Cyberpunk 2077's player counts are already dropping very quickly following the game's hugely controversial launch last month. CD Projekt Red's newest open world RPG looked like a dream come true when it was announced, giving players free reign over a dystopian playground full of seedy neon nightclubs and engaging NPCs to do illegal missions for. It swiftly became one of the most hotly anticipated games on the market, and maintained this reputation even after numerous delays over the course of an eight year development cycle. When it finally got released, there were so many impatient fans waiting to dive in that it crashed Steam.
Unfortunately, Cyberpunk 2077 failed quite spectacularly to live up to the hype. While fans enjoyed the PC version, they found that the game was all but unplayable on PS4 and Xbox One. It was thoroughly infested with bugs and glitches, some of them absolutely game breaking. Exploding NPCs, critical frame rate drops, and holes in the fabric of the world combined with a book's worth of other glitches to make the console versions of Cyberpunk 2077 an absolute disgrace. Some have compared the game in its present state to an unfinished early access title, which CD Projekt Red has constantly assured players it is in the process of repairing.
These promises have done nothing for the game's player base, however. GitHyp reports that the player count for Cyberpunk 2077 is already 79% lower than what it was at launch, when it exceeded a million players on Steam alone. This drop off is occurring at twice the rate of CDPR's other major open world RPG, The Witcher III. The decline was recorded on Steam, too, where the game has seen the most success, and also where it's at its most playable according to most sources. Single player games typically struggle to maintain stable player numbers after release, since they lack the live-service elements that keep people coming back to online titles. But for numerous reasons, there's really nothing typical about Cyberpunk 2077.
This is true of the financial side of the equation too. CDPR has been accused of outright lying about the state of the game on current-gen consoles, and of withholding review copies on those machines for just that reason. Following this negative press, Sony pulled the game from the PlayStation Store altogether, an unprecedented move for major AAA titles of this caliber. It's also offering full refunds to fans disappointed with the state of the game. CDPR's investors have also filed a lawsuit against the company for misrepresenting the game.
The story of Cyberpunk 2077 is one that will surely stick with the gaming community for a long time. It's a serviceable and stark illustration of just how dreadful crunch culture can be in the video game space, and it's one that certain fans have begun taking to heart; some Rockstar fans have expressed a hope that the company will take its time with Grand Theft Auto 6, to avoid the dreadful state of Cyberpunk 2077. Hopefully even if December brought nothing but bad news for CD Projekt Red, it will at least bring positive change to the video game industry.
Source: GitHyp
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