At this point in time, it's clear that Cyberpunk 2077 didn't turn out as many intended. It's long development cycle affected the game significantly, resulting in a vastly different experience from what it could have been originally.
Since Cyberpunk 2077 was announced back in 2012, many expected it to follow the footsteps of CD Projekt Red's other big franchise, The Witcher. All of The Witcher games play from a third-person perspective, and fans expected Cyberpunk 2077 to be in the same vein. However, at E3 2018 it was revealed that unlike The Witcher games, Cyberpunk 2077 will play from a first-person perspective. This was done so that players could "see things happening up close and interact with things in a visceral manner." As expected, this sudden change in perspective took fans by surprise and many had even shown concerns regarding the change.
Now it seems that the game's development didn't originally kick off with a first-person perspective in mind. Bloomberg's latest report on Cyberpunk 2077 reveals that the game was originally going to be in third-person. The fundamental elements, including the perspective, was overhauled once studio head Adam Badowski became the director. This didn't just hit a hard reset on the game's development, but also lead to the departure of some of the top developers. This overhaul significantly affected the game's development and some of the team members didn't expect Cyberpunk 2077 to launch well before 2022.
As if this wasn't enough, CD Projekt Red omitted various features and mechanics that would have otherwise made it in the game. Even its 2018 E3 demo was misleading, as the company had not finalized the various gameplay elements. Cyberpunk 2077 isn't the only AAA game that received a major overhaul midway through its development however. In 2018 it was reported that Dragon Age 4 has been internally rebooted. The game was code-named Joplin beforehand and was supposed to be a single-player experience like the previous games in the franchise, however, it was rebooted to add more live service elements to it, which led to a significant delay.
While a third-person perspective could have been more appealing, the first-person perspective in Cyberpunk 2077 holds itself very well. The game renders every cutscene in real-time and even the tiny details of the player's characters, such as the nail color, appear in those cutscenes. While all of this is exciting to witness, it doesn't compensate for the crunch-filled development of Cyberpunk 2077. At the moment, the devs are hard at work fixing the game's various issues. Two big patches are planned for January that could significantly boost Cyberpunk 2077 performance on base PS4 and Xbox One. However, how all of this will turn out remains to be seen.
Cyberpunk 2077 is now available on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with a free PS5, Xbox Series X/S upgrade coming in 2021.
Source: Bloomberg