Wake Up, Samurai – After Abysmal Launch, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Cracks List Of Top 25 Best-Selling Games
Despite what one may think of Cyberpunk 2077 and its absolutely terrible launch state, it cannot be denied that CD Projekt Red has put in a massive amount of effort towards fixing their past mistakes – and thanks to this work, the game has officially crossed a major sales milestone.
Speaking to attendees during the company’s recent Q3 2024 earnings webcast, as held on November 28th, CD Projekt Red Co-CEO Michał Nowakowski revealed that “Cyberpunk 2077 has reached another huge milestone with over 30 million copies sold.”
“We are extremely proud to see our title continuing to attract a growing community of players, who wish to dive deep into the rich, dystopian future world,” he added. “Night City’s growing player community not only has a direct impact on our financial performance, but also bodes well for the next game in the series.”
Nowakowski further detailed that sales of “Phantom Liberty topped 8 million copies this month”, having achieved this number “just over a year after the release”.
With this achievement, the base Cyberpunk 2077 game has notably secured a place among the ‘Top 25 Best-Selling Games of All Time’, its 30 million sales total leaving it to share the 21st podium spot with Hogwarts Legacy, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), and Diablo III.
As noted above, this achievement is particularly surprising given the rough development history of Cyberpunk 2077.
Entering full development after work was completed on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt‘s Blood & Wine DLC, CD Projekt Red approached the then-next title in their portfolio with the goal of building upon every aspect that made their adaptations of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novels such a success, from gameplay, to world-building, to storytelling.
And with The Matrix star Keanu Reeves tapped to play the in-game role of Johnny Silverhand, as well as the studio holding a clear love for Mike Pondsmith’s original Cyberpunk table-top game, fan expectations for the game were sky-high.
Unfortunately, something went awry during development, and as a result the game released in a barely functional state, with a heap of technical issues making it near unplayable on both consoles and PCs.
In fact, things were so bad that the game was actually removed from the PlayStation store, being taken down for sale for roughly six months until CD Projekt Red managed to patch it into a workable form.
And though the game sold over 13.5 million copies on launch – in doing so becoming one of the fastest-selling games of all time – its rocky start undeniably cut into the game’s early chances of success.
Since then, CD Projekt Red has managed to turn the game’s quality and reputation around with a number of patches and updates, as well as the proper release of the Phantom Liberty expansion.
As such, while still far from the technical masterpiece the game was promised as, Cyberpunk 2077 now delivers the type of quality RPG experience most players expect from the studio.
At current, both Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty are available for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms.
A full Mac release is currently planned for early next year.
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