Making a video game is hard work. It requires having art, coding, audio, rigs and models working together as a coherent whole that withstands the biggest agent of chaos: the player. Some will purposefully look for means to exploit or break a game just for the fun of it, but most just look for an enjoyable gaming experience.
From launch, CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 does not deliver that enjoyable gaming experience. Despite being delayed multiple times, it's a buggy mess, full of glitches and crashes, and is basically unpleasant to play, particularly on last-gen consoles such as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. CDPR has already tweeted its intent to fix the most egregious bugs, with the first patch releasing in January and frequent small updates between now and then. However, players have options.
Let CDPR Fix It
For anyone who's ever invested in an early-access game, waiting for CDPR to fix it feels like the better option. We've already been given a timeline for the patches, so there's no question of when a fix will come. Thanks to the prevalence of Internet access, post-release patches are quite common in these modern times, even on console games. Pokémon X/Y notably received a patch due to the game-breaking Lumiose City bug, and this was on a now-outdated console. Other popular games have received post-release updates to great success. No longer are we trapped with a broken game forever -- game that releases in poor shape can be fixed post-release.
CDPR is definitely focusing on improving the game, with the first of the updates releasing now and a second-round coming in a week. Having the larger patches coming in the next two months means that players won’t have to suffer with a broken game for long.
Get a Refund
At the same time, there are too many choices out there and a player's money is too hard-earned to justify throwing their money away on a game that was broken at launch. Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed multiple times this year alone, to say nothing of its eight-year history. To then be full of glitches and bugs when it finally did release is an insult to the players who waited so long and shilled out sixty bucks for this mess. It might not be fair to the people who made the game, but it's the feeling many have, and the surest way for them to express their displeasure is through their wallets.
This brings us to the second option players have: refunding the game. CD Projekt Red has also outlined how to return the game in its tweet, both through digital purchases and hard copies. In the case of digital copies, the refund policies of PSN and Xbox are recommended, while for the hard copies refunding at the store is offered as the first option. If that option isn't available, they also provide an e-mail for people to contact.
In both cases, CPDR offers these fixes specifically to players of last-gen consoles. However, in a postscript, they mention that "PC gamers will also be getting regular updates and fixes," meaning that these updates will be available to everyone. Current-gen consoles may not have the visual issues that last-gen consoles do, but there’s still plenty of bugs being reported. Players have waited over eight years for this game and may be looking at yet another two months before it's playable. Two months might be manageable for some and a deal-breaker for others, but CDPR has given players options either way.