I'm not sure the best way to paraphrase this question, but if Cyberpunk had been bug-free at its release, how would its development have progressed over the past five years compared to its current state? Do you think the game is better because of its disastrous launch, or would we have had more Phantom Liberty level expansions? Would CDPR have stopped development sooner before moving on to other projects?
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We know CDPR planned to do a number of DLCs (presumably none of them would’ve been anything like Phantom Liberty), and an online mode akin to GTA online.
I don’t know that it’s really worth thinking about. The history that happened, happened.
I think the game would’ve always been good, but I think you’re right, a poor launch would almost always increase pressure to correct your mistake. They had a crazy hole to dig themselves out of and I’m glad they were able to.
It’s something I’ve considered. I don’t know. Far too hypothetical:
If it had been less buggy because it meant more cut content prior to launch, would they have restored it to what we got now by now?
If they had just always had more time and people and it came out as it was at launch but without the glaring issues, I do think we’d have gotten the second expansion by around now, with the first having launched in late ’22.
If they had released without bugs and a decently complete story because they never signed up Reeves to play Johnny and it was more like the original scripts so less time working on the reworks? Well then it wouldn’t even be the same game at all. But maybe still pretty good.
If they simply launched on PC and next gen consoles it probably would not have gotten the reputation it did to the degree it did. They would have had some articles about funny bugs and unoptimized features but incredible graphics and story telling; and then CDPR would still have spent most of the time it did fixing the issues it did, but maybe slowed down on updates sooner and just let it lie.
Tbh I think it might have been good. Cyberpunk did cause a LOT of polemic among the community for how bad it was, so in a way that gave the game a certain fame, probably not the one devs were hoping for but fame at the end of the day… And then hearing how suddenly the game was recovering and redeeming itself, boosted that fame even more. That’s my theory.
No. The launch and the work require to fix it lead to one of the expansions being cancelled.
Given how perception and psychological biases work, at how you react to even an appreciation of the things. At how you perceive/experience the thing when you try it, especially when it’s an art.
I think if it was released in the state it is even in 2023, it would have been in much much better state. If sales are a metric, it would have sold 50M copies in two years. It has wayyy wayy more things of beauty than people realise even now, we tend to see the flaws more cuz of bias. Imho.
Who’s to say. Look at no man’s sly. It’s still getting updates to this day that are free.
And at launch it was- a hot mess to put it lightly.
There could be one version of our reality where they released a bug free and somewhat polished game and never touched it again.
There’s a version where the bugs doomed it to fail and it was left as such.
A version where we got more dlcs like phantom liberty.
I’m grateful for the game and story we got. Even if some things are rough around the edges- nothing ever perfect. No use dwelling on what could have been.
*Except the fucking mantis blades oda has PLEASE I NEED THEM LET ME CUT PEOPLE LIKE BUTTER*
I’d say it’s what it’s supposed to be now that it’s had some time to grow. At launch, apparently it was garbage, but I’m a broke fuck, so by the time I bought it, it was a great game. Never experienced the bugs other people talk about. I think Cyberpunk is one of the many great examples of why you don’t let the opinions of the general public determine when things get released.
I think the game is better because of the launch it had. Like we lost a dlc because they thought they would lose money with it but I feel like they worked their ass off and offered us so much content to make up for their mistake. I don’t know if they would have done so many updates if the game had an okay launch but then again we could have multiple dlcs too.
I never had any of the bugs and glitches when it first released but I was super jelly when others got them because it honestly looked so hilarious and fun at the time ! But with that being said
Cyberpunk just keeps on giving and I’m excited to see what they bring out next <3
I’ll always be sad about not getting the online/co-op. That would’ve been a lot of fun, maybe this next time around.
I think it ended up better because of such a botched launch, I like to think it forced the crew to reconsider the game.
However there are many things slated for the original release I wish we had now.
1. T-bug had a much deeper story that got cut, I’d like to have a chance to work with bug more. From what I understand they took the core story concept from bug and it helped inspire songbird.
2. I think the main story needed to be at least 50% longer than it was. My first play through in 2020 I ran through the game in a weekend, started playing Friday night, and I hit Nocturne OP55n1 before sundown on Sunday. Like WTF?
3. I would like more consequences for going hard in the chrome, like the more cyberware you equip the stronger you are, obviously. But I want there to be more of a price to pay for edging with cyberpsychosis.
4. Not cut content, but I really wish we could have had missions with Maxtac or Trauma Team. I understand we aren’t necessarily the good guys in this game, but at least a short story line with either of them would have been cool.
“Would it be better if it was better?”
This is how I understood your question, I’m sorry.
paraphrasing is when you try to reword something. You could have just said phrase
It would likely have been a very different game, but it’s not a simple thing. The bugs and issues the game had at launch would still have needed fixing, even if found faster.
If the game shipped in its current state, which would have been basically impossible, then I think we would have seen more DLC, possibly more collabs with other games.
Now is ult.
I played the game first day on a good pc.
This was already a fantastic game, and not buggy, (had one crash, and one random death in 90 hours on my playthrough following the launch).
There is two thing that makes this launch bad :
– The game required an ssd, on a hard drive, it’s was buggy and not great (that’s why it ran so bad on ps4 and xbox one).
– Some people involved the gta community telling them it’s a gta like and that you will be able to play in multiplayer to a gta online of the future (a famous youtuber in my country has done that and it caused a lot of disapointement for some people).
I think that even without the bad launch, they would have improved it with the years.
Look at the witcher 3, they have done the same even if the launch was correct.
It’s not like CDPR didn’t know their product wasn’t ready for Launch, it was their greedy ass investors calling for their pound of flesh that pressured them into releasing it back in Dec. 2020
Just for a refresher : That game first was to have been released : April 16, 2020……..then pushed back to July 2020 ( I was like okay, fine they needed a little more time), ………then pushed back to Sept 6, 2020 sometime in the middle of June ( I was like hrrrr mmmmm, alrighty)……..THEN In late August they say it’s moved to November 21, 2020( This was the time I got hella worried byhat something just wasn’t right, cause this wasn’t like CPDR) then on like November-ish 6th or so, CDPR on Livestream/social media was : NOW NOW THE DEFINITE DATE is December 10, 2020 , take it to the bank!!!!!!!! And I had in my mind , this game is gonna be half-backed ………..ohh boy, I didn’t know the half of it!! Those memes that were released in the 1st week alone ,😭😆😅. The signs where there, and everything bI hopes not to experience bat Launch( I’m not talking shit here people, these are actual, factuals. I adore the game)
Then thats what led CDPR over the course of the past 3.5 years correcting their mistake, with the plethora of patches, the promised DLC, and trying to restore good will amongst their customer base, and they did so flawlessly. Cause they knew ” Reputation takes a lifetime to build, and seconds to destroy”. It’s just shitty part of biz, when the people finding it are breathing down your neck 24/7
The other end of the spectrum of this cautionary tale, is Larian Studios ( a small, independent European studio) who just like CDPR started small, clawed their way to the top. Larian however maintained their autonomy, never sold out to a bigger parent studio, or relied on anyone. They took their time, and never let no outside entity compromise their vision. BG3 took the long road, but look what it became, probably THE standard for RPGs. They certainly took Bioware’s crown atop the genre….and what’s more did it with one of Bioware’s old titles to boot, more salt in the wound
I don’t think so.
While I think the controversial launch pressured CDPR into investing 200% of their effort into Phantom Liberty and other updates to make up for it, the truth is if Cyberpunk wasn’t so controversial the devs could’ve afforded to make much more content, several expansions and the online mode they were working on.
But then again, it’s hard to say if Phantom Liberty (or future content) would’ve been so high quality if it weren’t for the guilt of wanting to deliver THE perfect expansion
This game needed three more years to cook. If it had that time, maybe some early access to the origin stories and pre heist stuff in Watson could have done this game a world of good. Now they have the framework, Orion will take less time but man do they need a solid launch following PL.
The game is cool. It has a cyberpunk vibe, and I am really enjoying it now.
In the beginning, I felt overwhelmed with missions and people and dialogs and especially the phone ringing all the time. I thought it would be more like an rpg and less of a GTA. I accepted that it was gta, so I followed along later.
I didn’t buy the game until after PL launch. I have to admit that PL is better than the rest of the game.(Haven’t met Hanako at Embers yet). I really loved it. Yes, the bugs stopped me from having it earlier, but I wouldn’t ever miss something like 2077. I have been waiting for it since finishing the witcher 3. Still, I don’t like cars falling from the sky or spawning inside the cement of the road, or when bodies do reverse joga after death, but it is really awesome otherwise.
Can’t believe it’s been 5 years already. I still remember all the hype in 2018-2020 with all the memes. And first time i ever played it was at the end of 2022. So i never experienced any major bugs, but i watched a full playthrough in 2020-2021 winter, and that youtuber haven’t experienced many bugs, only some minor ones. And i had very positive opinion about the game.
One of the things I dislike ( or better said, deceived me the most ) as of today, is the lifepaths. They barely have any impact and the fast forward timeskip intro which shows you several characters and dont explain anything about them is one of the worst ways of starting a game. That timeskip should have been a couple of acts to be honest
What are you talking about, they are still not done making it. There’s still more dlc on the way. It will be like this until Orion is done. Which I don’t have a problem with.
Mostly but there still are some Game desing decitions that make no sense, like the Cyberware capacity shards being a thing
Didn’t some people literally send the devs death threats if the game wasn’t released early?
No. For as good as Cyberpunk is now there are still fundamental issues with the game that will never be fixed because the game launched in such a bad state.
If it’s simply about the launch, then there could be argument there. If Cbp was the exact same as it was irl except with all the bugs and performance issues ironed out, then imo CDPR wouldn’t have put nearly as much effort into reworking and expanding the game.
But imo the big problem here wasn’t the launch, but the whole dev cycle. Phantom Liberty, despite how relatively “railroaded”/linear it is, was something I’d def consider an upgrade in terms of writing, voice acting, and even location design. Kind of a glimpse into what could have been. The game should have been given one to two more years of dev time, WITHOUT crunching, and then it would have surpassed it’s current state for sure
It turned from “not running well at all on the only consoles it’s out for” to “it’s on switch??” And i find that a good development
Without the failures you do not get what the game is now. They had ambitions, probably too big for a studio that have never done an fps camera open world with vehicles and big environments etc… people don’t care but you can grow as studio through mistakes if you are willing to put effort and money. Phantom Liberty and 2.0 showed what they learned. Not many execs would do it, look at EA with BioWare, Anthem and Andromeda had potential if given the right time to understand what to fix and how to fix it but I digress.
Now I really really hope they are a more mature studio now, a studio that went to hell and back, and they will remember those cyberpunk launch years and tell to themselves “never again”.