Hype can be fun but it’s always important to set reasonable expectations for big-budget games like Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red has been around since 1994 but started developing its own games in 2002, beginning with the first in The Witcher series. CD Projekt Red really made a name for itself as a studio in 2011 with the release of the critically-acclaimed The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, which was then followed up by what many consider to be one of the greatest RPGs of all time in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and its subsequent expansions that will be re-released as a Switch port.
It was announced at E3 2019 that Cyberpunk 2077, the next game from CD Projekt Red, is set to release on April 16th, 2020. The company has been working on the game since 2012 and its existence was officially announced in 2013. There have been exactly three trailers since then and each one has been met with wonder and speculation online. A lot of interesting talking points have been revealed about the game, such as the involvement of Keanu Reeves, and each new bit of news is heavily dissected on the internet.
As the calendar inches forward to April of next year and the hype train continues to pick up steam, some journalists who have seen the game are starting to show signs of skepticism, like one such writer at GamePressure. Though most are enthralled with the color and vibrancy of the world that CD Projekt Red has created, issues about how much of that world is actually alive and playable are being raised. First impressions seemed to have left some wanting more. The demoed section is certainly a cordoned off view of what CD Projekt Red want people to see, but that does leave a burning question: what does the full game look like?
There are some glowing previews of Cyberpunk 2077 from the two or three story missions that were demoed at E3 2019. Many fell in love with what they saw and rather than empty, they saw the world as brimming with potential. The involvement of Keanu Reeves set expectations even higher and some of the more progressive ideas about the game has some heralding a new age of video games. However, this sort of press can be a double-edge sword if players don’t end up playing what they perceive as the the game they have been waiting for years.
Expectations can make or break a game. Some games have been tied to developer or lineage to their own detriment. While many would consider Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a perfectly serviceable game, its links to the original Mass Effect trilogy ended up poisoning original assumptions. Other games are carried off by the size of their own potential. Evolve won many “Best Of” awards at E3 2015, but by 2016, it was largely forgotten. It’s important to remember that while The Witcher series shot CD Projekt Red into super stardom, it’s also the only franchise they’ve ever developed. Cyberpunk 2077 is something completely new and players have shown they might turn their back on a great game because they were expecting “the greatest game.”
