Aggregate website OpenCritic has launched a scathing attack on Polish developer CD Projekt RED over its latest release.
As you’ll no doubt already know, Cyberpunk 2077, one of this year’s most anticipated titles, has come under intense scrutiny from fans for the sheer number of egregious bugs and glitches plaguing its ambitious world. While folks on PC have largely managed to escape performance issues, users on every other platform for which the RPG is currently available have reported frequent occurrences of clearly unintended behavior. In extreme cases, these have led to outright crashes or, even worse, game-breaking flaws completely preventing progress through main story missions.
While CDPR has since issued a statement publicly apologizing for the current situation, many have been left wondering how its adaptation of the beloved tabletop adventure even managed to pass Microsoft and Sony’s certification process. Comments provided by upper management in a recent conference call have since shed further light on that apparent loophole, but the story doesn’t end there.
In an article published on OpenCritic earlier this week, site co-founder Matthew Enthoven accuses the studio of deliberately misleading consumers over the state of Cyberpunk‘s console versions by only distributing PC copies to the press for review.
This, he says, was a calculated decision to ensure that bonuses reliant on high critic scores were appropriately awarded. A report by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has since revealed that not to be the case, of course, with payouts said to remain static regardless of the game’s performance. Does that revelation make Enthoven’s claims any less likely, then? Not at all, but the underhanded actions he accuses CDPR of undertaking almost certainly wouldn’t have been a choice for members of the development team to make but rather, upper management.
Regardless of rhyme or reason, though, the outcome remains unchanged. Cyberpunk 2077 is in desperate need of some TLC on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and we’ll just have to wait and see if a series of upcoming patches truly can remedy the current mess.
