There were a couple of highly anticipated video games that were slated to come out in 2020. Some, like Final Fantasy VII Remake. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Ghosts of Tsushima. Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon Souls Remastered, lived up to their lofty expectations. Some, while technically sound or had a solid foundation, didn’t exactly wow audiences for one reason or another. I’m looking at you, The Last of Us: Part II! There was also the incredibly awful misfires, like Marvel’s Avengers, which had massive hype but were buggy messes that no one wanted to play them after a few days.

Kinda hard to believe that Cyberpunk 2077 would be one of the biggest disappointments. Partially, anyway. There is a lot of hate being pushed onto CD Projekt Red’s latest open world masterpiece and, while I feel some of the criticisms are legitimate, a lot of the hate isn’t warranted. From what I’ve seen, Cyberpunk 2077 plays incredible on high end PCs and satisfactory on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X next gen consoles. But on current gaming systems, such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One? Woof! It’s rough, to say the least!

The sad thing is that I was looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077. I haven’t played any of the other games in the series but, thanks to The Witcher III, I was totally on-board with trying out another CD Projekt Red RPG. Thankfully, I didn’t go out and pre-order or buy it because I was planning to play the game using my aging PlayStation 4 system. But with reviews like the one above and all of the hubbub on how terrible the game is on the PS4 and Xbox One, I don’t think I’ll be playing Cyberpunk 2077 anytime soon.

Now, I do have a PC but it’s not exactly a high-end gaming PC that can push the boundaries of gaming immersion. All I have right now is a decade old computer that was more than suitable to play games during the age it was built. I played a whole lot of Fallout 4 with moderate settings and it worked fine. But looking at a game like Cyberpunk 2077 and all of the graphical artifacts it utilizes to make it look as good as it does, I don’t even dare trying to run it on my rinky-dink rig!

Of course, I could simply get a brand-spanking new PC and hook it up with all the bells and whistles so I can play Cyberpunk 2077. The trouble is I just don’t have the heart to do so. It’s not like I can’t afford a really, really good gaming computer; I just don’t want to since my current computer is still working… fine? Okay, it does have a few problems that I’ve been living with. It doesn’t remember the time so I have to set the clock each time I boot it up. And, yes, I have tried replacing the CMOS battery to remedy the issue. I’ve done this several times but it still just doesn’t fix the problem. One of the bearings on my fans isn’t set right anymore so, whenever I start it up, there’s a loud whirring sound that does go away eventually. But it does sound like there’s a helicopter just under my monitor.

I haven’t even mentioned the software problems I’ve encountered. There are times when my system will just lock up or freeze for a couple of seconds. And it takes several minutes for it to fully boot up, which means I generally have to turn the power on my computer at least five whole minutes before I plan to use it. I think it’s my computer hard drive, which I will admit, is very old. For a lot of people, these issues does warrant just trashing my old system and building a new one up. But, as I grew up in the Philippines, a decidedly 3rd world country, I’ve generally made it a habit of running things to the ground before replacing it. Money is very hard to come by, you know? So, if my current computer, despite it showing its age for years now, is still working, I can’t justify getting rid of or replacing it.

This oddly enough doesn’t apply to my gaming consoles. I don’t have to wait for my current generation gaming system to stop working before getting the next generation. I do justify the purchase because, technically, if no new games come out for the old system, that means I’m not playing on it. Then that does mean I can’t really use it anymore, can I? Well, it turns out I can’t even do that because no one here is selling a PlayStation 5 nor an Xbox Series X at a decent price in the Philippines right now! Heck, I think this kind of thing is happening around the world still!

Even so, I wasn’t really inclined to get a PlayStation 5 this early anyway. Much like my aversion to getting a brand new and expensive PC, I do have to kind of balance out my budget when it comes to as big a purchase as a new gaming console. Which generally leads me to waiting a year or so before taking the plunge. That’s because, whenever a new gaming console does launch, I fully expect game publisher to still support the previous generation as well as the incoming generation of consoles. I mean, it makes financial sense to support both because the old generation already has a solid fanbase while the new generation is still building theirs. There will come a time when the old system will become obsolete and, by that time, I would have already upgraded. But, until that does happen, I still fully expect new games to be completely optimized to run on my old PlayStation 4. It may not be as pretty as the version I’d get if I had a PlayStation 5 but I’d still be getting generally the same experience.

This does lead me full circle back to CD Projeck Red releasing Cyberpunk 2077 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One systems in their current broken state. It simply looks like Cyberpunk 2077, because of the scale and magnitude the designers had, just couldn’t get it to run on the current generation of consoles. I’ve even heard the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions don’t run especially well either. So why did they expect the aging video game consoles to work well? You could say it’s a miracle it even runs at all. But can you call it “running” if it’s in a broken state?

Strangely enough, I’m still thinking of getting a copy of Cyberpunk 2077 on the PlayStation 4. Not because I have any intention of playing it, mind you. I plan to keep the dang thing in its shrink wrap plastic bag. With everyone trashing this version of the game, both literally and figuratively, it might become a collector’s item! You never know!

So, as much I as I would like to play Cyberpunk 2077 right now, I won’t be able to even if I wanted to do so. I will be able to get the game but it’ll be a while. Maybe I’ll manage to snag myself a PlayStation 5 sometime next year. Maybe, god forbid, my current computer finally bites the dust and I’ll have to finally build a PC that can handle today’s games. All of that is conjecture for a possible future that had yet to come. When either scenario does happen, I do know one of the first things I’ll get is this game. But, for right now, I guess I won’t be playing Cyberpunk 2077.

Have you played Cyberpunk 2077 on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments section below!