I love giant open-world games but my love for them comes at a price when on last-gen consoles. There is a reason why I tend to enjoy simpler games on a PC that reflect my love of gaming from days gone past and that is because of one very huge reason: I absolutely lose my mind over what I consider to be excessive loading times.
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Every time Cyberpunk loads it isn't nearly as long an amount of time as I think it is of course but at times it is around a full minute between scenes and every time after you die or move to another area. Thankfully, Cyberpunk isn't as of yet, plagued with cutscenes that I also hate and do not want, but the loading times drive me bananas and make me want to log out of the game.
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If you've played this game you have without question, been staring at this in the top right corner for a great deal of time, maybe 2077 seconds every couple of hours of gameplay and it is just maddening to me. I get it ok, the world is huge but I have a hard time believing that this process couldn't be streamlined a bit. One instance where I find this particularly irritating is when I die in a certain area and have to reload to my last quicksave. It takes the same amount of time as if I was moving to the other side of the map and while I am not a programmer, this doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me as though most of the resources would already be in memory and would need to just be reset. That is not the case with Cyberpunk though. It takes just as long to reload a game in the same area as if you were moving to a completely different area.
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I often wonder what sort of loading process they are using when you are driving from one end of the city to the other because at least so far, I have never encountered a loading phase during this part of the game, even though at some instances I will actually be traveling a greater distance than if i just used one of the quick travel terminals. How can the game load FASTER when I am currently using processing power to move from place to place than when the game only needs to show me a loading screen? I'm sure there is some sort of development reason why this is the case but seriously, this is something that needs to be worked on and it isn't an issue in other games I have played such as God of War.
I find myself getting frustrated any time that I have to travel to another part of town or even when I decide to skip the rest of a "ride along" screen - when you are in a car but not driving it - because skipping the rest of the ride can actually end up taking longer than just finishing the ride and this makes absolutely no sense to me.
For me, it doesn't matter how awesome the gameplay is in a particular game. When I am spending half of my gaming time starting a line that creeps across the top right I quickly lose interest in the story and the game overall.
I'm only 10% of the way through the game on "Street Punk" story mode and am already starting to eye up other games that aren't going to be plagued with this. Some people must just accept this part of gameplay and try to make excuses for the developers and say something like "if you want a world this big you have to accept load times!" If that is the case why doesn't this happen in other equally large open-world games then?
I'll keep playing this for now but I honestly can't imagine that I am going to tolerate this VERY LONG process especially if I end up getting to a tough boss fight or something where I am going to have to reload my game multiple times in the same spot.
It also could be because I am playing this on a regular PS4 and that is what is slowing down the process. I don't know because I have never seen this game played on a high end computer or a PS5.
It's frustrating though and I am not hardcore enough of a gamer to simply tolerate the long waits for the sake of the experience. I'm probably not alone in this.
I would love to rant on this, but Cyberpunk is just so flooded with rantable bs it's overwhelming. I really hope they figure all this crap out. The thing looks pretty neat to be so tedious, yk.
There is a lot of complaining going on out there and as much as I hate to contribute to it, this game is not, IMO very well designed. It doesn't end at the loading times either - there is plenty of senseless running around. The other day I saw a somewhat famous streamer who was excited to get the game and was going to stream their experience from start to finish. She only made two videos before telling her audience that "I think this is going to be my last one of these"
Fortunately I haven't encountered any of the crazy bugs that were being reported left and right upon first release.
Just try fall guys, dude, things in gaming seem to be a drag for you now...
haha. Fall Guys is a great way to not be stressed in gaming until you get stuck in a corner :)
Or try rumbleverse, the game was launched 2 days ago. My friends and I will be getting on it soon.
I played C2077 on Stadia and loading times were just fine for me. From what I've read so far, PS4 owners were treated as second-class customers and your post shows it. In a better, healthier world the almighty Cyberpunk Red crew would be forced to return the money you paid for the game and let you keep it for free. What a disaster.
Oh wow, that's the first I am hearing of that. I haven't looked to see how many units were sold on each console or PC but wouldn't PS be near the top? Maybe even number 1.
Don't quote me since I've read about it just after the release of the game, but the PS4/XBOX versions were the worst in terms of performance and bugs, to the point that C2077 was withdrawn from the Playstation store. Eventually, the CDP crew released some dedicated patches, but it was too late to repair the damage done to their reputation. In comparison, the PC version was bearable at the moment of the launch and quite enjoyable two weeks later when a major patch was made.
I hear you and just think how spoiled we are compared to what we had 20 years ago. Dial up internet used to drive me nuts with the funny screeching noise. I tend to give up on games if the loading speed is not fast enough as it is true you end up waiting more than playing each time it restarts.
maybe the next time I am considering rage-quitting this game I just need to put my mind back in the day of dial-up internet. There were plenty of things to be upset about during that time. I guess we took it in stride because most of us didn't have anything to compare it to at that point in our lives.
Dial-up was seriously bad along with that terrible noise of connecting. Things have improved since then and we are still not happy lol. Technology has moved rapidly so we must just wait and see what happens next.
it's difficult to imagine what we will be doing in another 20 years. The tech that we have now was unfathomable back in the days of dial up so is could be something completely crazy.