Cyberpunk 2077, released last year, was so notoriously rough on the last generation of consoles that Sony kicked it out of the PlayStation Store altogether. Then, on June 21, it finally returned with a warning from Sony.

The Cyberpunk 2077 page on the PlayStation Store reads, "IMPORTANT NOTICE: This game continues to have performance issues. We do not recommend purchasing the game on PS4; for the best cyberpunk experience on PlayStation, we recommend playing on PS4 Pro and PS5 systems."

In addition to this official pessimism, bad word of mouth and an overall Metacritic score of only 57%, interest in the game does not seem to be waning: according to an update on the PlayStation Blog, Cyberpunk 2077 was available for purchase for only nine days, yet Despite this, it was the top PlayStation 4 download in both North America and Europe, ahead of GTA5, FIFA 21, NBA 2K21, and Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War.

An unexpected result, but perhaps not all that shocking. Cyberpunk 2077 was buggy at launch and had less scope than many CD Projekt fans had expected, but it was not a fundamentally bad game: in a comprehensive review, James said, "It's a pretty good RPG with a great setting where the bugs are absolutely sickening."

Cyberpunks.

In June, shortly after Cyberpunk's return to the PlayStation Store, CD Projekt declared that the game had reached a "satisfactory level of stability"; Digital Foundry's testing proved that to be largely true: while still far from perfect

Cyberpunk 2077 has improved performance and is less likely to crash on the base PlayStation 4.

Another possible factor in Cyberpunk's popularity is that owners of the current version will receive a free upgrade to the next-generation version for the PlayStation 5 later this year. For those who currently own a PlayStation 5 or plan to get one in the near future, there is no reason (aside from waiting for a sale) not to buy one now.

Whatever the reason, a strong recovery is good news for CD Projekt. In its Q1 2021 earnings report, the studio said that the CD Projekt Red division's performance is "largely dependent on the sales volume of games set in the Cyberpunk and Witcher worlds," which "the return of Cyberpunk 2077 to the PlayStation Store It will be greatly affected. How long that interest will be sustained in the long term remains to be seen, but this strong start must be encouraging.