Cyberpunk 2077 studio apologises for poor console performance, offers refunds to unhappy players

Two forthcoming patches will ‘fix the most prominent problems’ in the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game

CD Projekt Red, the studio behind Cyberpunk 2077, has announced it will be offering refunds to players who are unhappy with the game’s performance on console.

The highly anticipated sci-fi game was released last week, with many users reporting bugs and poor visual performance, especially on the “base” past-generation consoles, PS4 and Xbox One.

In a statement posted to social media, CD Projekt Red also apologised for not showing footage of the game running on PS4 or Xbox One before launch, admitting it hadn’t allowed people to “make a more informed decision about your purchase”.

In addition to the refunds – which dissatisfied players can obtain through the refund system of PSN or Xbox, via the shops from which physical copies were purchased, or, failing that, by emailing helpmerefund@cdprojektred.com – the company also announced a series of updates intended to ameliorate the game’s performance issues.

One “round of updates” has already been released, with another to follow within seven days. 

There will then be two large patches released early next year – Patch #1 in January, and Patch #2 in February – which will “fix the most prominent problems gamers are facing on last-gen consoles”.

“They won’t make the game on last-gen look like it’s running on a high-spec PC or next-gen console,” read the statement, “but it will be closer to that experience than it is now.”

Pre-launch reviews, including The Independent’s own four-star assessment of the game, were based on the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077.

Despite the reports of technical malfunction, Cyberpunk 2077 has topped the sales charts, and smashed the record for most concurrent players on a just-launched single-player game on the popular game platform Steam. The highly anticipated sci-fi RPG reached over 1 million concurrent Steam players, as well as attracting 1 million live viewers on Twitch, after launching at midnight on 10 December.