Cyberpunk 2077: How To Play The GOOD Version

It’s no secret that Cyberpunk 2077 launched with a bevy of bugs and technical issues, most of which primarily plague consoles and Stadia rather than a PC. Players taking to Night City’s streets on a high-end PC will encounter few immersion-breaking glitches. However, players on any current or previous-gen console, or even Google’s Stadia, are sure to meet more glaring technical issues.

While the PC version isn’t without its occasional bug, it’s clear that the other platforms are far worse for the wear. With Sony removing Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation store due to such glaring issues and the refund debacle, new PlayStation players currently can’t even get their hands on digital versions. While Cyberpunk is still available for purchase on the Xbox store, Microsoft has handed out a fair amount of refunds for those fed up with the game’s poor state. Unfortunately, until CD Projekt Red can roll out future patches, including the January 1.07 patch presumably focused on last-gen consoles, these problems will continue to haunt Cyberpunk 2077.

Because CDPR missed the mark on a solid release of what was supposed to be their crowning achievement, a high-end PC with a similarly top shelf graphics card is really the only way players can have a quality Cyberpunk 2077 experience. When comparing Cyberpunk‘s PS4 and PS5 graphics, it’s clear that current-gen consoles handle them far better than the almost comical appearance of smeared PS1-like textures that occasionally pop up. Even with the PS5 and Xbox Series X handling graphics and textures better than their counterparts, there are still plenty of texture pop-ins, framerate dips, and clipping issues to contend with.

Cyberpunk 2077 Is Best On PC

Google’s game streaming service isn’t immune to these problems, either. Cyberpunk 2077 works fine on Stadia, but without a stable internet connection and proper display hardware, graphics won’t consistently reach high levels of fidelity while running the game. This means that even for PC owners who use Google’s game-streaming service, it won’t hit that mark of graphical stability and quality players are expecting from Cyberpunk 2077. For many, this means either waiting for those upcoming patches, or investing in new PC hardware to get a more workable experience within the game that not everyone is able to afford.

It should go without saying that Xbox One graphics shouldn’t be expected to contend with Xbox One X graphics or Xbox Series X graphics. Same with PlayStation. But it’s clear that Cyberpunk reaches its greatest intended optimization on PC, and that older generation consoles were left out to dry, according to CD Projekt Red’s own admission. The general consensus seems to be that the game needed more time in development before release in order to iron out these last-gen console bugs, which certainly would have released the game to the public in a better state. With tons of hype in place, and after Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed several times already, doing so might have brought equal levels of frustration from the community.

With all of the problems CD Projekt Red has encountered as a result of Cyberpunk‘s buggy release, the developer has its work cut out for them. There are already patches and updates in the pipeline that will alleviate many of these issues. While some players are willing to overlook console and Stadia graphical issues, it’s unfortunate that a high-end PC with the best available graphics card is currently the best platform to play Cyberpunk 2077 on until the others have been given proper treatment.

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