Cyberpunk 2077's release version is still buggy as hell

Cyberpunk 2077 is out now, and as with most game releases these days, it's getting patched right out of the gate. In my review, I said I experienced a nonstop onslaught of bugs, from distracting audiovisual tics to a couple game-breakers that required reloading a save to fix. This is even after receiving an early 50GB version of the release day patch, though CDPR says more fixes are rolled into what folks are getting today. Read our Cyberpunk 2077 Day 1 patch explainer to clear up the confusion around that. 

But, patch in hand, now is when the real test begins. We've already taken a broader look at how buggy Cyberpunk 2077 has been for other PCG editors and outlets, but how buggy is it in the hands of the public? Let's take a look around the internet to find out what players are experiencing. 

Keep in mind, all console players will have the launch patch from the get-go—it's part of the preload. PC players received the patch once the game unlocked.

Scripting bugs

Our intrepid reporter Christopher Livingston, embedded live in Night City, has this to report.

Chris: I experienced a few bugs very early on, like NPCs who would walk through me like ghosts, floating objects like soda cans, and a guy I shot in a van whose body flew up about 30 feet into the air like a rocket. Then I discovered a spot in the road right outside V's apartment where every single car slowly turns a corner and then utterly destroys itself against the same barricade. Literally every single car. It's mesmerizing.

When I finally left that sight to do the ripperdoc mission, where you get your first implant, the doctor completed the procedure but the mission never updated in my journal. I couldn't do anything more with the doctor or move onto the next mission, and my partner Jackie had completely vanished from the world, so I summoned my car (which spawned inside another car, flipped over, and exploded) and then drove around a bit before finally reloading my old autosave before the ripperdoc mission. This time, when he was done, the log updated and I could find Jackie upstairs. Cyberpunk 2077 is ridiculously buggy.

And maybe this isn't a bug per se, but rolling the volume wheel on my keyboard makes my character jerkily look up and down. I have never seen a game react to the volume wheel before. Wild.

Redditors have been noting similar scripting issues, with Nox Snow saying, "During the first main mission in the game (the start of the 2018 48-minute gameplay demo), I pick up Sandra Dorsett's body and go to the balcony of the building, but the game fails to recognise that I've reached my destination, the flying police car never arrives. This happened a few times despite my loading the last checkpoint."

Meanwhile, user Gatorfreak_luke62 says, "I had to reload and skip the tutorial. Kept bugging out and couldn't complete objectives."

Razgriz417 also had trouble with the tutorial: "first bugged quest, cant do the option stealth tutorial as corpo, doesnt recognize that i tagged all the targets. Trying past autosaves now but it looks like ill just have to skip the tutorial completely" 

Poor performance on consoles 

Let's get this out of the way, because it's dominating the conversation elsewhere. In today's performance, bugs, glitches, and support megathread over on /r/Cyberpunkgame—where I'm sourcing most of the Reddit reports here—players are seeing poor console performance, particularly on the base Xbox One and PS4, though some PS4 Pro and Xbox One X players are disappointed too. 

User johndems026 (Xbox One X) reports framerate dips during firefights and driving often dip below 30 and get pretty choppy. Avalon2247 isn't having the ideal time on their PS4, with textures loading incorrectly and a few crashes. "It's a real shame seeing as the game is freaking amazing yet it's comparable to Fallout 4 performance wise," they say.

SinOfSloth's base PS4 ain't pulling through. "Textures are so poor. Buildings look like they’re from GTA 4. NCPs look PS2-level (seriously). NCPs change when you look away for a second. NCPs mouths don’t move when they’re talking to you." They go on to mention a blurriness, likely a combination of low textures and resolution, in combination with a sparsely populated city and big frame drops while driving. 

Twitter user Spray UK isn't happy with how Night City looks on the Xbox One, and we can see why.

Jackie-b-gone 

Early game sidekick Jackie, who feels like a homage to Batou from Ghost in the Shell, is the cause of many problems. Reddit user Kalamando (Xbox Series X) says Jackie, a good friend of V's and constant companion in the early hours, then disappears during the pickup mission on the Nomad path whenever they go off to loot. SuckMyKissx (Xbox One S) also lost their Jackie during an early mission. He simply disappeared and they couldn't carry on. 

XaeroGravity (Xbox Series X) lost Jackie too: "I can't progress past the end of the Pick Up mission. Jackie just disappears halfway through the fight and renders the end of the mission unplayable. Been trying for the past hour."

Resetera poster leng jai is having essentially the opposite problem: "Getting a pretty regular glitch where the subtitles for Jackie just stay stuck on the screen forever.

And here's Chris again, who needs to talk to Jackie to complete a quest but can't because this pushy jerk won't let him.

Glitch out with your bits out

One of the most amusing recurring bugs is that V can't keep it in their pants. Some players are simply losing their clothes, like Last_colossi from the Resetera forum, who asks, "Is anyone else with the GOG version having a glitch where V just becomes naked randomly during cutscenes and gameplay?... cause that keeps happening for some reason."

Linus815 is having a similar problem: "My V's boobs are glitching through my top lol". Later, they note that "if you put a hat on... then look in the mirror.... you will be bald. Also, my character keeps getting naked. And my boobs are still clipping through the top constantly. this game is weird"

MatildaMuggins has clothes on when they should be off, but something else has gone astray. "If I take my clothes off it shows naked in the menu, but if I look down in game V is still wearing clothes. Then if I look in the mirror in the apartment he's naked but the penis is missing :("

Over on Reddit, derrida_n_shit laments, "I'm on PC and I just want my character to wear clothes. She's walking around the city with her coochie hanging out." They also say, "This game is ridiculously buggy. I keep finding palm trees flashing in and out of my apartment and no matter how many outfits I put on, my character is constantly naked. Sometimes there are pedestrians wandering around my bathroom! This game is supposed to be immersive but damn, this is immersion-breaking. Only making me immersed in the support group of reporting bugs online."

The issue with the palm trees appearing through walls is another common one, with plant life seeming to ignore buildings to appear in your line of sight regardless of what's blocking it. Here's a screenshot of the phenomenon captured by our Wes Fenlon, from early in the game. Note the little palm trees appearing to hover in the air.

UI and controls 

UI issues are another common complaint, with notifications refusing to fade. Our Tim Clark is one of many experiencing this one, saying, "I picked up a stapler in the office and then could not remove the 'you have a stapler this is its info' box from the screen regardless of what I did." Phone controls won't go away for some players too. Reloading a save is the only way to get rid of persistent floating text.

Resetera user Sanctuary had some bad luck with controls right out of the gate: "Not even out of the first area yet and already hit a bug. My sprint key just randomly stopped working until I reloaded the game." 

Audiovisual mayhem 

Guns disappearing, heads separating from bodies, cars clipping through walls, textures not loading, asset duplication and floating characters, players falling through the bottom of the world, we got it all. 

On the audio side some players are reporting that specific sounds, like engine noises, any gun that isn't shot by V, and some background dialogue and music isn't playing. 

Crashes 

More seriously, some players are having regular crashes. JoJoDentCo gets "a crash like every 10 mins." Cane-Skretteberg is "Experiencing persistent crashes at a specific point in the game I played about an hour and 20 minutes on PC with no hitches until I got to the second real mission (The Ripperdoc). For whatever reason after I park and Jackie and I get out of the car and I start walking towards the objective the game crashes every time due to 'GPU crash for unknown reason.' Has anyone else experienced this? I have an AMD 5700."

And, er, Sir_DickButts is also having trouble with a crash that keeps recurring: "Crashing during corpo prologue when I go to sit in Jenkins office, anyone else having this problem? Game runs smooth for the few minutes I was able to play (besides a graphical glitch I saw) and I was starting to get excited but then it crashed 3 times in a row in the same exact spot."

Over in PS4 land, Boner_Pill says, "the game has been running fine for me so far but it is now crashing every time I try to start the second mission when talking to Jackie".

And that's just scratching the surface. If you're playing Cyberpunk 2077 right now, let us know about some of the bugs you've encountered.