What has changed?

[-A7 Demon Seed-]

The game was ruined for me during the terrible launch. From all the bugs, to police spawning behind you, game breaking bugs, horrible optimization. What has changed, and why do i see this game go from bust of the year to a beloved title? I am honestly curious because i havnt played in a LOOOONG time. Im not bashing, i really am curious if i should restart the game and give it another try.

[andylaugel]

I started playing around the end of Sept. 2024. I've found the game to be quite playable and a mostly smooth experience. I've focused on story, character, and combat far above any minor bugs I've encountered. I will admit that there have been a few crashes since the latest update, but that's about it.

[Tokenn]

This game got good after Patch 1.5, almost 3 years ago. It's brilliant. If you own the game, for sure, give it a try.

[MrKrabzz]

Try it again!
The game breaking bugs are gone. You may experience some minor bugs tho (Nothing immersion breaking)

[★REM★]

Hop back in. I disagree it was terrible at launch (at least, for me, it was full of annoying bugs, but playable) they literally fixed everything was possible, changed few mechanics, made some better and some worse (no one can always be happy) but it's another experience, you will enjoy it.

[Chaosolous]

This game has been fun for like, 3+ years.

Just play it, or don't.

[-A7 Demon Seed-]

Originally posted by ★REM★:

Hop back in. I disagree it was terrible at launch (at least, for me, it was full of annoying bugs, but playable) they literally fixed everything was possible, changed few mechanics, made some better and some worse (no one can always be happy) but it's another experience, you will enjoy it.

I mean at launch mostly everyone hated it. Was only the last few years that the reviews went above mostly negative to poisitive.

[The Great Cornholio]

It's been fixed for years.

[Hulkenberg]

Not that much. Optimization is better, police system was improved (still not great, even GTA games on Playstation 2 and PS1 have more competent police system, which is pretty embarrassing, considering how old those GTA games are. And I know so because I still play those games, but it is what it is). Skill tree was changed. World is still over-cluttered with loot, but less so because healing items and grenades were removed, they now recharge. So you dont have healing items and grenades scattered anymore behind every corner.

Progression and balance is still boring, you earn money and new rarity weapons so fast you don't even feel like progressing. You can basically buy anything you want soon from the start. My street cred level was almost top near the beginning of the game, and it's not like i was doing many side missions. The open-world still feels dead because the NPCs walking the streets still feel like soulless robots. Braindead AI, awful animations, and immersion breaking bugs, glitched animations during some boss fights, missing sound effects, your car falling from sky and so on, camera being completely broken during some gameplay cutscenes (Takemura car chase scene almost in the beginning of the game, the camera jumps all over the place), hearing certain important character still breathe after he dies (nOthing ImmerSion brEaking though, yeah right :D) and so on. Game is still full of bugs. I had to do a mission to recover my old car and the car was floating above ground. Getting knocked to the ground when getting out of the helicopter when playing as Silverhand for the first time. Certain scripted NPC falling half-way through the ground. Cops suddenly bugging out while chasing you and just looking at you and not shooting. I started new character few times and all of these bugs happened to me every single time, so it's not like I encountered some rare bugs, i could reproduce them every time.

Those telling you this game is fixed are either big fat liars or they are living in denial because it was made by their beloved CDPR. Game is a joke, and i tried really hard to like it because I was looking forward to play this game for so long, I gave it many chances, but it will never be fixed. This is my experience playing the version 2.13.

Since you already have the game, you can try it, but in the end it's still broken, buggy, awful game. It's not completely different game compared to first release like some people here want you to believe.

[yolomancer]

Originally posted by -A7 Demon Seed-:

The game was ruined for me during the terrible launch. From all the bugs, to police spawning behind you, game breaking bugs, horrible optimization. What has changed, and why do i see this game go from bust of the year to a beloved title? I am honestly curious because i havnt played in a LOOOONG time. Im not bashing, i really am curious if i should restart the game and give it another try.

It's too difficult to recite every single thing that's changed. It's really just easier if you give it a try, it's the game it was always intended to be now but also even more and a lot better. Go for it!

[Tr3m0r]

Originally posted by Lancenig:

Honestly dude...
My take is from the perspective of a gamer from the days of the Atari...a guy like me has seen all the ups and all the downs of the industry.
CP was in my opinion the greatest fail in gaming history (my opinion, you're free to think otherwise, I don't care).

After 2.0 launched I jumped in and within 20 minutes I'd hit a bug that required me to change the difficulty from Hard to Normal to complete the car chase quest. It was bugged and you couldn't beat it in hard no matter how good your aim was....I scaned over the new passive tree and was left feeling like "THIS is 2.0?!" None of the builds seems compelling at all.
With a sore taste in my mouth I un-installed again.

So I saw that 2.1 was dropping and I felt like I'd really not given the game a chance and I decided that no matter what I was going to at least level out 2 passive trees. I figure at that point I would have a better idea of the state of the game...

I got to say...it still just feels like a game with no direction to me...none of the passive trees feel like they are enhancing my playstyle...they are just there....like throwing knives...the entire tree is basically wrapped up in throwing knife headshots....that's extremely limited...
I leveled out int to 20 and built up a netrunner...and after spending 20 points and investing into 2 of the trees it the gameplay loop changed in no meaningful way, I didn't get access to anything new except Overclock, and that's not really compelling to me in anyway, I don't value trading my health for quickhacks...again....that actually limits my gameplay to a very singular style that's just not for me.

Did the game run WAY better without crashing? Yes
Does the game look good? Yes
Are those opening hours of the story good? Yes
But after Jackie dies and the game opens up, it just feels...meh and for me the character build potential just felt flat and limiting.

I know a lot of people really love the game, they claim it's the best game they've ever played....so that tells that people are either dug in and are coping, or the game is good in some way that just don't translate for me. I've just been around gaming for so long, I've seen so many epic games drop over the years that this just feels like a hack job. It's a game wrapped in duck tape and super glue in an attempt to salvage a failed project.

I relate with your post and the post just prior to yours with an even more negative view of the game. I just personally think the game is pretty solid though as opposed to not being solid. I'm only pointing it out because like you, I'm a gamer that doesn't cope or try to believe some narrative if it doesn't exist. I definitely overall am not a gamer that cow tows to studio narratives. So that's why when the experiences were being discussed, I could understand what is being said and even agree with a lot of it. I think maybe because the game was never a closely followed title for me, I was able to enjoy it more simplistically.

I liked the game even at launch outside of the bugs. My systems are always pretty top tier so I can muscle my way through a lot which does mitigate some of the frustration others have. The game is super linear and there really is no living breathing world. But as a linear story, it was enjoyable as were the graphics that only got better. So the illusion of just a beautiful immersive world got stronger under the fresh paint.

But when I came back to the game for the DLC I was way more impressed with it compared to when I played and beat the game at launch. The bugs are less prevalent, the builds for me were OK. I feel they are better than launch and it makes a lot more sense. For example having cyber ware controlling the buffs and not the old stat system that had the chance to reroll a bunch of items to go from 2 slots to 4 slots and then buff everything from head to toe with clothing. It's more cohesive now. Less just grinding stats rolls which I think is better.

I don't think the game became this true classic but I respect that the game did improve significantly on a lot of metrics that absolutely wasn't cheap to accomplish. This studio hung on by a thread and it absolutely needed to regain player trust in them. There are a lot of people who say the studio never deserved the negative reception and that I'll never agree with. I truly hope they don't ever repeat those mistakes and I'm glad gamers caused them to earn back the communities trust. The end product doesn't make the game people hoped it would always have been. But it makes for a polished linear and very well acted and directed story with a compelling cast and for me is worth people revisiting from the launch version.

[Leelareso]

Game is good now, asfter this few years i start play and have a lot fun