eurogamer Saving Cyberpunk 2077: How CD Projekt Red recovered from one of video games' most disastrous launches

[Slaughtahouse]

Saving Cyberpunk 2077: How CD Projekt Red recovered from one of video games' most disastrous launches

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Cyberpunk 2077 went from one of the most anticipated games of all time to an infamous disaster. This is...

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The promise was clear: a rich adaptation of a tabletop cult-hit. A true role-playing game, with a mature and branching story and range of character classes, abilities, and approaches to in-game problems. A world full of life and detail, in the kind of grim and gritty mid-future setting that, surprisingly for triple-A video games, at that time still felt somewhat underexplored. In fact that was quite literally the promise CD Projekt Red made. And as The Witcher 3 arrived, with unanimous acclaim, that promise began to look quite special.

 

What followed was one of the most disastrous launches in video games. Three rapid-fire delays. An extended period of crunch. A release so buggy it came with a warning label on Xbox, and was pulled from sale entirely on PlayStation. An indefinite delay of next-gen versions, a 30 percent stock price plunge, a period which CD Projekt Red developers described to me as "devastating", "hopeless", and "heartbreaking", which joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski calls "one of the worst moments of my life", and which threatened the very future of the company.

 

But fast forward four more years to today, and that moment almost feels like ancient history. Cyberpunk 2077, and its critically acclaimed expansion Phantom Liberty, have sold tens of millions of copies. There are few complaints about performance or bugs. There's a popular Netflixanime, Edgerunners, and another show, recently teased, on the way. Momot described public sentiment as "night and day", the game itself tipping over into "Overwhelmingly Positive" user reviews on Steam earlier this year. Cyberpunk 2077 has risen from the dead. This is the story of what happened, and how CD Projekt Red brought it back to life.

 

 

This is a fairly long read (especially in this day and age) providing commentary and behind-the-scene insights on the launch, fail, and recovery of Cyberpunk 2077.

Edited October 2 by Slaughtahouse

[SamsTechStuff]

I will have to read the full article when I have time but I will say, CP2077 was the first game in a long time I bought at launch, played and really liked. Until then I had been playing mostly very old games.

[Slaughtahouse]

On 01/10/2024 at 21:48, SamsTechStuff said:

I will have to read the full article when I have time but I will say, CP2077 was the first game in a long time I bought at launch, played and really liked. Until then I had been playing mostly very old games.

 

It took me about 20 to 30mns to read but it was interesting. At least to me since I’ve been in the industry prior to the pandemic and can understand the challenges. Specifically with the lockdowns, network constraints, and previous ways of working adapting to remote.

 

My experience with Cyberpunk 2077 was not good and has left a longstanding impression on me and my perception CD Projekt delivering a stable release. I was extraordinarily hyped for the title. It was the key reason I upgraded my system from Sandy Bridge / 1060 to Zen 2 / 3060 Ti.  I even purchased a cheap NVME drive from a user here, just for the game. I pre-ordered the steel case GoG version. In fact, my 3060 Ti arrived on the same day as I received my game copy (Dec 11, 2020).

 

  

And boy oh boy, on a very capable PC, my experience was NOT good. I’ve experienced buggy launches but I don’t think I ever went through anything that bad from such a reputable developer. Not just the typical open world bugs (clipping, glitching, crashing) but large bugs to the main story. Character disappearing, events not triggering, and just total AI failure in scripted scenes. There was a lot of narrative focused on this being console specific issue, especially those running on base PS4 / Xbox One, but my PC experience wasn’t all that much better. It may have looked better but it played very poorly.

 

The article provided some interesting context to explain how varied the results were on PC and how elements as simple as garbage bags impacts game stability. The article acknowledges that a lot of the challenges, internal investigations (at all levels) and feedback has all… harmonized into a similar narrative. It’s not a single issue.

 

Coming back to it at patch 1.5, it was clear it was heading in the right direction  but I was still experiencing substantial bugs traversing the city and playing quests. So I quickly paused.Fast forward to 2.0 released in fall 2023, it’s finally in the state that it needed to be in, so many years ago. 
 

I haven’t sat down with the game since (I have been in Act I since 2020). Mainly due to 2023 being such a banger year for excellent games. However, I am compelled to reboot my playthrough, rebuild my corpo, and go from start to finish.

Edited October 3 by Slaughtahouse
Formatting

[SamsTechStuff]

2 hours ago, Slaughtahouse said:

 

It took me about 20 to 30mns to read but it was interesting. At least to me since I’ve been in the industry prior to the pandemic and can understand the challenges. Specifically with the lockdowns, network constraints, and previous ways of working adapting to remote.

 

My experience with Cyberpunk 2077 was not good and has left a longstanding impression on me and my perception CD Projekt delivering a stable release. 

 

I was extraordinarily hyped for the title. It was the key reason I upgraded my system from Sandy Bridge / 1060 to Zen 2 / 3060 Ti.  I even purchased a cheap NVME drive from a user here, just for the game.

 

I pre-ordered the steel case GoG version. In fact, my 3060 Ti arrived on the same day as I received my game copy (Dec 11, 2020).

 

  

And boy oh boy, on a very capable PC,

my experience was NOT good. I’ve experienced buggy launches but I don’t think I ever went through anything that bad from such a reputable developer. Not just the typical open world bugs (clipping, glitching, crashing) but large bugs to the main story. Character disappearing, events not triggering, and just total AI failure in scripted scenes.

 

There was a lot of narrative focused on this being console specific issue, especially those running on base PS4 / Xbox One, but my PC experience wasn’t all that much better. It may have looked better but it played very poorly.

 

The article provided some interesting context to explain how varied the results were on PC and how elements as simple as garbage bags impacts game stability. The article acknowledges that a lot of the challenges, internal investigations (at all levels) and feedback has all… harmonized into a similar narrative. It’s not a single issue.

 

Coming back to it at patch 1.5, it was clear it was heading in the right direction  but I was still experiencing substantial bugs traversing the city and playing quests. So I quickly paused.

 

Fast forward to 2.0 released in fall 2023, it’s finally in the state that it needed to be in, so many years ago. 
 

I haven’t sat down with the game since (I have been in Act I since 2020). Mainly due to 2023 being such a banger year for excellent games. However, I am compelled to reboot my playthrough, rebuild my corpo, and go from start to finish.

 

Wow, yeah this was a long article

 

The pandemic was an interesting time in history, many people experienced it differently, obviously some better or worse than others. To be honest, I had been living under a video game rock for a long time, I owned the Witcher games thanks to a Humble bundle but had never played them and I had not heard of CyberPunk until maybe a month or two before it's release. I saw the trailers and I had just finished watching Season 1 of Altered Carbon. Even though the show is not at all related, I had never really seen or been exposed to the 'cyber punk' genre. Feeling kind of inspired to play a game that wasn't like other games I was very excited in a short period of time. I also played on an RTX 3060Ti

 

I remember having some issues here and there but I suppose I was so into the story and the world they built, I wasn't upset of the issues and as we all know, the game slowly over time got better and better. 

 

I am not a coder / dev but the bit about feeling not good during Christmas during the pandemic, I definitely have felt similar ways on projects and such in the past. Thinking something that was supposed to be awesome turning into a pit in your stomach that you get to walk around with for a while. It was also funny to see the common struggle for gathering opinions and thoughts from a large group of interested members over a chat application. Effective communication can be very difficult sometimes.

 

It's honestly nice to read an article with this kind of detail about 'how it went down on the inside'. It was an interesting read for sure, thanks for sharing it. I will be waiting for the limited Hulu series in between the heavy hitter shows "The Real Story Behind CyberPunk 2077" 

 

[UltraMega]

On 01/10/2024 at 19:18, Slaughtahouse said:

 

It took me about 20 to 30mns to read but it was interesting. At least to me since I’ve been in the industry prior to the pandemic and can understand the challenges. Specifically with the lockdowns, network constraints, and previous ways of working adapting to remote.

 

My experience with Cyberpunk 2077 was not good and has left a longstanding impression on me and my perception CD Projekt delivering a stable release. 

 

I was extraordinarily hyped for the title. It was the key reason I upgraded my system from Sandy Bridge / 1060 to Zen 2 / 3060 Ti.  I even purchased a cheap NVME drive from a user here, just for the game.

I had a similar experience with the game. I was not extraordinarily hyped for it, but I was definitely looking forward to playing a solid AAA RPG since if felt like there hadn't been one in a while. I think I had a 1080Ti when I first played it at launch. Now that I think about it, I may have waited a week or two before I bought it and caught it on sale after all the reports about how buggy it was came out, because I remember I got the game for ~$30 on green man gaming or something like that, but it was close to launch either way. I may not have gotten the full force of the day 1 bugginess, but it definitely had bugs. Nothing too game breaking for me that I can recall but some very in-your-face visual bugs for sure.

 

I wasn't disappointed with the game but not very impressed either. I just thought it was fine, and I still think it's just fine. Not bad, not great, just fine. It reminds me a lot of the game Rage 2 in the way it plays, but with a better world and a more interesting plot. I didn't find the plot all that interesting though. Having Keanu was definitely really cool, but the plot for my playthrough at least was just not that engaging. At the end of the game in my playthrough, V contemplated suicide to just remove themself from the equation, and when the game gave me the option to choose that, I was just like; sure, let's see where this goes. I didn't think V would actually do it and the credits would roll, but that's what happened. I was OK with that, haha. I felt like V is just some jack ass in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is nothing else that gives V any reason to be tied up in all the plot stuff. There was nothing all that interesting about V and the whole terminal illness thing felt like a drag on the game, (what is this, Far Cry 2?) so it was just like OK fine V finally died. 

 

I didn't play the game again for probably a year or so, after there had been enough patches to make booting it up again seem interesting. I think they must have patched out the suicide death as a final option because it started me on a new quest to basically finish the game instead of just dying. 

 

The parts that stood out for me the most were some of the cinematic presentation aspects. There are a few short scenes in the main story missions that are extremely well presented, but they are few and far between. The game has some high notes for sure, but they were spread out too thin to boost the game to the level of hype it had garnered. 

 

 

One thing that still really bothers me about the game to this day; I just don't think the overall visual presentation is very good. I know that may seem like ridiculous thing to say about cyberpunk, but hear me out...

 

The RT/PT stuff is very cool, especially the path tracing. Having an AMD card, I can't really play the game at smooth frame rate with path tracing, but it's still very cool. There are other aspects that really bother me though, most of all the super low LOD range on so soooo many objects in the game. Signs pop in at insanely close range all the time and there are so many signs. It's not a bug or slow loading on my PC's part, that's just how the game is. There are mods that attempt to address it but they don't do a great job last I checked. I think if you have to design the game with such egregiously bad LODs then you don't get to slap PT on top of that. Make the game assets somewhat stable first, and if there is still performance headroom, then you can add expensive lighting effects. I don't walk around in the game and see all the signs swapping LODs at super close range all the time and think, wow all these pixelated signs that suddenly starting animating when I get close to them sure look great with all these lighting effects. It's just goofy and uneven. 

 

I don't think it was a mistake for CDPR to abandon the RED Engine. They wanted to make a game with some great cinematic moments and some high-level lighting effects, and they did that just before the time that UE5 would have been feasible. But now, UE5 is just a better choice for everything that aimed to accomplish and as good as it all turned out in the end, the RED Engine seems to be extremely flawed overall, or at least just not really capable of performing to a level that would make the whole package feel solid and cohesive. 

 

I think CDPR is probably in a good place now. They have the skills for the artistry, and the vision to make something that really stands out. Dropping the dead weight of designing a game engine just to release one game ever decade or so on it should really free up a lot of man-power to just focus on what they're good at rather than trying to develop tech to support their creative vision at the same time they're trying to carry out that vision. 

 

 

BTW, I didn't read the article. I have followed the ups and downs of the game's tumultuous story so I feel like I already know about it. Is there anything in the article that wasn't already common knowledge for those followed this? 

Edited October 3 by UltraMega

[Sir Beregond]

I still have the game sitting in my library. I've not really progressed past the intro part of the story. 

[Kaz]

I played the game a lot about a year after release and it was quite enjoyable.  I bought Phantom Liberty, and have yet to bother finishing it.  The 2.0 loot system is the most uninspired loot system I've seen in 20 years.  The one minor improvement, it made fewer junk weapons that had to be disassembled, which means less time sorting through junk loot.  Everything else was a downgrade.  It took all the joy out of exploring and hoping to find something good, because nothing will be good at a low level, and higher level means I've bought everything anyway.

 

Phantom Liberty bosses all favor gun based builds, netrunning is a joke against bosses.  Between the un-inspired looting, and the forced play style, it went from being one of my favorite games to just meh.

[Slaughtahouse]

On 02/10/2024 at 03:22, UltraMega said:

One thing that still really bothers me about the game to this day; I just don't think the overall visual presentation is very good. I know that may seem like ridiculous thing to say about cyberpunk, but hear me out...

 

The RT/PT stuff is very cool, especially the path tracing. Having an AMD card, I can't really play the game at smooth frame rate with path tracing, but it's still very cool. There are other aspects that really bother me though, most of all the super low LOD range on so soooo many objects in the game. Signs pop in at insanely close range all the time and there are so many signs. It's not a bug or slow loading on my PC's part, that's just how the game is. There are mods that attempt to address it but they don't do a great job last I checked. I think if you have to design the game with such egregiously bad LODs then you don't get to slap PT on top of that. Make the game assets somewhat stable first, and if there is still performance headroom, then you can add expensive lighting effects. I don't walk around in the game and see all the signs swapping LODs at super close range all the time and think, wow all these pixelated signs that suddenly starting animating when I get close to them sure look great with all these lighting effects. It's just goofy and uneven. 

 

I don't think it was a mistake for CDPR to abandon the RED Engine. They wanted to make a game with some great cinematic moments and some high-level lighting effects, and they did that just before the time that UE5 would have been feasible. But now, UE5 is just a better choice for everything that aimed to accomplish and as good as it all turned out in the end, the RED Engine seems to be extremely flawed overall, or at least just not really capable of performing to a level that would make the whole package feel solid and cohesive. 

 

I think CDPR is probably in a good place now. They have the skills for the artistry, and the vision to make something that really stands out. Dropping the dead weight of designing a game engine just to release one game ever decade or so on it should really free up a lot of man-power to just focus on what they're good at rather than trying to develop tech to support their creative vision at the same time they're trying to carry out that vision. 

 

Agreed. I also think it has something do with the textures and assets contrasted against the lighting. People on the street, typical objects, and other landmarks don't always look correct. In some instances it does. Especially when I look around at metallic and concrete elements and the way light diffuses or bounces. People in most cutscenes or scripted moments look good but then it's contrasted by the people you find running around that have an uncanny valley feel. That's my take at least and it's very subjective.  I get the same feeling when I play Outlaws. In a lot of instances and areas, it looks good but it's not consistent. 

 

On 02/10/2024 at 03:22, UltraMega said:

BTW, I didn't read the article. I have followed the ups and downs of the game's tumultuous story so I feel like I already know about it. Is there anything in the article that wasn't already common knowledge for those followed this? 

 

Beyond common knowledge, not really. It's has more details to elaborate specific issues that occurred during development, within internal communications, and strongly presents an emphasis on the impact to the people behind the scenes.  The biggest technical topic they dive into is the limitation of storage speed, which drives more into the LOD comment you have above. Slow asset loading breaks game systems which results in lots of bugs, in a nut shell. They do also call out and identify what is wrong with the way they used to work, with teams predominately working in silos. The only critique I have is that the article has a bias favouring CP2077 / CD Projekt. It avoids more in-depth discussions why the advertising created unparalleled level hype and play dumb to it.

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The whiff of culture war issues still lingering in the air, and crucial elements of design still very much in progress, Cyberpunk 2077's hype nevertheless began to snowball. A combination of Hollywood glamour, studio reputation, highly-impressive trailers and glowing reactions to hotly sought-after behind-closed-doors appointments at two E3s (including one from this author) sent expectations soaring..."

The article continues:

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I've never, ever experienced this level of hype around a game," Grabowski says. Around six months after the game's blockbuster showing at E3 2019 came the announcement of Cyberpunk 2077's first delay, from a 16th April 2020 release date to 17th September 2020. It did nothing to slow down the momentum. The hype was enough to stretch the studio on the communications side. "For me and my team, to deal with the amount of enquiries we'd been getting - interviews, cover stories - that was something unprecedented. And that meant additional workload," Grabowski continues...

 

"It was really easy to get caught up in the hype," Momot says. "But also, the stuff that we had back then - like all the materials, all the promos, all the pieces of comms - it was really, really good, and people were getting really excited. I think we felt that excitement, internally, as well.

They didn't address the lies, like what was captured in well known videos like "overpromise, sell, underdeliver"

[UltraMega]

6 hours ago, Slaughtahouse said:

I get the same feeling when I play Outlaws. In a lot of instances and areas, it looks good but it's not consistent. 

 

 

This just reminded me of something I noticed with Outlaws recently. They made on of the same mistakes with Outlaws that they made in Breakpoint; the vegetation is often blowing around at near-hurricane levels yet there is barely and sound for the wind. It's one of the things that bothered me the most about Breakpoint. Very hard to get any sense of immersion when there is so much stuff blowing around and the audio for it is just missing. 

 

The very beginning of this video is a perfect example

 

[Slaughtahouse]

13 hours ago, UltraMega said:

 

This just reminded me of something I noticed with Outlaws recently. They made on of the same mistakes with Outlaws that they made in Breakpoint; the vegetation is often blowing around at near-hurricane levels yet there is barely and sound for the wind. It's one of the things that bothered me the most about Breakpoint. Very hard to get any sense of immersion when there is so much stuff blowing around and the audio for it is just missing. 

 

The very beginning of this video is a perfect example

 

 

There are certainly instances where it’s mixed lower against other sounds or dialogue but the sound is there when I am playing Outlaws. I do believe the effects overdone. The way grass and trees behave in both Avatar and Outlaws gives me the impression a hurricane is about to form, at nearly all times XD.

 

Here are a few clips I’ve made from the Xbox version:

 

Spoiler

Slaughtahouse04 |  Xbox

WWW.XBOX.COM

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A capture by Slaughtahouse04

 

Spoiler

Slaughtahouse04 |  Xbox

WWW.XBOX.COM

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A capture by Slaughtahouse04

 

Spoiler

Slaughtahouse04 |  Xbox

WWW.XBOX.COM

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A capture by Slaughtahouse04

[UltraMega]

So in the spirit of this thread being about troubled development of 2077, the troubled development of Stalker 2 seems like another interesting topic. A few days ago, Microsoft released this documentary about it:

 

 

 

 

Edited October 8 by UltraMega