Reflections on a Cyberpunkian release

 Forgiveness always drags

Whoop Whoop, it's been a whole month and some change since Cyberpunk 2077 hit shelves and... dammit, I really wanted that niggling gripe at the back of head to be wrong. Do you know why I ended almost every Cyberpunk preview blog with a small disclaimer on how it could all become a flaming mess, because a part of me knew that hype always heads off the same cliff and I was willingly tying myself to the tracks. Wait, no that doesn't quite work... I mean the wheels... How would that work logistically? Even my crappy metaphors can't string themselves together when I bring up this game because of how heartbreaking the whole thing still is. To be fair, the end product is nowhere near as bad as I was fearing, unless you're on console in which case it's 15x worse, but it's also nowhere near as good as they were selling, so we're in this awkward state of inbetween where it seems the game is constantly teetering on the edge of being a masterpiece and a disappointment. And it might be destined to be there for literally ever? Guess they'll fix it in the sequel?

Actually, if it's fixes we're talking about, then I can grab that as a crappy segue into the new video that the official Cyberpunk channel debuted; "Our commitment to quality." (Not going to lie, I did have a half-hearted chuckle when I first read that title out loud) So this is pretty much the tail-between-the-legs part of the Cyberpunk saga where CDPR take to tell the fans what is going on, as we've seen out of quite a few live service disasters lately. (Although usually in a canned post rather than a decently sincere video) So in a weird way we actually get to watch an apology video addressed to us from the multimillion dollar studio after their latest successful project. Quite surprising. I mean, they successfully pulled the wool over fan's eyes; even after the refund window they still did gangbusters with sales and their current player count is insane for a single player game. Cyberpunk is doing fine, so why are we getting an address at all?

Of course I'm being facetious, we all know why this address is happening, it's obvious. In making their latest millions, CDPR managed to torpedo their spotless reputation and are hoping to avoid the occasional backlash that sometimes happens where the next game gets punished for the previous game's mistakes. ('Assassin's Creed Syndicate' was a perfectly okay title and more people should have played it.) That sounds cynical, but it's true. And whilst I'm spouting; as long as CDPR maintain the size of their projects, no-one is going to boycott the next Witcher or Cyberpunk or whatever comes out of them. Some people may claim to, but COD proved that there is such a thing as 'too big to fail', and I think CDPR has crossed that hallowed freshhold with gusto. But enough posturing and nattering, what has the Co-Founder of CD Projekt, Marcin Iwiński, got up his sleeve for us today?

Well the video started off with something we never get out of the video game world; an apology. Leaping off from the sorts of sentiments that Mr Iwiński has been sharing in the weeks since launch, the wellbeing of the fanbase takes paramount importance because "Our reputation is all we have." (Well, that and enough money to sink a Yatch. But I'm sure it's the 'reputation' that they were really thinking about when they rushed the game to shelves.) However, despite my grumblings, it must be said that commendations are deserving of any project lead who's worthy enough of his position to go out on the public stage and accept responsibility for the collective shortcomings of his team. We'll likely forever remain in the dark as to the specifics of why everything went to the dogs in the manner that it did, but at least Mr Iwiński has made an effort to appear repentant. (That's worth something, I guess.)

Descriptions began, and this is when the video started to lose me, I'm not going to lie. Iwiński detailed how the game they were constructing was complicated with so many moving parts and shaking hands, to the point that scaling down for consoles proved troublesome. (Evidentially) Eventually hitting us with the 'excuse?' that: They knew the consoles were a mess but were just crossing their fingers hoping things would be done by the time of the day 0 patch. So not only is this really telling for how we ended up with what we got, it also belies something of a problem I'm seeing with their approach to the process: Blind faith. If there's one thing that drives me insane it's when someone starts a recipe without all the ingredients ready only to realise that they are out of something important, twist that a little bit and it becomes a rather cogent metaphor of what we're being told. It isn't exactly uncommon for release dates to be drawn up before any idea of development time can be figured out, but that's a shortcoming that CDPR were supposed to showup with a game that represented all that could go right when you work to completion, instead of until the deadline. This admittance doesn't just reveal a poor development philosophy, but one that contradicts the very values these developers claim to represent.

Also, rather curiously, I noted that Mr Iwiński claimed that the PC version of Cyberpunk "Whilst not perfect" is a version of the game that they are "Very proud of". Now in full honesty I've heard a lot of great things regarding Cyberpunk's base game, I've heard the writing is great, some of the main missions really standout and the endings are impactful. All that is wonderful and I'm glad that the body of Cyberpunk was able to live up to the hype. But what about the world? Wasn't that a huge selling point? This huge breathing world, the 'most believable' ever which wasn't going to shape up as just another Ubisoft-style collectathon? Now I think most have agreed that there's some more life to Night City than in your average Ubisoft game at least, but it's still not a patch on the leaders of the open world genre, at least not mechanically. (Maybe artistically) Some hopefuls posited that perhaps this would be something that would be addressed, as though the intractability with the world, that final piece of the puzzle to make Cyberpunk hit those lofty heights, would be targeted in repairs too. But, it seems, unless CDPR considers these missing/cut features as bugs (and I cannot imagine why they would) that dream's dead in the water.

And then comes the distasteful part which we could all see coming from a mile away. The really embarrassing scene which we all hoped to avoid. The moment when a single player RPG is fitted with a roadmap detailing when fixes are coming. (God, how far we have fallen...) From here we can see that, inexplicably, the team still wants to get out the free DLC before the next gen Console upgrades to Cyberpunk, which makes me think that they must have some deal to get Cyberpunk back on PS4 soon, because otherwise they're pretty much flipping the finger at Playstation fans who didn't feel like spending full price for last months AAA-priced Beta build. Either way, now we can put Cyberpunk next to the likes of Anthem for promising titles that promise their final form is coming after launch, rather than just deliver on the date they're expected to. (Only, Cyberpunk is a lot more put together and will actually still be a functioning game in a year from now. As opposed to Anthem which is still so silent that it might as well have been discontinued at this point.)

I didn't think I'd be talking about Cyberpunk for a while, but as I might have said previously, this topic fascinates me. I find the dichotomy of an apparently fantastic game which muddies itself beyond distinction as a sublime thought piece I cannot look away from. It's tragic, Shakespearian, maybe even a little Socratic. (What makes something 'Good'?; what is 'Quality'?. Etc.) As for what I think of the apology video itself; it was fine. Responsibility was taken, it was done professionally and we were told about steps to improvement. Seems functional to me. I'm just peeved it's reached this point and still feel like a grade A idiot for ever putting my trust in these guys to begin with, but that's my own personal problem with holding onto grudges for too long. (If I had physiatrist, I'd imagine they'd tell me how unhealthy that is.) Provided that the promises made in this video are kept (this time) then we'll be looking at a decent road to reputational recovery for CDPR. Not that it matters at the end of the day, for as the figures show; the money train stops for no controversy.