CD Projekt Red’s dystopian futuristic adventure game Cyberpunk 2077 has had a rough couple of weeks. Reviewers hammered the company over the many bugs and glitches they found in the game. Then on Thursday, Sony’s PlayStation division pulled the game from its digital storefront, offering refunds to any unhappy customers. And now, though Microsoft is still selling the game, it too said it’ll offer refunds to customers who ask.
“We know the developers at CD Projekt Red have worked hard to ship Cyberpunk in extremely challenging circumstances,” Microsoft said in a statement Friday, which it posted to Twitter as well. “To date, we have granted refunds to the vast majority of customers who have requested one. To ensure that every player is able to get the experience they expect on Xbox, we will be expanding our existing refund policy to offer full refunds to anyone who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 digitally from the Microsoft Store, until further notice.”
The game, which released December 10, has been widely criticized as having released too early, with many game-breaking bugs. Reviewers praised the title for its intricate visuals and well-told story in spite of the messy experience. But gamers playing on older devices, particularly 2013’s Xbox One and PlayStation 4, said the title is unplayably slow.
CD Projekt Red, which is based in Poland, has since apologized to customers, admitting its marketing and advertising didn’t appropriately convey how the game played on older devices. “We should have paid more attention to making it play better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One,” the company said on its website and on Twitter.
Over the past year, CD Projekt Red has indicated it was facing some troubles with the game. The game was initially slated to launch in April of 2020, then it was delayed until September 17, then November 19, and then December 10. When announcing the game’s final delay, CD Projekt Red said it was primarily in order to make the game run better on older game consoles.
Now that the game’s released, and in such a buggy state, the developer said it’s working on a series of “large patches” to fix the issues. The patches will be delivered over the internet for free to people who own the game.
The first fix is set for release in January, and a second is slated for February. In both cases, the company says it’s focused on fixing bugs rather than adding new features or stories.