Ultimate character customization. Endless story options that personalize your gameplay experience. Amazing graphics and immersive visuals. And big names like Keanu Reeves playing Johnny Silverhand.

These were just a few features that were hyped up for the release of Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red announced in 2013 a futuristic sci-fi immersive RPG game with a wide story and impressive gameplay. Previously, the development studio was mostly known for making Witcher 3, which was received well by fans.

We fans expected big things to happen with Cyberpunk 2077. I mean, an RPG set in the future with a decision making that seemed to alter the course of your entire gameplay, weapons, cars, and fashion? It all seemed too good to be true.

As the release date came near in early December, CDPR kept delaying since they wanted their game to be as polished as possible.

On the exciting day of release, the 8 million people that pre-ordered Cyberpunk 2077 had finally gotten to see the game for themselves. It was a rough launch. On a good, decent PC, the game ran fairly well but there were still common glitches with characters falling through floors, vehicles spawning in midair, and many more. It was even worse if you were on console. On the last-generation consoles such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, you’d have constant game crashes, drastic frame rates dropping, and a myriad of glitches. It was virtually impossible to run such a heavy game such as Cyberpunk. It was not optimized for console gameplay. The game even had trouble running at times on the next-generation Playstation 5.

As a result, CDPR released a public apology about their lack of quality control in the performance of their game on consoles. They stated that they will focus future updates on improving console gameplay and offered full refunds to those who were not satisfied with the game.

What made some fans angry about the chaos of Cyberpunk is when you look at the amount of marketing that was done around the game’s launch. It is evident that a large portion of money was used to create products such as a Cyberpunk gaming chair, backpack, belts, controllers, and other gaming peripherals.

It’s infuriating when you think about how much of that money could have gone towards paying the team that had to work really hard leading up to the game’s release date. Ironically enough, a limited edition Xbox One with a Cyberpunk 2077 design was released, despite the game running horribly.

It looks really bad on their part when there is so much merchandise available and yet the game was released in an unplayable state. I hope that Cyberpunk 2077 gets a big update and that the game the fans looked forward to can still be a possibility.

The grimy, neon, futuristic setting is really cool and there is so much potential to the Cyberpunk universe, but first we need good gameplay, impactful decision-making while playing the game. Please just don’t ruin the game with scenes where a pistol appears to go through a character’s head. It’s a funny see, but it’s just another example of what happens when a game gets rushed and ruins what would otherwise be a powerful moment.