{"id":347610,"date":"2025-12-14T04:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T04:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/347610\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T04:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T04:22:09","slug":"in-the-end-cyberpunk-2077-changed-itself-but-not-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/347610\/","title":{"rendered":"In the End, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Changed Itself, But Not History"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know what they say: hype<\/a> makes the world go \u2019round, and nowhere is that more true than video games. No matter who makes it or how big it is, gamers love to be excited for things<\/a>, even if that means tearing down others excited for something they don\u2019t like. When a game doesn\u2019t live up to the hype, it can be disappointing, but when it does so in a pretty messy fashion? Then it\u2019s a spectacle.<\/p>\n

This is exactly what happened with CD Projekt Red\u2019s\u00a0Cyberpunk 2077. The action-RPG based on Mike Pondsmith\u2019s tabletop series had a lot of hype behind it: even before CDPR was riding the high of\u00a0The Witcher 3\u2019s\u00a0massive success,\u00a0Cyberpunk\u00a0had been in development for quite a while. Its E3 2018<\/a> trailer, its more official reveal compared to a two-minute teaser<\/a> from 2013, wowed viewers. And when E3 2019\u2019s trailer<\/a> ended with the reveal of Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand, it was like CDPR was the physical manifestation of god, and gamers basically asked, \u201cCould we get more peak?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then the game came out.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a9 CD Projekt Red <\/p>\n

To say the\u00a0Cyberpunk 2077\u00a0we got for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on December 10, 2020 was different from what had been shown back then would be an understatement. Despite reviewing generally well at launch, there was no denying its technical issues<\/a>, particulalry on consoles, and things were so bad, Sony delisted it entirely<\/a> from the PlayStation Store a week after launch. (On PS4, I once fell through the floor and lost at least an hour of progress from an autosave bug.) CDPR had basically eroded its goodwill earned by Witcher 3\u00a0in real time, not helped when we learned about the game\u2019s troubled development<\/a> that included months of crunch after studio co-founder Marcin Iwi\u0144ski very publicly stated<\/a> this wouldn\u2019t be the case.<\/p>\n

From that point on, CDPR went about redeeming the name of what it hoped would be the start of another long-term IP. Standalone multiplayer<\/a> and a second expansion (potentially set on the moon<\/a>) were shelved in favor of patches and updates. Helpful as these were to the game\u2019s rehab process, what really sealed the deal was Studio Trigger\u2019s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners<\/a>. Announced months before the game\u2019s launch and coming out mid-apology tour, the anime was a godsend. Critical and audience acclaim sent viewers to check out the game<\/a> during its turnaround period, and the developer paid it back by referencing the show in its big 2.0 update<\/a> from 2023 that followed the game\u2019s release on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S a year prior.<\/p>\n

Said update was the final word on Cyberpunk 2077,\u00a0as far as CDPR was concerned. With an overhaul to the RPG systems, the game was now what it should\u2019ve been from the start and came just before Phantom Liberty,\u00a0the game\u2019s single expansion. The studio knew it had a new lease on life and successfully changed things for the better, as punctuated by a promo<\/a> wherein Idris Elba stares at the camera and says: \u201cThe game is fixed.\u201d Meta, yes, a good line to go out on, certainly. A deserved bit of back patting? Ehhhh\u2026<\/p>\n

Video games are no strangers to reappraisal and second shots<\/a> at life, which are never really unwelcome. But in Cyberpunk\u2019s\u00a0case, something has always felt a bit\u2026off for one reason or another. Maybe it\u2019s because of its pre-release marketing and CDPR\u2019s online behavior<\/a> that was interpreted by many as transphobic and edgy. Could also be the studio\u2019s repeated insistence of \u201cthe game is good now\u201d over the three-year period felt as desperate as it did declarative, as quarterly and yearly financial reports often touted the game as a reliable moneymaker<\/a> as sales and player numbers grew and grew.<\/p>\n

Whatever you want to chalk it up to, it\u2019s made talking about Cyberpunk\u2019s life and continued presence more contentious than other games with similarly rocky launches. Players who invested much of their lives and personality into the game certainly wanted not just a turnaround, but to whitewash how things actually went down, insisting it was great from the start, particularly after Cyberpunk was recognized for its new and improved state at the 2023 Game Awards. CDPR, while more than proud of the work achieved in three years, did not play ball in that sense: staff openly acknowledged<\/a> how fraught its initial development was, and simultaneously discussed how work conditions at the studio have since changed and how Phantom Liberty could further help to \u201cmake [things] right,\u201d in the words of expansion director Gabe Amatangelo<\/a> back in 2023.<\/p>\n

In a way,\u00a0Cyberpunk 2077\u00a0did \u201cget away with it,\u201d as some said happened when\u00a0Edgerunners\u00a0first caught everyone\u2019s eye. A sequel is on the horizon<\/a>, as is another\u00a0Edgerunners\u00a0anime<\/a> and live-action series<\/a>, further contributing to parasocial pride at the franchise\u2019s continued existence. (There\u2019s probably also more TV and game spinoffs of some kind being planned, similar to what\u2019s being done with\u00a0Witcher<\/a>.) What\u2019ll ultimately be the biggest tell for\u00a0Cyberpunk 2077\u00a0as a franchise and CD Projekt Red as a developer will be the language and attitude around the incoming sequel and whatever we learn of its development. The game is fixed, yeah\u2014but is CDPR going to play by the same rules as before?<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You know what they say: hype makes the world go \u2019round, and nowhere is that more true than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[13264,13261,19374,42638,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-347610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-cd-projekt-red","9":"tag-cyberpunk","10":"tag-cyberpunk-2077","11":"tag-cyberpunk-edgerunners","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}