Cyberpunk 2077, the game that was so buggy on launch that Sony was forced to pull it just a week after release thanks in part to CD Projekt RED’s mishandling of the situation, returns to the PlayStation Store today. Sony announced that the game is back on the PlayStation Store on its official Twitter account, and stated that “work on the PS4 version” will continue throughout the year with promises of further fixes and updates. Additionally, it recommends that users play the game on either a PS4 Pro or PS5 console “for the best experience,” leaving base PS4 and PS4 Slim owners out in the cold.
Cyberpunk 2077 is now available at PlayStation Store. Work on the PS4 version continues, with fixes and updates to be released throughout the year: https://t.co/XWCfOEQrLS For the best experience on PlayStation, playing on PS4 Pro or PS5 consoles is recommended.
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) June 21, 2021
CD Projekt RED announced news of Cyberpunk 2077‘s return in an investor press release last week. However, Sony also stated in an interview with IGN that this does not mean that the game is fully fixed. In fact, the company clearly outlined that users “will continue to experience performance issues with the PS4 edition” while CD Projekt RED works on bug fixes.
A free next-gen upgrade for the game is coming out “in the second half of 2021,” though no further specifics have been talked about at this time. The company also reiterated that Cyberpunk 2077 will still experience performance issues on the PS4, and recommended that users play the game on PS4 Pro or PS5. Just a few days ago, the company pushed out a 1.23 patch for the game which fixed several glitches including one where an NPC would get stuck in a car, however it appears to have almost entirely reduced the population density of NPCs and vehicles in an attempt to resolve performance issues.
The trouble began after CD Projekt RED released Cyberpunk 2077 back in December 2020. Users reported frequent crashes and glitches, particularly while playing on the base PS4, resulting in CD Projekt RED telling people to go through Sony for refunds, despite Sony’s refund policy not supporting that. Sony subsequently pulled Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store where it remained delisted for the last six months. The refund issue seems to be the reason why the game was pulled from the PlayStation Store; a first for Sony, even in the face of other buggy games and titles with poor performance. Neither company has discussed specifics around the delisting, but PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has stated that they decided to remove it because they couldn’t “knowingly sell a game that might result in a bad experience”.
[Source: PlayStation]