Things Are Getting Worse For Cyberpunk 2077

Audiences have waited eight years for Cyberpunk 2077. Eight long years of delays, breathtaking surprises, and the nagging fear that the game won't live up to the legacy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But on Dec. 10, Cyberpunk 2077 finally released to audiences worldwide, and the general consensus is the game could have spent a little more time in the optimization oven.

While critics have honed in on Cyberpunk 2077's breadth of immersion and player choice, many gamers can't get past the game's breadth of bugs, mostly because they keep getting in the way. The majority of these bugs revolve around console versions, since the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One can't seem to keep up with the game world. Quite a few players have found Night City transforming from a deserted cityscape into a populated one as NPCs and vehicles spawn in front of their eyes (or evolve from cubes into cars). Meanwhile, most gamers have encountered worlds with all the graphical fidelity of a PlayStation One title, as game textures take several seconds to load. Also, many players who have driven cars in the game are privy to specific glitches, as their vehicles no-clip through the world and/or encounter a physics engine that accurately simulates gravity on the moon.

You might assume many of these problems are exclusive to platforms that haven't installed a day one patch, and you aren't completely wrong. Driving through the rain without that patch is a 15 fps nightmare that distorts the screen with rain-like vertical lines. These lines refuse to leave even when players drive through tunnels.

Moreover, Cyberpunk 2077's bugs aren't limited to graphical hiccups. Many players have encountered the dreaded crash glitch, and unlike the previous problems, this isn't restricted to just last-gen consoles. Cyberpunk 2077 is just as likely to crash on you whether you are on the PlayStation 5 or a top of the line PC.

Of course, these are only the most common problems. Players have found enough personalized glitches to fill up a Reddit thread. For example, gamers have encountered bugs such as genitalia that clip through clothes and NPCs who slide along the ground without any animations.

Given the sheer number of bugs and glitches that penetrate virtually every level of Cyberpunk 2077 regardless of platform, players can't agree whether the game should have been delayed until 2021 or if CD Projekt RED should have canceled the Xbox One and PS4 ports. Nevertheless, audiences mostly agree that the game's current performance is inexcusable.