CD Projekt Red promises that Cyberpunk 2077's performance will be significantly improved, particularly on last-gen consoles, after its upcoming updates. In a recent investor call, studio executives explained what players should expect from the patches.
Answering a question about how the game will perform on last-gen consoles once the updates arrive, board member Michał Nowakowski said that "we are planning to make the game in a much, much better shape than it is right now," going on to explain later that "the game will have no crashes, the bugs will be eliminated, and we're looking to improve both the performance and the graphic fidelity."
Those changes will be spread out across various patches - smaller updates are planned for this month, with larger suites of changes arriving in January and February. Nowakowski stresses that the game is in a playable state, even if "the experience is far from satisfactory for a lot of people," but also states that those playing on PS4 and Xbox One shouldn't expect a complete transformation: "Even if your personal expectation is going to be equal to the next-gen performance or the PC, that definitely is not going to happen. It's not going to be a bad game, but if expectations for visual or some other performance angle are like this, then we're openly stating that's not going to be the case. It is going to be a good, playable game without glitches and crashes though."
Later in the call, joint CEO Adam Kicinski explained that CD Projekt Red was working on the last-gen version of the game right down to the wire, saying that the reason the studio didn't show game footage on PS4 and Xbox One was that "we were updating the game on the last-gen consoles until the very last minute, and we thought we would make it in time." He also states that late console review versions were "not intended," reiterating that "we were just fixing the game until the very last moment."
Cyberpunk 2077's launch hasn't been the runaway success that CDPR was undoubtedly hoping for. Bugs, glitches, and other performance issues have seriously marred the game's console launch in particular. The developer has apologised for the game's performance, offering refunds for dissatisfied players on PS4 and Xbox One, while PC players have been developing their own fixes to improve frame rate and stability.
