Sony Delists Cyberpunk 2077 From PSN Until Further Notice, Offers Refunds

17 Dec 2020
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The trainwreck that’s been Cyberpunk 2077’s release has only gotten worse.

Ask PlayStation, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s support channel, made a tweet on Thursday saying that anyone who bought Cyberpunk 2077 on the PlayStation Store and would like a full refund can request one through this page.

SIE also mentioned that the game will be unavailable to purchase on the PSN store “until further notice.” This includes both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 (which runs the PS4 version).

In what can only be described as a disastrous week for CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 initially launched to high sales and positive reviews from critics, praising the game’s narrative and graphics. Performance, however, was a different story.

Cyberpunk 2077 was criticized in nearly every review from big-name publications for performance issues and numerous bugs and glitches. CD Projekt Red initially only gave out PC review codes and restricted outlets from using their own screenshots and video footage, meaning that they could only use B-roll and images that were provided.

On console, the game was a different story. Users on social media blasted the game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with videos and screenshots showing massive slowdown, crashes, frame rate issues, clunky AI, and the aforementioned bugs and glitches.

CD Projekt Red issued a statement at the beginning of the week apologizing for the quality of the console versions and promising that patches and hotfixes would be released in the coming months, with two major patches planned for January and February respectively. They also said that anyone who wasn’t satisfied with the game could request a refund from their point of purchase, specifically pointing at the PlayStation and Xbox online storefronts.

However, this message fell on deaf ears to retailers selling the game. After the statement was released, reports started to surface that Sony was refusing to refund dissatisfied players, only stating that CD Projekt Red was “currently working on patches and updates to fix bugs and crashes, and to improve overall gameplay experience of Cyberpunk 2077.” An internal GameStop memo telling employees to direct unhappy customers who desire refunds to CDPR was circulated on Wednesday, insinuating that retailers weren’t informed ahead of time about the refund process.

Review aggregation site OpenCritic put out an article alleging that CD Projekt Red deliberately misled people about the quality of the console versions, attaching this notice to the game’s page:

Please note: This game has significant disparities in performance, player experience, and review scores between the PC, next-gen consoles, Xbox One, and PS4 versions.

The OpenCritic team and several critics suspect that the developer, CD PROJEKT RED, intentionally sought to hide the true state of the game on Xbox One and PS4, with requirements such as only allowing pre-rendered game footage in reviews and not issuing review copies for PS4 and Xbox One versions.

This notice will be taken down in February 2021.

Cyberpunk 2077 is still available digitally on Steam and Xbox, with both platforms having their own refund processes. The game will launch next year on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.


Featured image courtesy of CD Projekt Red.