The ballad of the Cyberpunk 2077 train wreck continues for another day, with GameStop deciding the game is defective and is willing to offer refunds even if the box has been opened.
The news hasn’t been officially announced by GameStop yet, but Kotaku has obtained an internal memo outlining its plans. Plans that literally involve labelling the game as “defective” and shipping units back to a warehouse.
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Normally GameStop has quite a strict returns policy, and typically doesn’t accept games that have been opened. These aren’t normal circumstances, though, and staff have been instructed to accept opened Cyberpunk 2077 games.
The issue with Cyberpunk 2077 is that while it runs okay on next-gen consoles, and even the older PS4 Pro and Xbox One X machines, the same can’t be said for the original PS4 and Xbox One. Both consoles struggle to play the game, despite developer CD Projekt Red’s previous assertions that the game ran just fine on older hardware.
Meanwhile those with more powerful consoles and PCs weren’t too happy with the state of the game, which is filled with bugs and other issues that frustrated gamers who had been eagerly looking forward to the game. The consensus was, in most cases, that the game wasn't finished and shouldn’t have been released on December 10.
CDPR originally offered disgruntled players the chance to get a refund, only for people to have their claims rejected by Sony and Microsoft. Eventually Sony pulled the game from its digital store, promising refunds to everyone who wants one. Microsoft hasn’t pulled the game at the time of writing, but it has also promised refunds to people who aren’t happy with the state of the game.
Needless to say, CD Projekt Red’s decision to push out the game before it was clearly ready has spectacularly backfired. If you want a game to play over the holidays that isn't full of bugs, the check out our best PC games of 2020 list, or give The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt a go; it's a much less buggy CDPR game.
