Cyberpunk 2077‘s redemption arc is long complete, 2023’s acclaimed Phantom Liberty expansion cementing the RPG’s legacy as one of this generation’s all-time greats. Even as I sit here in 2026 writing this, it’s still jarring to talk about Cyberpunk 2077 in such a uniformly positive light, and that’s because I was doing this exact same job back in December 2020 when the game finally launched after multiple delays… and got absolutely dragged through the mud. We have a curated list of the best Cyberpunk 2077 bugs we could find at the time, if that gives you an idea of the state of the game at launch.
Shortly after launch, developer CD Projekt Red began rapid firing patches and updates at Cyberpunk 2077 in an effort to address widespread performance and technical issues, culminating in the massive 1.5 “next-gen” update that really marked a turning point in the game’s overall trajectory. The whole Edgerunners update and Netflix tie-in sealed the deal, and Phantom Liberty felt like icing on the cake. Cyberpunk 2077 was back, baby. And yet, its initial launch was so disastrous that it’ll forever remain a scar on CDPR’s resume, a fact not lost on designer Pawel Sasko.
Reflecting on three years of Phantom Liberty in a lengthy Twitter post, Sasko says: “I do not think Phantom Liberty erases the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, and I would never want to tell our story that way.” I have a feeling there’s a part of every person working at CDPR that wishes things were handled differently at Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, but I admire Sasko’s acknowledgment of the very real issues paying customers like myself faced six years ago.
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“Phantom Liberty sold more than 15 million copies by now. I am incredibly grateful for those numbers, but what stays with me most after three years is what making this expansion taught me about directing games, trusting people, making choices meaningful, giving characters space to breathe and accepting the scars that come with making something this difficult,” he writes.
Not to beat a previously dead horse, but Cyberpunk 2077’s launch wasn’t just a technical mess. It was a full-blown disaster, prompting several storefronts to offer refunds and Sony to issue a warning on the PlayStation Store not to buy the game on PS4. Yes, Phantom Liberty is great, and yes, it absolutely does not “erase the launch of Cyberpunk 2077.”
