Sony Interactive Entertainment recently announced that it will remove CD Project Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 from their online PlayStation store. It also added that it will provide full refunds to those who already purchased the game.
The company set up a website where customers can signup for submitting their request for a refund. When it is confirmed that he or she purchased the game from PlayStation Store, user will get the refund. But, this might be difficult at the moment because the company is getting a large number of requests from disgruntled customers.
CD Project Red released Cyberpunk 2077 on 10th December on Windows 10, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia. The game was actually announced in the year 2012 but the launch date was fixed on 16th April 2020 and was later delayed to 17th September, then to 19th November and then to 10th December.
Since the release, people complained about a large number of issues among multiple platforms but most importantly on the two home consoles. Users of PlayStation and Xbox were facing poor performance at the base PS4 and Xbox One S, though PS4 Pro and Xbox One X are not much better. The game was also a bit buggy with several glitches that caused characters to behave in unexpected ways and made it difficult to play even if the other issues are ignored completely.
The only way to play the game without any performance issues was to play it on a next generation console. A PS5 or an Xbox Series XlS can brute force the game for running better but still it won’t solve the crashing and game code issues. Also at present, the game has no dedicated version for the next generation consoles and is using backwards compatibility for playing PS4 and Xbox One versions. The PC version is much better in comparison. The game has extreme CPU and GPU requirements that completely exceed the mentioned system requirements and there are still game code issues, on the other hand, if someone has a high-end gaming PC, then they can enjoy playable framerates.
When initially users complained about the problems of the game, CDPR released a statement on 14th December and apologized for the situation on consoles and said that they will release small updates soon and large patches at first in the month of January and later in February. They asked players on PlayStation and Xbox to refund the game if they were not so happy.
Recently, SIE released the statement and said that they were removing the game from their store until further notice and players who already purchased it can apply for a complete refund. This statement was followed by a statement from CDPR, where it was stated that people can still purchase the physical copy via other stores and everyone who still have the game with them will continue to get updates.
For the first time, Sony had to remove a AAA title from their PlayStation Store over problems within the game. There have been other situations in the past, like with the PC release of Batman Arkham Knight, where the developer had to pull the title because of issues at launch, but the owner of the platform stepped in and pulled the plug. This provides us an idea of the number of complaints the company might have received over the week and also the severity of problems in question. It would not be in Sony’s interests to have a major title that performs poorly on the store and if it is on its outgoing model.
Microsoft has not released a statement related to the status of the game on its online store. However, people can still apply for a refund on the Xbox if they are not happy.