102 points

CD Projekt announced on October 5 that the expansion starring Idris Elba cost a hefty 275 million Polish Zloty (around $62.7 million) to develop and approximately 95 million Polish Zloty (around $21.6 million) to market.

I’m not saying repairing and adding missing functionality isn’t a good size portion of that cost, but calling it a $125 million cost based on the cost of the expansion and marketing which were already planned regardless of how well the initial release did is miss-leading at best.

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11 points

Yeah this headline should really just say the ~$41m they actually spent improving the game because that’s still an incredibly impressive number (2/3 the amount of a full expansion). I hate when there’s a good story to tell but they want to make it look even better so they decide to mislead instead of just saying the actually impressive thing

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78 points
*

surely Edgerunners isn’t fair to count toward that? That was already in the works before launch, it’s not as though they had a bad launch and thought “wow we should do an animated series to repair reputation”

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38 points

I looked up the budget and from what I can see they spent less than 4 million on it so excluding it they still spent a pretty penny.

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12 points

That’s totally fair, that checks out

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17 points

Pre release I was so hyped for cyberpunk, was patient and waited for reviews, so voted with my wallet and didn’t buy it, and just forgot it even existed

Watched Edgerunners animated series off the cuff and it had no business being as good as it was (same as Arcane - gj netflix)

The next time it went on sale I snapped it up and havent regretted it one bit. One playthrough on my old hardware, obligitory playthrough to test after I got an Rtx, and another now 2.0 is out - definitely got my moneys worth

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5 points

A lot of the hate was undeserved, IMO. Besides one absolutely hilarious bug where I called my ride in an odd place, and another where part of a mission didn’t trigger so I had to reload the last Autosave which was about 30 seconds back, the game ran well for me and a lot of friends at launch. And CDPR responded quickly and had patches out within a week fixing most of the gameplay affecting bugs.

I typically judge games pretty harshly, and my only experience with CDPR prior was Witcher 3, which dropped with some bugs but was patched within a week, and really didn’t understand the level of shade CDPR received.

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2 points

I think the console releases were largely to blame for the bad rep. Esp the older gen ones. I played from launch on PC and I had a lot of bugs but nothing game breaking and it didn’t stop me from thoroughly enjoying myself.

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2 points

I had a midrange PC at the time, and only encountered a handful of bugs my first play through.

Performance could be rough in downtown sections, but it’s was far from unplayable on day one.

I am firmly convinced that most of the people experiencing horrible performance or mystifying bugs were attempting to play the game on their smart fridge or something. If you had a decent gaming machine from the last 7 years or so, the game ran fine.

That being said, it should have never released on Xbox one or PS4. Those consoles were just too old and the performance wasn’t their.

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5 points
*

I’m pretty sure the article is referring to the 1.6 patch, also called Edgerunners update, which released around the same time as the animated series.

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69 points

Well it must have worked. All I heard for months when it came out was how bad everything about it was, then I finally got it myself and it quickly became one of the top favorite games of my life. Sorry for everyone who had a bad experience because I loved it so much.

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22 points

I played initially on PC - occasional glitches but overall fine for a game at launch.

I think console players had a lot more issues.

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20 points

I played it on PC at launch and thoroughly enjoyed it. They’ve completely redone the skill tree system and reworked a ton of the weapons/clothing/cyber gear. It’s different now, but the story and core gameplay are still very much the same. I’m replaying it for the DLC and having a great time.

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1 point

I’m in a situation where I don’t have money to spend, but I can’t wait to play the DLC someday.

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15 points

I thought it was okay. It fizzled out pretty quickly for me as it felt half-baked and overly “gamey”, which kept breaking the immersion illusion for me. I never did finish it. But I started over when Phantom Liberty dropped last week and it feels soooo much better. The immersion doesn’t feel like it’s being killed by a thousand cuts… everything feels more natural and believable now. It still has it’s gamey moments, but they are a lot less obvious now.

For me it went from a 6/10 to 9/10.

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1 point
*

The main story was pretty good, especially the Panam ending, which should have been the successor to Fallout: NV imo. Easily could have been it’s own game, excellent, 8/10.

I picked it back up in the post game after the skill tree rebalance and tried to get the highest heat level possible with the cars with guns on them, but the police kept getting lost, which decreased my heat level. Max tac couldn’t find me in a big intersection. I dejectedly uninstalled the game and decided to play something else. The red engine just can’t handle hazard level 5 interactions that well :/

I also played a quest, but it was just a “find a dead body” radiant quest for which I got about $2,500. I want more main storyline and less paper mache missions. The art direction and main storyline(s) are strong, but everything else feels really mushy to me. Witcher 3 was pretty solid all the way through.

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1 point

Have they fixed the broken AI yet?

When the game first came out you could walk around the corner to hide from the police. And none of the NPCs knew where any of the roads were, so they were just scrape along the side of building for no reason at all.

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1 point

Yes and no. The AI is significantly better… but it’s still not great. Case in point: cops will chase you now, but it doesn’t take long to get a feel for how to fudge their pathing and lose them.

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1 point

I’m playing for the first time, amd my only real gripe is I wish the gorgeous cyberpunk world were more like Yakuza, with a million random minigames. Other than that, it’s been a blast.

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1 point

Thing is, on pc the game was always good to great. It was only a shitshow on the old consoles apparently (don’t play on consoles since the N64 days).

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1 point

I haven’t either since about GameCube era.

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-1 points

The game was far from the disaster media made it look like. Ratings on steam are not so bad even at launch for example.

The game had problems on outdated hardware, which was many consoles that I now think these players to be the audience for most video game media.

Most people had no or few problems to play the game, and the game was great right from the start.

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49 points

The sad part is that this sets the standard (again) that companies can market the hell out of an unfinished game, release it buggy as hell, and still make an amazing profit. This doesn’t bode well for the future.

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17 points

Well, if you don’t buy unfinished games like me, you get to play this amazing game for just $30 on sale.

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2 points

Yep, waiting for the next sale to finally grab it.

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10 points

Eh, I dunno about the rest of you, but after 2077 I feel pretty good. Tuned out Starfield and the initial craze and feel…no fomo. I wait for games like BG3 to come out of early access before playing, and only play the games in early access that are actually worth it, like Sons of The Forest, which was pretty decent even at launch (when the fun bugs are still in, and weapons have not been balanced in the slightest!)

I’m hitting the now old classics, Battlefield 1 is excellent, Inscryption is awesome, and the AA and AAA games I do play are quite polished.

If you can count on games just being shitty at launch, you have nothing to worry about. I’ll play the last of us in a few years. I played Days Gone recently and loved it. There’s enough good games these days to have a packed steam library.

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9 points

Sounds like you might fit in at c/patientgamers !

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4 points

Which instance? Sounds like a good community!

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8 points

Does it? I personally would not buy anything from CDPR ever unless I got no better option. Many would think the same.

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1 point

No Witcher 4 for you then?

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2 points

Yes

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27 points

Money they could’ve spent up front, to actually make the game not a total shit-volcano.

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21 points

Absolutely, I remember seeing the original preview trailer with the tag line “Release Date: When it’s ready.” And I was like wow mad respect this is gonna rock. What a fucking bait and switch that was.

I can say I am replaying it now on the exact same PC setup I used 3 years ago and it is a completely different experience. No crashes, no glitches (so far), no random naked T posing on my motorcycle (which is kind of sad, that shit was hilarious). The skills system is totally reworked and I put it to hard difficulty and the enemies now put up more of a fight (AI is still kind of dumb tho). Cops actually chase you, you can finally shoot out of your car (there’s also new skills in the skill tree for improving vehicle abilities). Sooo it’s worth revisiting even if you don’t buy the DLC, IMO.

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1 point

IIRC, CDPR had delayed it a number of times for just that reason, but were eventually pressured into releasing earlier than they wanted. On PC, there were some minor issues that were quickly patched, but none that negatively affected my playthrough.

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10 points

were eventually pressured into releasing earlier than they wanted.

My guy, they developed and published the game themselves. They pressured themselves.

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1 point

But still no metro system! Literally unplayable!

/s

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6 points

Anecdotally, I played on PC at launch, no mods or fixes and had a pretty good time. The most buggy things I encountered were people clipping into my car when driving and forcing me to hit them. Random stuff, but nothing too bad IMHO, not like game crashes, awful lag/latency, save corruption, etc.

Definitely not bug free, I ran into those often, but I felt like they were mostly trivial. As another concession, I did have an above average rig so I didn’t really fall into any of the terrible optimization problems.

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2 points

I also enjoyed it playing on GeForceNow. I didn’t build up any game specific hype. I only looked forward to the next CDPR game and avoided most trailers and footage. Going into the game without expectations likely helped a lot.

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1 point

Yeah same, I had quite a good time with the game on launch with a gtx 2080 but I appreciate the console players probably didn’t have fun.

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1 point

I mean and there are a ton of people who are super into the far cry games even though I see them as generic games. Like sure people can find the game fun but I was expect CRPG levels of details but what I got was CDPR’s version of Far Cry minus the pointless filler with capturing radio towers (thank god for that) but filled with all the other filler from those games. The story writing was pretty good and that was its big advantage but the AI was pretty brain dead, which made the fighting rather dull. Add on top of that on launch you could literally stand in the same exact spot and clear a section of the AI and then repeat ad nauseam. I haven’t kept up with far cry since maybe 3 but I have played the Division 2 although that game has many failings one of its biggest pluses was the AI was pretty smart compared to most other AIs in the modern day and I would hope the other “Tom Clancy games” would use a similar AI but who knows.

Like having cyberware only be useful for combat, just feels like a pointless thing. We should have RP/world moments with them but at least in 1.0 there was none. Just the game is filled with so many missed opportunities. The og trailer for this game was sold on the importance of Cyberpsychos but in the game they are just some filler quests that you can get some lore on before you fight them but vanilla you got nothing unique for doing it (apparently in 1.2 you are now given a proper reward for it but it shows how sidelined that “questline” was). Very little destructible terrain. Like I’m not some fanboy who watched every trailer before release. I only watched the 2013 and the E3 gameplay premiere for it before buying the game whenever it released (after seeing it was scored pretty highly by reviewers). It was just a deeply disappointing game where they basically showcased the prologue showing how “reactive” the world was but beyond the prologue the world really doesn’t take in account of the things you have done. There are some things but its alot smaller than what was showcased.

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0 points

It never was a shit volcano. Maybe don’t have shit taste or try to play it on a toaster.

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1 point

Lol you can watch YouTube videos to see how shit it was. There’s really no reason or basis to argue this with the monumental amount of evidence that proves it. Sony pulled it from their online store because it was so bad.

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-1 points

Well as I said, don’t play it on a toaster.

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