In an initial statement, Sony offered refunds for the game, adding,[Sony Interactive Entertainment] It will also remove Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store until further notice. This means the decision was from Sony, but a later statement from CD Projekt Red said the decision came from a “discussion” with Sony about refunds. I’ve never heard a specific decide to pull the game from sale.No specific reason was given for removing the game (indicating that it was never removed on Xbox, but refunds have been extended), although there has been speculation that the decision made Sony’s restrictive refund policy work somewhat. Whatever the underlying cause, the removal was a completely unprecedented move for a high-profile game like Cyberpunk, and it raised a number of other questions, most of which have yet to be answered after more than three months.
One of the most important of these questions is, “When will it be resold and what will it take before this happens?” Neither Sony nor CD Projekt has discussed specific answers to these questions since December, with the closest we have come from the CDPR statement: “We are working hard to get Cyberpunk 2077 back on the PlayStation Store as soon as possible.”
IGN contacted Sony and CD Projekt Red ahead of schedule to inquire about plans to remake the game, and despite multiple requests, no response was received from either party.In terms of directions, our best is the aforementioned CD Projekt Red game update roadmap. When CD Projekt first apologized for the status of the launch release, it put together a schedule containing two major patches, which must be fixed together. The most prominent problems players faced on last generation devices. The second of these corrections, version 1.2 was subsequently postponed after Electronic’s attack in the studio, but recently we heard about the changes which means it will likely be soon. It is possible that if the last-generation releases are canceled, the game can be brought back for sale on PlayStation once the patch arrives.
However, Sony may also choose to keep the reconfirmation until the game also updates on the PS5. The next generation of the game is set to launch – to bring it closer to the PC version – in the second half of 2021, with free upgrades for those who bought the game in the last generation. Sony (or CD Projekt Red) will likely want to re-record the game once it’s in its final form.
The prediction of this is quite astonishing. CD Projekt Red will remain silent on when players will be able to buy back its iconic game on the world’s largest console, and Sony will not tell customers when, despite massive controversy, the game has already sold more than 13 million copies. Coming back to the storefront looks totally weird. Cyberpunk’s development and release was, of course, a really unexpected journey, but the lack of detail in this chapter of that story is unusual even among the rest. It’s impossible to guess whether she’s talking about corporate wisdom, bickering, or other unspoken issues.
This silence makes it difficult to predict where to go from here – we can see the game come back for sale tomorrow, or we can see it takes another 100 days. Simply, there has never been a case like this in games before – I hope the lesson is sufficient to prevent it from happening again.
Joe Scribbles is IGN’s Executive News Editor. follow him TwitterDo you have advice for us? Would you like to discuss a possible story? Send an email to [email protected]
