Editorial CD Projekt Red Removes Critic Score Requirements for Developer Bonuses, and an Editor's Thoughts

[Raevenlord]

CD Projekt Red has announced that all of its developers will receive appropriate bonuses for their hard work in Cyberpunk 2077. These developer bonuses are usually dangled in front of developers with several caveats added, such as sales targets, critical reception based on Metacritic (of all things), and other factors. However, the company has decided to forgo these requirements in light of the hard eight years of toiling, and the prolonged periods of crunch with six workdays, that it put its team through. This is a wise decision, and one that shouldn't really have to be lauded - it should be common practice. But since it isn't, here we are, and CD Projekt Red deserves the accolades.

Cyberpunk 2077 achieved an 8 million pre-order milestone before it was ever released; that many pre-orders meant that the game had essentially recouped its development and marketing costs before it ever went gold. Of course, some last-gen console returns might take a bite into those sales numbers, but ultimately, it's a game that has been very well received, despite its many bugs and crashes. Sales figures are only going to increase from here on, and that means every sold copy of the game is another bill on the company's coffers.





This particular editor has been playing the game in a PS4 Pro system, and yes, the game has bugs. It does. I've seen numerous visual bugs, had the game crash on me five times in 10 hours of gameplay, seen the overall AI dumbness, saw enemies clipping through geometry and thus preventing me from completing missions... But I still remain in awe at the sheer scale of the game and CD Projekt Red's vision, and I've only ever reloaded the game without skipping a beat after such crashes. It's too big a dream to be achieved without any snags whatsoever. I am marveled at the expansiveness of the world they've created, the perfect Cyberpunk tone, the intimistic side quests, the attention to word detail, and the overall package (bugs notwithstanding, and not referring to my characters' genitals size).

I believe the game remains a testament for CD Projekt Red's ambitions, and am happy that the game will only improve from here. I don't feel like a beta tester, I don't feel defrauded by the company. I wish they'd delayed the game further to work out all these kinks, but I still see Cyberpunk 2077 as a love letter to the genre, and it's exactly my dreams of seeing Neuromancer in gameplay form. CD Projekt has earned my last-gen money, and will earn my PC version money as well when some expansions have been released (and I get myself an RT-capable card). Kudos to all the CD Projekt Red developers who toiled hard to make this game a reality. And thank you. I'll see you in Night City.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[ZoneDymo]

"in awe at the sheer scale of the game "

I can open the Unreal editor right now and make a map that is a square of a million by a million miles, biggest map ever...and also completely empty, nothing to do....
I get it, I get what you are saying, the city looks amazing, it really does but this is the problem with so many open world games, big open map aaaand zero to do, now games from lets say....7 years ago? like gta5? put random events in the map to give players somethign to do and obviously stuff to interact with and cyberpunk is missing that soooo badly.

The AI is completely unacceptable, why do cops just spawn and why do they spawn anyway.... why do they never drive cars, does MaxTacever show up apart from that scripted event? why cant I ride the damn train?!?! you could do that even in GTA freaking 3....
Like honestly the people who made the city deserve credit but whoever was responsible for filling it up messed up really badly...heck think of The Devision and all the little things you find there in that somewhat open world.

 

[dyonoctis]

"in awe at the sheer scale of the game "

I can open the Unreal editor right now and make a map that is a square of a million by a million miles, biggest map ever...and also completely empty, nothing to do....
I get it, I get what you are saying, the city looks amazing, it really does but this is the problem with so many open world games, big open map aaaand zero to do, now games from lets say....7 years ago? like gta5? put random events in the map to give players somethign to do and obviously stuff to interact with and cyberpunk is missing that soooo badly.

The AI is completely unacceptable, why do cops just spawn and why do they spawn anyway.... why do they never drive cars, does MaxTacever show up apart from that scripted event? why cant I ride the damn train?!?! you could do that even in GTA freaking 3....
Like honestly the people who made the city deserve credit but whoever was responsible for filling it up messed up really badly...heck think of The Devision and all the little things you find there in that somewhat open world.

There are random events...but it's mostly about shooting a bunch of thugs, or some corporats commiting "suicide".

Iv'e never played a single GTA, so I don't know what people mean by "empty world" when the map is full of quest markers. What made GTA world full of things that CP doesn't do ? (It's an honest question). When I think of big empty world I think of Darksiders 2 where the game was physically large, but had a really limited number of side quest

 

[spnidel]

"in awe at the sheer scale of the game "

I can open the Unreal editor right now and make a map that is a square of a million by a million miles, biggest map ever...and also completely empty, nothing to do....

way to miss the point by a mile lol

 

[Chomiq]

Say what you want but if you care about story elements and not just wrecking havoc in an open world the game is freaking brilliant. I don't go around killing everybody just to see how police will react to this, haven't done it in Witcher games, and I see no point for it here. Main quests and side quests are solid, side activities are OK. If anything the world's too damn packed for my taste. You get sensory overload from the amount of markers on the map available right from the start.
If it wasn't for the bugs and performance issues this would be a GOTY material for sure. I know it's mine for sure, it takes the spot from Ghost of Tsushima.

 

[sepheronx]

I am in the middle of this.

While the game is very expansive with lots to do within the city itself, it is still somewhat of the typical cookie cutter activities. As Chomiq said, the main story is where its at. And even then, I have done side missions where there is a lot more thought out about it. Just did one about the "Light that never goes out" I believe its called. A murderer who found God in Prison kind of thing. And while it never actually results in anything, it still was an interesting side quest that had a lot to it in itself. Something I haven't seen in games like GTA for instance where their side missions are far more cut and paste. So if you do those side missions and not random events, you still get a lot out of it and an interesting story outside of the main story. With of course main story so far being very solid.

 

[zlobby]

I'll wait until it's $8.99 on a Steam sale, buy it, play it for 30 mimutes and then get a refund. That's not how a 2020 should look and feel. Or is it?

 

[FYFI13]

This is how i see it:

1) Typical gamers
2) My PC can't run it!!!!!!!!!
3) People who played games such as Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl, DayZ Mod, Fallout: New Vegas, Batman: Arkham Knight, Elder Scrolls series and so on. On release date!
4) Those who realized you don't even need a crack to play (illegaly) downloaded version.

Personally i absolutelly love this game. Yes there are few bugs, but nothing game breaking and if there's an NPC stuck on my way - i always have shotgun by hand Going to do every single side quest and whatnow just to not finish this game too soon.

 

[mechtech]

meh

I will probably get it as like the Witcher 3..................that is when the GOTY is out and on sale for $20.

Hmmm come to think of it I think I got 15 minutes logged on Witcher 3 goty...............hopefully have some time this holiday break to actually playing it.

 

[phanbuey]

This is how i see it:

1) Typical gamers
2) My PC can't run it!!!!!!!!!
3) People who played games such as Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl, DayZ Mod, Fallout: New Vegas, Batman: Arkham Knight, Elder Scrolls series and so on. On release date!
4) Those who realized you don't even need a crack to play (illegaly) downloaded version.

Personally i absolutelly love this game. Yes there are few bugs, but nothing game breaking and if there's an NPC stuck on my way - i always have shotgun by hand Going to do every single side quest and whatnow just to not finish this game too soon.

Lmfao - pretty much sums it up

 

[Tartaros]

The fact that people treat this game like it's GTA online but with more neon lights tells a lot of the kind of playerbase all that fuss about the game has brought because hype, the story is good and the sidequests too.

This is a problem, as almost always, of expectations in limited time developement, which most of the time are set by publishers and investors. It's similar to No Man's Sky, we got this team really wanting to do all they said but they need more time to do it and Sony wants it now.

I have enjoyed the game a lot. I still have to play more in the future when things have been patched.

 

[jsteinhauer]

Yes there are few bugs, but nothing game breaking and if there's an NPC stuck on my way - i always have shotgun by hand Going to do every single side quest and whatnow just to not finish this game too soon.

There are gamebreaking bugs. I am an obsessive game saver, so I am usually able to recover. Those bugs are not even what bothers me most about the game; a lot about it feels unfinished and won't ever be finished, things where you can see they probably started with an idea, but did not have time or resources to complete it. I've started the game new four times now. Three to see the origin sequences and the fourth time after I decided how I wanted to play the game. It's what open world games should be, full of distractions to keep you away from the main mission.

 

[watzupken]

I feel the expectation of the game is set way too high because of most peoples' experience with the Witcher series. In addition, the game is being rushed out even though its not ready, just because of the immense pressure from the management and also from gamers (to the point of some crazed people sending death threats to the developers due to the delays). I've not played the game because I've looked at it and don't think its for me. But I feel for the amount of pressure and to be honest (a nice looking game), the developers should be entitled to some proper compensation for the hard work. There's still work to be done for sure, but those rough edges will likely be resolved over time.

 

[Chomiq]

The entire launch situation reminds me of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, another great game that had serious issues with performance and bugs. It didn't stop me from completing the game because the story elements were top notch.

 

[Valantar]

How about instead of applauding CDPR for doing the bare minimum for their hard-pressed developers (not forcing them to crunch would have been far better though!), and instead heap some praise on studios actually doing good, like Supergiant games? No forced overtime, but instead forced vacations for overworked developers? Yes, that is how you maintain a healthy, happy and productive workforce, and that is how you can hope to avoid the disgusting turnover that is sadly so common in the games industry.

 

[deu]

Heres my take:


To early of an release? = for sure eventhough I have not experienced the bugs
Performance issues? = for sure
Worse than alot of other games put out? Not so sure

To be honest, I think the expectations set by the users (and marketing), but mostly the users, had reached utopian levels and would not have been met unless it was a gta 6, witcher 4 + deus ex 6 all in one, and had no bugs, looked next gen on ps4 and was performed like doom. Did they promise this? They proberbly promised alot, but I think alot of eager gamers convinced themselves that the game would be the answer to everything, which nothing can withstand.

I usually try to compare a singleplayer game to a movie when it comes to value. I look at the hours I had fun playing it, what is the price/hour ratio. Unless I think it is utter crap, the value vastly surpases that of a movie. Granted a movie is a super dense and 100% narrated experience, a game (both good and bad), gives you some of that adding a freedom to explore dwell and effect. I you spend half of your time reading other peoples bugs and go full on in the cristism culture, anything fun in the world can suck bigtime. Im not trying to undermine anyones experience but I think alot of people have a tendency to ruin their own enjoyment of the world around them (be this a game or any experience.)

My advice is that if you feel that the game is unplayable on your console pc / refund it for sure if you dont want to wait for the optimization, but if you are into story driven gameplay like mass effect / witcher / deus ex with a good sprinkle of gta, then Cyberpunk is an amazing game (at least until now) Again my flow in userexperience is easyly disrupted due to my occupation, but Until now (Cyberpunk 2077 on a 3900X and 1080Ti 1440p high/ultra), have been and is an mesmorizing experience. GJ to the devs; marketing: you should proberbly have prosponed the ps4 release even further but I can see how that might not be possible, and I look forward to the patches in jan and feb. Of all the shit that has happened in 2020, Cyberpunk is not one of them!

 

[Vayra86]

"in awe at the sheer scale of the game "

I can open the Unreal editor right now and make a map that is a square of a million by a million miles, biggest map ever...and also completely empty, nothing to do....
I get it, I get what you are saying, the city looks amazing, it really does but this is the problem with so many open world games, big open map aaaand zero to do, now games from lets say....7 years ago? like gta5? put random events in the map to give players somethign to do and obviously stuff to interact with and cyberpunk is missing that soooo badly.

The AI is completely unacceptable, why do cops just spawn and why do they spawn anyway.... why do they never drive cars, does MaxTacever show up apart from that scripted event? why cant I ride the damn train?!?! you could do that even in GTA freaking 3....
Like honestly the people who made the city deserve credit but whoever was responsible for filling it up messed up really badly...heck think of The Devision and all the little things you find there in that somewhat open world.

But there isn't zero to do, I'm not sure what you're going on about. I've wasted 16 hours just casually exploring the whole city doing random gigs and events. Got surprised many times, there are so many little details and superbly crafted corners to find, its crazy.

Yes, the AI is stupid as a bale of hay, but honestly? Its not very relevant. Later on the enemies you get that are not just armed with the good old AR are actually challenging, especially melee can be nasty stuff. But most of the time you'll prefer stealth, and then finishing combat quickly or not seeing it at all. The game isn't really built around long drawn out shootouts, if you're doing that, your build is shit and you're doing it wrong in my impression. The perk trees also motivate action over cover gameplay. You're either hacking, hacking and slashing, or hacking and shooting, especially later on when baddies get serious, you'll be using any tool you can find and quickhacks open up lots of options.

Why do cops just spawn... did you really think they casually drove from the precinct back in GTA? The way they spawn is not always clean. Agreed. Minor change... nothing to get your panties in a bunch about. I've had ONE random cop spawn in a weird moment, all others were plausible and deserved... I'm 25 hours in.

Interactivity is not perfect, you're right its not GTA. Its Cyberpunk, a different game from a different studio. If you want GTA, play GTA?

In the end its your loss really. This game is a new milestone in overall style points, setting, atmosphere and immersive qualities and combines emergent gameplay from both Fallout and GTA in a lovely, gloriously playable package. It has better gunplay than Fallout, better melee than Dying Light and even has parkour if you look for it. It has deep enough skill trees to replay it all over again. But hey, do worry about some accidental spawns buddy...

How about instead of applauding CDPR for doing the bare minimum for their hard-pressed developers (not forcing them to crunch would have been far better though!), and instead heap some praise on studios actually doing good, like Supergiant games? No forced overtime, but instead forced vacations for overworked developers? Yes, that is how you maintain a healthy, happy and productive workforce, and that is how you can hope to avoid the disgusting turnover that is sadly so common in the games industry.

Would be inclined to agree here. Its like we need to be all grateful for fair reward here? I mean, if you produce a blockbuster and sales cannon like this a bonus is the least that can be done. Its certainly NOT compensating for crunch time, because crunch time is in fact overtime and should certainly be awarded 200% payout IMO. We're talking about mental work here, its not easy to keep doing for a long time, and almost impossible to 'train'.

 

[Cidious]

Hmmm a lot of fanboys here.

I am a true Witcher fan. Played it from the first game all the way through. I respect CD Projekt a lot. They seem to be a very sympathetic game developer and have heart for gaming and customers.

And yes the game has bugs (and no for me not really game breaking) But what mainly disturbs me is the unrealistic animations and sloppiness about details. It's a very unpolished game. They focussed on the quantity of the content and not the quality. Put the bar too high for the size and capabilities of their employees.

I am talking about cars making 90 degree turns and floating instead of naturally turning as physics would allow them... I'm talking sitting next to the bloke in the first mission and the car turns left nervously and him not turnign the steering wheel in any direction... I'm talking him walking through a wall.

And then my main grip with the game is the controls... It's clearly made for console controllers.. With mouse and keyboards it's sluggish. I am constantly feeling I'm lagging behind. And that's not FPS. I'm hitting 75-90 FPS steadily on 5900X+6800XT. The character just won't move and the shooting feels awkward.. it's a console game. My friends that play with keyboard and mouse noticed it too but my buddy playing with an Xbox controller feels completely natural about it. I think that says enough.

I just can't get immersed into the world with all the things that grab my attention (car animations, character animations, AI etc etc) and shake me awake that it's so plastic and unnatural. I constantly feel everything is off... And that's not the point of this type of game.

And then the graphics. It all looks so plastic on whatever setting... I can max out what I want but that doesn't make anything look more realistic. I think the graphics are overhyped. GTA V and RDR 2 did more for me.

Personally I think the game would be a great console game one day after smoothening out the bugs but as a PC gamer I expected more.

And this is of course just my opinion. I'm not taking away anything from people that love this game. There are tons of reasons why you could love this game. I get that. But a world that's full of weird crap that constantly remind me how fake it is just doesn't immerse me in any way.

Epic games was very quick with the refund. Props for that.

 

[Condelio]

I'm becoming old and always see some things happen over and over again. Gpu releases, and corrections afterwards (780>780ti / 1070>1070ti / 2070>2070s / 3070>3070ti?), cpu battles between AMD and Intel (now it's easy to criticise Intel but i keep my Intel coolers for the future) and reviewers and users criticising games and crying for things they don't like only to post a "best 10 games of all Time" years later and including the previously hated game. I just don't pay too much attention to the "cons" list of game reviews anymore. Sometimes it looks more like something that needed to be filled rather than real problems. Sometimes the developer just needs some time. In cp2077's case, you know how it's gonna work. It already happened with Witcher 3. It had lots of small bugs, that got fixed with a million patches, they later added some great dlcs, and it became one of the greatest (and later polished) games of all time. No need to be so harsh. Better to enjoy what is good about the game concept and systems. I'd also love that games were released in a perfect state, but at least they get fixed some days later. I'd separate technical aspects from artistic/gameplay aspects in reviews at least. Basing scores around technical aspects makes the reviews get old soon. That's one of the reasons why i like so much w11zard impressions of games in his game benchmarks. He has become one of my favourite game reviewers haha