Explaining 'Cyberpunk 2077's' Sudden Popularity Surge

Despite huge initial backlash and mixed opinions from members of the greater gaming community, “Cyberpunk 2077” has recently seen a sudden influx of new players with plenty of positive things to say.

CD Projekt Red’s most-anticipated title flopped big time when it was officially released last December due to severe technical issues, especially on the PS4 and Xbox One consoles. The game’s disastrous launch eventually led to a myriad of problems for the Polish game developer, including several lawsuits, but “Cyberpunk 2077” managed to make a comeback of sorts right before the year could end.

The aggregate number of reviews for “Cyberpunk 2077” on Steam has improved from Mixed to Mostly Positive, accounting for a total of 410,597 different user reviews. Most recently, the game was rated Very Positive on the gaming platform with recommendations from over 24,000 players.

Seeing “Cyberpunk 2077” get back up on its feet is a welcome sight to many, especially for those who have been waiting for the game to reach the level of quality they expected from CD Projekt Red.

Most of the positive response can be attributed to the recent major updates that the game received and the ongoing Steam sale that may have encouraged many hesistant gamers to try the game out now.

“Cyberpunk 2077’s” problems on PC have been mostly resolved as of version 1.31. CDPR has issued bug fixes that have since made the game much more playable than its release version — many game-breaking bugs have been squashed and QoL has improved greatly since version 1.0.

Even without the bugs, “Cyberpunk 2077” is still a good game at its core. Its well-crafted world, engaging story and hours upon hours’ worth of content resonated well with many players, but its somewhat basic and lackluster RPG systems remains the biggest gripe for some.

CDPR isn’t quite done with “Cyberpunk 2077” just yet. The developers are still pushing through with their DLC plans for next year and the game’s next big update is confirmed to arrive some time in Q1 2022, PC Gamer has learned.

The exact details regarding the new update’s content are still unspecified, but players can expect even more technical improvements and some free DLC to top things off.