native version. Having played it on PC day one my impression was that it was rough-to-normal (still better than day one Skyrim). Design-wise, the combat parts and open world design are the least interesting parts of it to this day, but even at the time I thought the narrative elements and obviously the visuals were great.
Just to sanity check this, even with the torubled launch the PC version reviewed with an average of 86 on Metacritic and sold very well. It was a technically rough launch and they should have delayed the console ports at the very least, but it’s not a bad game.
“(still better than day one Skyrim.)”
I’m glad you mentioned this because I almost never see anyone make the comparison, and skyrim didn’t get nearly as much hate despite that fact. I remember if you were playing on PS3, walking into water would crash your game, and it was like this for the entire first year of the game on PS3. It also had a problem where save files that were too big would guarantee save file corruption. It was the definition of unplayable for lots of people.
Not saying cyberpunk is better than skyrim, just explaining how dire the launch for skyrim was, many people have forgotten just how rough around the edges skyrim was.
People tend to forget how broken games were at launch once they’re no longer broken, which is why these days you only get broken games.
I think studios need to reassess what is a showstopping bug these days, because restricting it to hard blockers is no longer enough, but that may require people having a different perspective on these things.
But yeah “the game will eventually get into an endless crash loop if you play too much of it” is a pretty high bar to meet in terms of launching a broken game, and since I did play Skyrim on PS3 first, I may have a bettter memory of it than others.
New Vegas and Fallout 3 were borderline unplayable on PS3 when they launched too.
Old timers keep warning people not to buy on launch. But every time a ‘big’ game comes along, there are a lot of people who ignore the warnings and do it anyway.
Witcher 3 was the same. Roach(horse) on a roof was a meme at one point. But CDPR wasn’t as famous then, so far less people played that on launch.
Oh, and while we’re at it, Witcher 3 isn’t a true RPG either. Cyberpunk is quite a lot like Witcher 3 IMHO.
How quickly we forget that the Witcher superfans were absolutely livid about CDPR having dumbed down the potion system. I mean, I disagreed then and I disagree now, but “they dumbed it down for consoles” was a bit of a talking point at the time.
Now, the atrocious input lag and having to shimmy for five minutes to pick up a thing werre always bad, and they aren’t even great after their passive-aggressive option to make it slightly better under objection.
Still, I do think Witcher 3 is the better game, I was just suprised to find out how many of its strong points do carry over to CP after hearing all the online rage at launch.
You did get screwed if you tried to play Skyrim on the PS3. The hardware limitations on the console caused obvious instability in the game that I don’t think they ever fully resolved.
But I don’t think most people played Skyrim on PS3 so they aren’t going to have that same experience. I know I didn’t.
The hardware limitations on the console caused obvious instability in the game that I don’t think they ever fully resolved.
Except they released the game, in “enhanced” version, on the Switch, which is just old android phone hardware from several years back. The PS3 was totally capable of running it. The port simply failed - time constraint, investor pressures…doesn’t matter. They chose to not make it better in the end when the hardware was perfectly capable of running the game.
But I don’t think most people played Skyrim on PS3 so they aren’t going to have that same experience. I know I didn’t.
The number of people that play a game on console is vastly underestimated by pc-primary gamers when previous titles by a developer were PC only. Skyrim on console was big. Big enough that they decided to port it to everything they could. You don’t waste that kind of developer time and not expect a return…
I missed your comment before mine, but this tracks with my experience. Thinking about it I did a stealth fists playthrough, with stealth being all about avoiding combat where possible… I thought I was just bad at the game, but maybe it was my inner reviewer telling me combat is not a fun way to play the game 😂
I’m old enough now that I accept it’s fine to switch difficulty to be trivial in games where combat is not the point.
To be clear, combat in CP is still better than Witcher 3 combat, especially at launch of that game, but it’s also not why I’m there. I’m there for the exquisitely rendered Keanu and the extremely granular, detailed story beats with unexpectedly affecting writing.
If they hadn’t over-promised things and straight up lied, it would have been received better. A lot of what they said was gonna be in the game still isn’t, and likely won’t ever be…
This is what everyone is missing.
The game wasn’t what was advertised. And once you finish the first section and you realize all the cool shit you thought you’d do happens in a cut scene you feel pretty discouraged.
It’s also shitty that they shipped a buggy game to begin with. I don’t care if you’re CDPR, EA, Bethesda or Blizzard. Unfinished projects shouldn’t be shipped.
Have people forgotten all the straight up lies, broken promises and features?
The police would spawn inside locked elevators with you!
NPCs disappeared if you turned around!I’m glad some of you had fun with the story but the game was still a damn mess.
I’m glad some of you had fun with the story
Not to mention the story was still very much on rails. Even if there were like what, 3 different outcomes? And on top of that, once you beat the game there is absolutely fuck all to do.
Honestly. I put about 50-60 hours into cyberpunk. I enjoyed every single hour of it. But once the main campaign was complete, there was just nothing left to do. I tried many times to jump back in and go do side quests or explore but the world is just completely empty.
My feelings exactly.
I played for 60 hours or so, and I enjoyed it a lot. But they put a fatal design flaw into the game by forcing to you be V, and by putting a ticking time bomb in your head. That means that if you play logically, you’ll follow the storyline quests in order to fix the big issue rather than spending the time slowly exploring the world they made. It also means that once you beat it, there’s no fun in going back and doing it again, because you have to follow the same railroad tracks and go through the same story beats again. It cheapens the experience greatly.
Like you, the world holds no interest for me now that I have found a satisfying ending for V. The least they could have done was put in a “story mode,” and a separate “open mode” where you can build any character (who isn’t V) and live any life you choose, free from the main quest railroad.
I’ll never understand why game designers would make an open world, and then slap on a "YOU HAVE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE HURRY UP!!! railroad quest as the main story. It’s a lazy and utterly stupid design choice.
Counter point: Fallout 4 has you searching for your kidnapped son. I’m a father, in actuality. So to me that’s an imperative too, but it didn’t stop me from building skyscrapers in the interim. There was no real death clock, so I really don’t get your criticism there.
Shit, final fantasy 7 is one of the greatest games of all time and that asteroid will sit there in the sky as long as you let it. You’re reaching hard. The more I think on it, nearly every open world game has some imperative story point and they’ll happily wait for you to get there. You get tuberculosis in RDR2 and you will live forever as long as you avoid the last mission. This isn’t uncommon at all.
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Whether there’s a mechanical clock or not is irrelevant, this is about roleplaying and immersion. The player should be able to play in a way that makes sense in-world without being punished for it.
A good open world game should have lower tension moments sprinkled along the main story so it gives the player time to chill and explore the world.
CDPR did something nearly every RPG or Open world game does. They made the main quest have a time count down that overwhelms/looms of side quests.
Skyrim does it. Why am I helping this dude recover his friend’s bodies from a cave if Alduin the World Eater has returned and I’m the only one that can stop him. Fallout 4, is go find your infant son. BOTW, wtf am I doing fucking about when Gannon is on the rise? RD2, Arthur is imminently dying from TB but yet here I am romping around with no problem at all as long as I ain’t doing the main story.
V dying from the chip is just like that, it’s a flaw that many of these games have. Few games try to fix it, FNV has it so that the main quest factions that drive the story could do with your help/freelancing to put them in the best position. Morrowind makes it so you need to ingratiate yourself among the houses so you can be in a powerful enough political situation to deal with Dagoth Ur. This encourages you to do side quests.
I liked how this was handled in Spiderman 2018 - after major plot points, the main character would say ‘looks like it’ll take a while before the lab results (or whatever) come back, now’s probably a good time to patrol the city’, and the main quest wouldn’t progress until you’d done at least one side activity - so if you wanted to just plow through the main quest it was just a small diversion, but it was also a great indicator that now was a nice time to spend some time playing around in the open world if you wanted to.
I named two outstanding open world games recognized as being in the top 5 games of all time that utilize the exact same plot mechanic, either the criticism applies to them (and you aren’t) or its invalid criticism.
You bring up immersion… rdr2 is considered the most immersive game ever. Rightly so. You still have imperatives you can ignore.
They do and i am, lots of games have this problem, which doesn’t make it less of a problem.
Though my point was mainly that the fact that “nothing actually happens if you wait” isn’t the issue, but rather the fact that it doesn’t make sense for your character not to always priorize the main quest.
I haven’t played fo4 because they neutered the dialogue, but in 3 there are similar stakes with you trying to find your father, and although that game isn’t perfect about this either, there are times where the lead gets colder, and others where it’s hotter, this counts as a shift of tension like i mentioned.
But that doesn’t change the fact that narrative and gameplay are almost always at odds with each other in open world games. Even if dialogue or game state changes a little there’s no need for you to actually follow the story if you don’t want. Compared to Majora’s Mask where there’s a very real time limit to push you towards progress in each cycle.
The difference is, there was actually engaging content outside the main story quest in those games.
I’m at 67 hours in Cyberpunk and last time I logged in I spent 20-30 minutes just TRYING to find something to do. There was absolutely nothing that pulled you into the world. There’s no base building mechanic. No fishing or hunting. Just… empty lifelessness.
I’m not trying to say it’s a bad game. The story was really fun. But if you are expecting some vast open world game that leaves you plenty to do outside the story… this just ain’t it. At least in my own personal experiences. I dumped FAR more time into games like RDR2 and Fallout 4.
Not every open world game needs to be infinite, right? There was no base building mechanic… but why would it need one? There was one in Fallout 4, but it was pretty much entirely ignorable and only offered annoyance. A subset of people wanted to play the sims. There was no base building in GTA games either. Most open worlds don’t have such a mechanic.
What I found it has is replay value. You can play that game multiple ways and it is markedly different. Same thing with Witcher 3, there’s no infinite game mechanic. You start over and try different things. People loved that game and frankly CP2077 followed exactly the same framework, just “with guns”. Why is it a problem with CP2077? Couldn’t possibly be because there’s a prominent trans character, or a pretty girl who won’t sleep with your male character …
I think the near clone that Cp2077 is of Witcher 3 really drives home the point. People didn’t have a problem with the game, but certain groups have made it cool to nitpick one and not the other.
