Cyberpunk 2077’s Disastrous Launch Was Already 5 Years Ago

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Five years ago, CD Projekt Red experienced a dramatic rollercoaster with the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. While the studio had earned a strong reputation with the popular Witcher series – especially The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Cyberpunk 2077 initially released to widespread criticism and was considered one of the worst game launches ever. However, the game has since seen a remarkable turnaround and is now much more positively received.

After several delays throughout 2020, CD Projekt Red finally launched Cyberpunk 2077 on December 10th. This release came five years after their previous game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which also had a difficult start. However, Cyberpunk 2077 faced even bigger problems. While it worked on the newer PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, a version specifically designed for those systems wasn’t available until 2022. Because the older PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were nearing the end of their lifespan, games like Cyberpunk 2077 needed a lot of extra work to run smoothly on those platforms.

One of the biggest problems with Cyberpunk 2077 was its poor performance. On older consoles, many players experienced very low frame rates – sometimes below 20 FPS – along with blurry graphics, glitches, and frequent crashes. The game was so problematic that PlayStation actually pulled it from their store and offered full refunds to anyone who had purchased it, and it wasn’t available again for half a year.

Look, most companies would’ve just cut their losses after the rough launch of Cyberpunk 2077, but CD Projekt Red really stuck with it. They actually managed a turnaround that reminds me a lot of what No Man’s Sky did. They just kept patching and improving things, fixing bugs and adding little quality-of-life changes for months and years. Then, they dropped the massive 2.0 update, totally revamping the game, and alongside that came Phantom Liberty – a huge DLC that added tons of new story and content to Night City. It’s seriously a completely different game now.

Cyberpunk 2077 Celebrates Fifth Anniversary

Today, December 10, 2025, CD Projekt Red is celebrating the five-year anniversary of Cyberpunk 2077 with a new trailer. The trailer revisits Night City and asks players what choices they would make differently. Featuring familiar faces like Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand, Jackie, V, Idris Elba’s Solomon Reed, and others, the 2-minute and 21-second video culminates with the characters all meeting up at a bar. While fans hoped for a new update to mark the occasion, CD Projekt Red doesn’t appear to have any surprises planned for the game’s fifth anniversary.

While we likely won’t see any more new content for the original Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red is still working on the Cyberpunk universe. The studio opened a new branch in Boston in 2022 specifically to create a sequel, currently known as Cyberpunk 2 (previously called Project Orion). Though the game is still several years from release, development seems to be progressing smoothly, with the team consistently growing as more developers join the project.

Good news for RPG fans waiting for another game from CD Projekt Red: you won’t have to wait for the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel! The Witcher 4 is coming sooner. Although there’s no confirmed release date yet, full production began in 2024, and a new tech demo earlier this year gave players a sneak peek. The Witcher 4 will kick off a brand-new trilogy of games, and CD Projekt Red plans to release all three within six years.

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2025-12-11 01:04