Cyberpunk 2077 Pulled From PS Store

At least Microsoft finally has that launch exclusive that they were looking for the Series X and S. Yeah, it has been a happy launch for CD Projekt Red with their massive dystopian futuristic open-world, and by all accounts, it seems to be a self-inflicted wound by all-sides. As noted by IGN’s Joe Skrebels talking about an emergency investor call; Michał Nowakowski, the company’s SVP, when asked about another possible delay to Cyberpunk 2077, stated: “I wouldn’t say that we felt any external or internal pressure to launch on the date – other than the normal pressure, which is typical for any release.”

The call would also lead to Nowakowski noting: “It is more about us looking – as was previously stated – at the PC and Next-gen performance rather than current-gen.” They closed that statement with, “We definitely did not spend enough time looking at that.” The question of how the game even passed certification on both PlayStation and Xbox was also raised in the call, Nowakowski responding: “I can only assume that they trusted that we’re going to fix things upon release, and that obviously did not come together exactly as we had planned.” That is something of which many of those who’ve played trusts the company to do, but on a more realistic timeline.

It is honestly baffling how the response to this release is being received, not only by fans defending it, but those demonizing it with claims that it is another Fallout 76 or No Man’s Sky. Neither of those were as bad. Fallout 76 was something no one wanted, No Man’s Sky was guilty of just being plain boring upon initial release. Cyberpunk 2077 is entirely broken for many on base consoles. From frame rates as low as 12-20 frames per second, explosions not triggering in action scenes, broken AI across the board, textures not loading until 10-seconds after directly looking at them, vehicles only being stored as that and not their model or color resulting in traffic changing like weeping angles, and more. It is astonishing that was released.

However, following a complete mess of a release, statements that have been walked back and corrected several times now, Sony has just made the issue of those wanting to return the game a lot easier. As noted in a statement to PlayStation users by the Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account, the game has been pulled entirely from the PlayStation Store for the time being. The account also notes in the statement: “According to our knowledge, starting today, everyone who is not willing to wait for updates and wants to refund their digital copy of the game, can do so by submitting a request at https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/cyberpunk-2077-refunds/.”

Under normal circumstances, Sony does not allow for refunds on any game either if you have started the download process, or unless the game is deemed “unplayable.” The latter of which Sony did not consider the game until last night, one would assume under the mass of players not happy with what they purchased. As for as I’ve been able to parse, UK law would have taken umbrage with this both on the refund policy and how the game was promoted. From my simple understanding you are not allowed to misrepresent the product you are selling, which seems to be the case that some would argue for their refunds. CD Projekt Red supposedly told reviewers to only use B-roll and didn’t provide console copies for review.

As noted above, in the call with Nowakowski, it is stated the developer that they weren’t looking at the current-gen ports. Then the question is, why didn’t you provide reviewers the autonomy to showcase buggy PC footage, or possibly let reviewers see the console ports? This came alongside the company pulling early footage of the game from YouTube. If CD Projekt Red did not know of the issues, then there is a lot to answer for on actions taken by the company to suspend knowledge of the state of the game days before release.

In a conversation with Reuters, CEO Adam Kiciński said in a statement, “We are not in such discussions with Microsoft at the moment.” Xbox One, S, and X users experiencing issues may not have the same ease of returning the game with Microsoft. However, one may assume the same could be offered within the next couple of days. This entire release has been a complete and utter mess. In fact, how goodwill is still sustained for the company is beyond me. Since Cyberpunk 2077‘s removal from the PlayStation Store, CD Projekt Red’s stock has dropped once again by 15.9% from $85.19 to $71.63.