To say that the release of Cyberpunk 2077 was highly anticipated might be understating the situation somewhat. After more than its fair share of trailers, teasers and false starts the game finally went live worldwide and cross platform yesterday. Understandably, the launch has broken a number of gaming industry records.
Bandwidth records
Via his Twitter feed, senior video games analyst Daniel Ahmad commented upon the huge internet bandwidth that Cyberpunk 2077 ate up. Steam downloads peaked at 23.5Tbps after the game's pre-load period went live – surpassing the actual launch of PUBG 1.0 in December 2017. Moreover, on launch day, Steam download bandwidth use peaked at 51Tbps – more than double its previous record.
Ahmad noted that the Steam stats do not capture the full impact of the Cyberpunk 2077 launch on PC. A lot of PC gamers would have been keen to buy the game via GOG for its no-DRM benefits, and to support the developers more directly. Epic Games Store was another purchasing source for PC gamers.
Cyberpunk 2077's launch even managed to take both Steam and GOG offline for several minutes. CDPR's Fabian Mario Döhla gleefully commented on the situation, saying "Wow. The hype is real".
Concurrent user records
Fallout 4's long standing record for the most concurrent players in a single player game has toppled to Cyberpunk 2077. The new release soundly beats it by 1,003,264 to 472,962 just a few hours after release. Multiplayer titles seem to hold the most Steam gamers online. For example PUBG's record is a massive 3.2m, set in January 2018, but Cyberpunk 2077 is close to challenging second and third placed favourites like CS:GO and Dota 2.
Most popular on PC
The first sales figures we have concern pre-orders, for now. CDPR reveals that it sold 8 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077 before release. This total was split 59:41 between PCs and consoles. I'm sure the firm will be updating us with further sales milestones as and when they happen.
PS4 and Xbox One gamers disappointed?
With all the fanfare owners of older consoles can perhaps be excused for thinking that Cyberpunk 2077 would look great on their machines. However, there have been a number of almost comical stills and video clips shared on social media showing low resolution graphics, blurry visuals, frame drops, and crashes. This video from Legolas gained a lot of traction and the gallery of rogues on social media often look a bit 'potato mode'.
