Yeah this headline should really just say the ~$41m they actually spent improving the game because that’s still an incredibly impressive number (2/3 the amount of a full expansion). I hate when there’s a good story to tell but they want to make it look even better so they decide to mislead instead of just saying the actually impressive thing

I looked up the budget and from what I can see they spent less than 4 million on it so excluding it they still spent a pretty penny.

Pre release I was so hyped for cyberpunk, was patient and waited for reviews, so voted with my wallet and didn't buy it, and just forgot it even existed

Watched Edgerunners animated series off the cuff and it had no business being as good as it was (same as Arcane - gj netflix)

The next time it went on sale I snapped it up and havent regretted it one bit. One playthrough on my old hardware, obligitory playthrough to test after I got an Rtx, and another now 2.0 is out - definitely got my moneys worth

I'm pretty sure the article is referring to the 1.6 patch, also called Edgerunners update, which released around the same time as the animated series.

I played initially on PC - occasional glitches but overall fine for a game at launch.

I think console players had a lot more issues.

I played it on PC at launch and thoroughly enjoyed it. They've completely redone the skill tree system and reworked a ton of the weapons/clothing/cyber gear. It's different now, but the story and core gameplay are still very much the same. I'm replaying it for the DLC and having a great time.

I thought it was okay. It fizzled out pretty quickly for me as it felt half-baked and overly "gamey", which kept breaking the immersion illusion for me. I never did finish it. But I started over when Phantom Liberty dropped last week and it feels soooo much better. The immersion doesn't feel like it's being killed by a thousand cuts... everything feels more natural and believable now. It still has it's gamey moments, but they are a lot less obvious now.

For me it went from a 6/10 to 9/10.

Well, if you don't buy unfinished games like me, you get to play this amazing game for just $30 on sale.

Eh, I dunno about the rest of you, but after 2077 I feel pretty good. Tuned out Starfield and the initial craze and feel...no fomo. I wait for games like BG3 to come out of early access before playing, and only play the games in early access that are actually worth it, like Sons of The Forest, which was pretty decent even at launch (when the fun bugs are still in, and weapons have not been balanced in the slightest!)

I'm hitting the now old classics, Battlefield 1 is excellent, Inscryption is awesome, and the AA and AAA games I do play are quite polished.

If you can count on games just being shitty at launch, you have nothing to worry about. I'll play the last of us in a few years. I played Days Gone recently and loved it. There's enough good games these days to have a packed steam library.

Does it? I personally would not buy anything from CDPR ever unless I got no better option. Many would think the same.

Absolutely, I remember seeing the original preview trailer with the tag line “Release Date: When it’s ready.” And I was like wow mad respect this is gonna rock. What a fucking bait and switch that was.

I can say I am replaying it now on the exact same PC setup I used 3 years ago and it is a completely different experience. No crashes, no glitches (so far), no random naked T posing on my motorcycle (which is kind of sad, that shit was hilarious). The skills system is totally reworked and I put it to hard difficulty and the enemies now put up more of a fight (AI is still kind of dumb tho). Cops actually chase you, you can finally shoot out of your car (there’s also new skills in the skill tree for improving vehicle abilities). Sooo it’s worth revisiting even if you don’t buy the DLC, IMO.

Anecdotally, I played on PC at launch, no mods or fixes and had a pretty good time. The most buggy things I encountered were people clipping into my car when driving and forcing me to hit them. Random stuff, but nothing too bad IMHO, not like game crashes, awful lag/latency, save corruption, etc.

Definitely not bug free, I ran into those often, but I felt like they were mostly trivial. As another concession, I did have an above average rig so I didn't really fall into any of the terrible optimization problems.

headline number is only the equivalent of ~200-300 tech employee salaries for 3 years, less for junior, more for senior, less for designers, marketers, more for Directors, VPs, Execs...

it includes how much they spent on making the DLC and marketing for it. Around 2/3rds of the money still went into fixing/reworking the game from what I can tell

Idris Elba doesn't work for free.

Marketing isn't cheap either. Can't rely on word of mouth when that word is "shite". Fixing the code would have been relatively cheap compared to fixing their reputation.

Why do you think it didn't go into devs? Maybe you are being cynical, but managers and CEOs are definitely devs too, they need their extra motivation to convince themselves the game is gooder.

I'm not familiar with the mods, but the combat was definitely rebalanced. Enemies scale with your level now, guns themselves were rebalanced, armor is on cyberware instead of clothing, and the new perk trees are more consistently useful instead of some perks being worthless and others being game breaking.