As Starfield gets ugly comparisons to Cyberpunk 2077, CDPR lead says "this fake criticism is actively harmful"

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty — (Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

A Cyberpunk 2077 veteran developer says comparisons to Starfield are "actively harmful."

Senior Cyberpunk 2077 developer, Patrick K. Mills, has responded to a tweet comparing Starfield to the 2020 open-world RPG from CD Projekt Red. The video in the tweet shows how players in both games swim through water, how grenades detonate, and how NPCs react to things like having weapons pointed at them.

How times have changed(Tbc this fake criticism is actively harmful to the way the audience interacts with the medium and I hate it, but it's very funny to see after how many hundreds of these were made to ridicule cp2077) https://t.co/lvtAGDawfvSeptember 5, 2023

The point of the video appears to disparaging towards Starfield, but Mills isn't having any of it. The senior developer says comparisons like this are "fake criticism" and "actively harmful" to how audiences both react to and use video games, and he hates the entire thing.

In a follow-up tweet, The Cyberpunk 2077 developer points to the fact that there isn't even any commentary or analysis in the video. There isn't any attempt to meaningfully compare Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077, outside of clips taken completely out of context and pitted against one another.

There's been a similar sentiment against comparisons between games from other developers of late. Baldur's Gate 3 developers, like game director Swen Vincke, have spent the past few months pushing back against the notion that their highly rated new RPG should be an industry standard for other games, and thus used as a stick to berate other titles (as per a PC Gamer interview).

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty launches later this month on September 26. Elsewhere, update 2.0 is slated to completely overhaul several core aspects of the game. It's set to be a seriously big month for CD Projekt's action-RPG.

Check out our Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty preview for our hands-on experience of the new expansion last month.

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Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.