More than six months since its problematic initial release, the sci-fi adventure game “Cyberpunk 2077” has finally launched on the PlayStation Store.
The unveiling comes after Sony removed the game from the store in December 2020 following widespread complaints about glitches.
The controversial video game was plagued by constant crashes and disastrous bugs — vehicles disappeared and characters were trapped in looping animations. An online form was also set up for players to claim refunds for the game.
The game’s developer, CD Projekt Red, spent months following the game’s release apologizing to players who experienced technical issues, promising many fixes. This comes after several other delays in its initial release, which was slated for April 2020.
“We are working hard to bring ‘Cyberpunk 2077′ back to PlayStation Store as soon as possible,” CD Projekt Red said in December.
However, that promise was not fully kept. Last week, the developer warned that the game would still face major challenges on the PS4. While some glitches are patched, others will continue to be fixed in the next few months.
On the PlayStation Store, the game’s page states, “Purchase for use on PS4 systems is not recommended.”
The Xbox One version also experienced major glitches and bugs — Microsoft added a warning label on its Xbox store.
“We would like to start by apologizing to you for not showing the game on base last-gen consoles before it premiered and, in consequence, not allowing you to make a more informed decision about your purchase,” CD Projekt Red said in December, not long before it was hit with a class-action lawsuit alleging that the Warsaw, Poland-based company lied about the game’s unfinished state to protect its stock price.
In February, a cyberattack slowed work on fixes for the game, which further pushed back the release date.
The delays in fixing issues on the PS4 — and the announcement that the game will best run on the PS4 Pro or PS5 consoles — are not the only blow to the game’s success. Although the game sold more than 13 million copies in its first week, the company provided no new sales figures for “Cyberpunk 2077” in a recent conference call to investors. Analysts now predict the game will experience very low sales for the rest of the year.
“The degree to which this thing crashed and burned was monumental even for an industry that has seen its share of trainwrecks, a narrative somehow even more tragic for the fact that the game was pretty good on PC, at least if you had adequate hardware,” wrote Dave Thier for Forbes.
The timeline for additional upgrades to the game is still unclear, especially when a free upgrade to an enhanced PS5 version is not due until the latter half of 2021.