In an original statement, Sony offered a refund for the game and said, “[Sony Interactive Entertainment] we’ll also be removing Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store until further notice. “That meant Sony was in the decision, but a later statement from CD Projekt said Red that the decision came out of a “debate” with Sony about a reseller.We have never heard of definitively what the decision was to remove a game from sale.No specific reason has been given for removing the game either (for reference, it has never been removed on Xbox, but reimbursement has been extended), although profiteering suggests that the decision allowed Sony’s somewhat limited refund policies to work around. Whatever the root cause, the removal for a game as high-profile as Cyberpunk was a completely unprecedented move, and it brought with it a number of other issues, most of which remain response more than three months later.
One of those key questions is, “When will it return to sale, and what will it take for that to happen?” Neither Sony nor CD Projekt have spoken to specific answers to these questions since December, with the closest ones we received coming from that CDPR statement: “We’re working hard to bring Cyberpunk 2077 back to the PlayStation Store as soon as possible.”
IGN contacted both Sony and CD Projekt Red on the milestone date to ask about the plans for the game’s reboot, and received no response from either party, despite several requests.In terms of ads, the best thing we need to do is go for the previously announced Projekt Red CD roadmap for updates to the game. When it first apologized for the state of the launch version, CD Projekt set a timeline that included two key pieces, which should, together, “be the most obvious problems facing gamers on consoles last -gen is resolved. “The second of these pieces, version 1.2 was postponed after cyberattack on the studio, but we’ve recently heard about its changes, making it appear that e near. It’s possible, if the last-gen versions are deemed scrapped, the game could return to sale on PlayStation once the patch arrives.
However, Sony may also choose to hold a remake until the game is updated on PS5 as well. A next-gen version of the game – bringing it closer to the PC release – is planned for the second half of 2021, with a free update for those who purchased the game on last-gen. It is possible that Sony (or CD Projekt Red) would want to remake the game once it is in the final form it should be.
It is surprising that there is profiteering about this at all. The CD Projekt Red would remain silent about when players can repurchase its pavilion game on the world’s largest gaming platform, and Sony would not want to tell customers when a game despite over much controversy, having sold over 13 million copies be back on the front of its store seemingly, in fact, strange. The development and distribution of Cyberpunk has, of course, already been an incredible journey, but the lack of detail in this chapter of that story is unusual, even among the rest. It is not possible to speak to a corporate cage, disputes between the two parties, or other matters not publicly disclosed.
That silence makes it hard to predict where we’ll go from here – we’ll see the game return to sale tomorrow, or we could see another 100 days. There has simply never been an issue like this in a previous game – this is hopefully it has been enough of a lesson to stop it happening again.
Joe Skrebels is the Executive Editor of IGN News. He continued Twitter. Do we have a tip for us? Want to discuss a story? Please email [email protected].