Bugs in Games?

[2fly2die]

If a mod could make this post into it's own thread it would be appreciated - I don't really feel like spamming the forum with 10 low quality posts.


I want to gauge what people think about this. I’m more of a casual gamer these days, so I don’t keep up with the different communities. There are definitely people making noise about these issues, but it seems like most people don’t really care, or they just decide to put up with it.

What am I even talking about? Bugs. Game-breaking bugs. When Cyberpunk initially came out, it was very obvious they pulled it out of the oven too early—but that seems to be the way business is done these days. Okay, whatever, not even a big deal—that’s why I didn’t buy it then. I saw it on sale on Epic about a week ago, ~60% off I think, and all the reviews seemed pretty positive. People were saying the game is actually pretty sick now, with lots of updates, patches, added content, and that Phantom-whatever expansion is out. I don't even know what that is yet because I keep having to lose progress, 11 hours in and I'm still doing like the first-ish Panam missions.


So I buy it. I’m enjoying it. I get to the Delamain missions—something goes wrong about halfway through, and the next part of the mission doesn’t trigger properly. That one might even have been my fault; I’m not totally sure if it was just the game bugging out. Long story short: I’m 11 hours in, I’ve lost progress, and I’ve had to reload old saves maybe four times now. And now I can’t do anything at all—I can’t draw weapons, can’t use items or grenades, can’t use ladders (randomly). And yeah, I could go on Reddit and look up the workarounds, but… why?


So now, because I’m 11 hours in, I can’t get a refund—even though the game is in a state where I literally can’t progress any further because of a game-breaking bug. So what, now I have to go write a complaint to the government consumer protection agency to get 60 bucks back? And that’s even if I’ll get it back, lmao. That 60 bucks could’ve gone toward Anno 117.


So my questions to people are:

• Do you encounter stuff like this in games often (bugs that stop progress or force you to load an old save)?
• On average since the begging of 2025 until now what has your gaming experience been like?
  (Generally good, generally bad..)
• How much does stuff like this bother you—do you just tend to put up with it?
• What would it take for you personally to escalate an issue like this with your consumer protection agency?
  or do you feel like it’s a waste of time because nothing will be done—or you just don’t have the time to waste on something like that?

And the most important question:
Am I just tilted and over-reacting and this isn't even that big of a deal?
[. . .]

 

[Riven-Twain]

Moderator: Thread created. However, please, rephrase your closing question, if you wish to continue the discussion.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Do you encounter stuff like this in games often (bugs that stop progress or force you to load an old save)?

Personally, no. For exemple, during my +3K hours (and countless playthroughs) in Cyberpunk I encountered one or maybe two game breaking bugs which forced me to reload a previous save... I even managed to finish the game entirely at release (every main/side quests, every GIGs and every NCPD Scanner Hustles).
I guess I'm a lucky gamer and it's generally the case for most games... Beside, if the game is good, I can forgive bugs, even game breaking bugs

 

[2fly2die]

Personally, no. For exemple, during my +3K hours (and countless playthroughs) in Cyberpunk I encountered one or maybe two game breaking bugs which forced me to reload a previous save... I even managed to finish the game entirely at release (every main/side quests, every GIGs and every NCPD Scanner Hustles).
I guess I'm a lucky gamer and it's generally the case for most games... Beside, if the game is good, I can forgive bugs, even game breaking bugs

Yeah that's fair enough and most bugs aren't a big deal and they can even inspire entire mods and new game's within the game and I'm completely understanding that these are complex games and I don't expect perfection but I think we're letting these companies abuse us at this point.

For example, I contact Epic support and look I don't expect much from the support guy, I really don't but if you're going to conduct business in these different countries you have to follow the consumer laws of that country where you are conducting business but they don't and they put no effort into training their support staff to deal with these issues which leaves us as the customers where exactly? And the same goes for CDPR - How can you sell something which is in this state, you can't, it's not legal... But they're getting away with it because we let them.

That's really what I'm trying to gauge here I guess is how much abuse are people willing to take and why?

And genuinely - Do people not see it this way? I specifically asked the question on these forums because people here obviously really enjoy the game like you said you have 3k hours and thats the kinda person I wanna' understand - How they think about these things.

For me it just makes it impossible to enjoy the game - I was having a good time with it, the story was kinda decent even but I was more excited about exploring the world because I think they did a great job with it but when you're constantly taken out of the immersion and the story because you gotta go on reddit and try and troubleshoot whatever game breaking bug it's just unreasonable at that point - You cannot sell something in that state. You just can't.

 

[SigilFey]

Well, not only can one, but one has to.

Bugs are a part of human error with code. With 1,000,000+ lines of code, that margin for error is going to be exacerbated to a huge extent. It's not unreasonable that games have bugs -- it's a miracle that games don't have more utterly game-breaking issues.

Imagine writing a book with 5 other people. You write in American English, another person writes in British English, another one writes in English learned as a second language, and the last two write in Spanish and Mandarin but translate their work into English. Everything you write is supposed to be perfectly understandable to the other 4 people, and you're also supposed to capture the nuance that each person creates in their own, chosen language. Plus, your book is going to be over 3,000,000 "words." (A typical "big" novel is between 100,000 and 300,000 words.)

Every missed comma...is a bug.
Every run-on sentence, no mater how clear...is a bug.
Every misplaced modifier...is potentially a chain of bugs.
Every time someone doesn't capitalize something (despite the fact that capitalization rules are different in different languages)...that's a bug.

Then, 3 of the 5 writers leave. Mid-novel. You can read what they've written, and you can look at whatever notes they've left. But! you're not allowed to ask them any questions. For all intents and purposes, due to NDA and contract, whatever they've done is "as is". It's up to you to interpret it as best you can in your own language and blend what you create into the rest...making not one mistake.

It's impossible.

Code is language art. The choice is very simple:

1.) Code only small, compact games of less than 100,000 lines written by one and only one person (like a single-player mobile app). Have another 3 people comb it for issues and fix every last bug, and then enjoy games with the general complexity of Candy Crush.

or

2.) Code complex games of 1 million plus lines of code that create rich, complex experiences written by numerous people over years at a time...but you'll have to put up with the occasional bug.

There is no other possibility. As long as human creativity is part of the process, there will be human error and imperfection. In the future, AI might be able to help somewhat, but only somewhat...as we haven't even gotten into how changing something to fix 1 bug introduces 15 other bugs than never existed before.

There is nothing "simple" about it. It's a simple reality of creativity and innovation.

 

[2fly2die]

Bugs are a part of human error with code. With 1,000,000+ lines of code, that margin for error is going to be exacerbated to a huge extent. It's not unreasonable that games have bugs -- it's a miracle that games don't have more utterly game-breaking issues.

This is just false. I am very empathetic to the fact that creating these giant, complicated worlds in such a short time is a tough task and the publishers/companies don't make the devs life easier with their unreasonable demands.

But there are hundreds of giant world games which do not have these bugs. So what you're saying is just false, it can be done, it is actively being done.

I also don't have a problem with bugs in games - I remember back in the day some bugs would get turned into entire game modes or mods for games but there is a major difference between bugs and not being able to play the game, to progress in the game because you constantly have to troubleshoot. Constantly have to load old saves and lose progress because something is always coming up.

My issues aren't unique, these issues can be traced back to when the game originally released and people are reporting the same bugs still to this day, I am NOT a unique case. So, the way it looks to me is this:

They've made massive improvements, they've added a heap of content, they've spent I imagine millions on hiring these actors etc. But there are still CORE bugs which have been present since day 1 which just break the entire game and you cannot progress any further.

Where does that leave me as a customer? Why do I have to spend all this time, energy troubleshooting a game? I have a library of hundreds of games and I'm very careful about my purchases. This is why I waited so long to get Cyberpunk. I've had similar issues with a couple of other games, Civ 6 got an update where they included a new launcher and it just broke the game entirely but I couldn't play the old version because I was FORCED to update before I could play. This sort of behaviour is unreasonable to consumers.

I was really enjoying Cyberpunk - I tried my best, my absolute best to be in good faith about all of this, when I first started seeing problems I worked around them because yeah, it's not really a big deal I can reload a save or do whatever I need to get around a couple bugs but the problem is that I keep having to do it.

We are ALL consumers which is why I just don't understand how people can defend or just accept this. It's not an impossible ask, I'm not asking for perfection I think I'm being very reasonable here..

I don't know, maybe I am just tilted about this but I really don't think I'm being very unreasonable.

Would you accept this if it was furniture or a fridge or a TV? You buy a couch and a week later you go to sit down on it and land on your butt completely out of nowhere - Would you then say oh well furniture making is a very intricate process and yada yada, I don't think so? I mean let's be actually honest here would you accept that?

 

[LeKill3rFou]

And genuinely - Do people not see it this way? I specifically asked the question on these forums because people here obviously really enjoy the game like you said you have 3k hours and thats the kinda person I wanna' understand - How they think about these things.

Since decade(s) I played a lot of games which could be considered as buggy mess (at launch at least) like Bethesda games, ARK, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Pathfinder (kingmaker/WOTR), The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky to only quote a few ones...
But despite of bugs, these games often turned to be the best games I played.

So I would say that I prefer "good" games with bugs because devs tried new things, took risks,... rather than totally bug-free games but mid or boring as hell.

But again, it's just me. I guess I have a high tolerance when it come to bugs (to be fair, I'm use to play "buggy games", so I save very, very often and if I have to reload a previous save because of a bug, it's generally not a big deal).

 

[2fly2die]

Since decade(s) I played a lot of games which could be considered as buggy mess (at launch at least) like Bethesda games, ARK, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Pathfinder (kingmaker/WOTR), The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky to only quote a few ones...
But despite of bugs, these games often turned to be the best games I played.

So I would say that I prefer "good" games with bugs because devs tried new things, took risks,... rather than totally bug-free games but mid or boring as hell.

But again, it's just me. I guess I have a high tolerance when it come to bugs (to be fair, I'm use to play "buggy games", so I save very, very often and if I have to reload a previous save because of a bug, it's generally not a big deal).

I totally get where you're coming from - I bought Kingdom Come Deliverance on release and that game had what you would call game breaking bugs I remember if you tried to kill chickens at that dudes house in the beginning the game would just crash but so, that sort of bug I am totally okay with because you know when it's coming, you know that if you kill chicken in this area = game crash.

The problem I'm having with cyberpunk right now is that the bugs are inconsistent and I dont know what is triggering them and I don't think anyone else really knows what is actually triggering them. It's just frustrating having to troubleshoot stuff instead of playing the game.

So in my last post I mentioned Civ 6. So I bought that game on release - It had some issues with UI and whatever and bugs here and there but I was able to play the game, I can get around weird glitches or small bugs. The problem came when 2K forced an update which included a new 2K launcher for Civ 6 which just totally broke the game and it would just crash randomly - something that never happened before. Before, whatever glitches and bugs did exist, they didn't break the actual game, it didn't stop your progress it was just some weird minor glitch type thing.

Maybe I'm just not being clear about exactly what kind of bugs I'm talking about but something like that which just breaks a game entirely, in a random way, I don't know, I just find that so unacceptable. It just lights a fire in my soul - So yeah, maybe I'm just being too emotional about this all.

I appreciate your take tho, I've posted similar questions on other forums, subreddits - And so far my conclusion is that most people just don't care, and they put up with it and the ones who do seem to care - at least in their words, they just seem to do just that, talk with no action, they won't take the time to write a proper complaint to their government consumer agency.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I appreciate your take tho, I've posted similar questions on other forums, subreddits - And so far my conclusion is that most people just don't care, and they put up with it and the ones who do seem to care - at least in their words, they just seem to do just that, talk with no action, they won't take the time to write a proper complaint to their government consumer agency.

It's just my opinion, but it wouldn't help anyone at the end. It would just make studios fearing trying new things or taking risks.

Let's take KCD as example (it was quite terrible, more than Cyberpunk if you ask me... A lot of people, me included, lost hours of progress because of bugs and the save system). If players didn't supported them and would have sued Warhorse because the state of the game, Warhorse would have probably went bankrupt and even less been able to release KCD2, one of the best RPG in ages. It would have been such a shame to be honest.

The same goes for Pathfinder and Owlcat. Kingmaker was released in a terrible state and still have some issue. But because players kept supporting the studio despite of bugs, Owlcat was able to make one of the best cRPG, Wrath Of The Righteous (also pretty buggy at release).

If you ask me, about bugs, complaining to government consumer agency would only make things worse... In short, only pushing studios to do like Ubisoft, which is releasing almost the same game each time (which they know works fine) only changing the packaging (Shadow is more or less an Odyssey/Valhalla but in Japan...)

 

[2fly2die]

It's just my opinion, but it wouldn't help anyone at the end. It would just make studios fearing trying new things or taking risks.

Let's take KCD as example (it was quite terrible, more than Cyberpunk if you ask me... A lot of people, me included, lost hours of progress because of bugs and the save system). If players didn't supported them and would have sued Warhorse because the state of the game, Warhorse would have probably went bankrupt and even less been able to release KCD2, one of the best RPG in ages. It would have been such a shame to be honest.

Very big difference with the KCD situation though because when I raised issues with game breaking bugs with KCD devs they were incredibly responsive and helpful and were upfront about it, and offered immediate refunds. CDPR are not upfront about it - But again, I'm not blaming the devs, I understand these are corporate, business decisions.

But again, we as consumers have rights and there comes a point where you just have to fight for those rights. I think ultimately that's probably where we disagree.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

But again, we as consumers have rights and there comes a point where you just have to fight for those rights. I think ultimately that's probably where we disagree.

Yes but it depend about what
If a game is not what it was advertised/sold, yes. Or if you're no longer able to play a game you paid for (like we saw recently with servers closed for paid multiplayer games), also yes.

But bugs, not really in my opinion. Bugs are always, always unexpected and unintended. Even with the best QA testing teams ever, when there are thousands, hundreds thousands or millions of players who play the game in so many different way, unexpected bugs will always rise. Then most often, fixing one bugs will create other ones... It's pretty much an endless task.

If it was possible, in an ideal world, studios would always want to release totally bug free games. But it's not and never will. After, I don't say that you have to be ok with this. If you can't stand bugs, well either wait for the game to be almost entirely fixed (if it is one day) or avoid to play the game

 

[2fly2die]

Yes but it depend about what
If a game is not what it was advertised/sold, yes. Or if you're no longer able to play a game you paid for (like we saw recently with servers closed for paid multiplayer games), also yes.

But bugs, not really in my opinion. Bugs are always, always unexpected and unintended. Even with the best QA testing teams ever, when there are thousands, hundreds thousands or millions of players who play the game in so many different way, unexpected bugs will always rise. Then most often, fixing one bugs will create other ones... It's pretty much an endless task.

If it was possible, in an ideal world, studios would always want to release totally bug free games. But it's not and never will. After, I don't say that you have to be ok with this. If you can't stand bugs, well either wait for the game to be almost entirely fixed (if it is one day) or avoid to play the game

Why was GTA 5 bug free? (I mean major bugs) I played the entire story start to end and never had to reload a save because of a bug. There were lots of glitches and unexpected behaviour but no game breaking bugs, nothing that prevented me from playing the story.

There are many, there are hundreds of big, intricate world games which simply do not have the game-breaking, progress-breaking bugs that Cyberpunk still has after all of this time.

I'm not saying that games should be perfect - I'm saying that they shouldn't force you to spend more time troubleshooting issues than playing the actual game.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Why was GTA 5 bug free? (I mean major bugs) I played the entire story start to end and never had to reload a save because of a bug. There were lots of glitches and unexpected behaviour but no game breaking bugs, nothing that prevented me from playing the story.

I didn't played a lot, but if I remember, it was like RDR2. Which means that every quest or event was entirely guided/scripted. Impossible for players to do anything but what they're intended to do (you picked the wrong car > fail, you follow the wrong path > fail, leave the area > fail, etc..)
Because of this "design", it way more easy for devs to ensure everything goes exactly in the intended way which really help to avoid bugs/problems.

It way, way more complicated in game like Cyberpunk (or KCD, or any RPG) in which players are way more free. They have an objective and achieve it as they want to, when they want, in the way they want (I mean you can start a quest, leave the area, complete other things in the meantime and come back later, way later. And you can do it for almost every single quests).

That's why RPGs generally tend to be a bit more buggy than other games.

Again, You may have been unlucky (or me very lucky) with Cyberpunk, because I haven't encountered any major problems for a very long time

 

[2fly2die]

I didn't played a lot, but if I remember, it was like RDR2. Which means that every quest or event was entirely guided/scripted. Impossible for players to do anything but what they're intended to do (you picked the wrong car > fail, you follow the wrong path > fail, leave the area > fail, etc..)
Because of this "design", it way more easy for devs to ensure everything goes exactly in the intended way which really help to avoid bugs/problems.

It way, way more complicated in game like Cyberpunk (or KCD, or any RPG) in which players are way more free. They have an objective and achieve it as they want to, when they want, in the way they want (I mean you can start a quest, leave the area, complete other things in the meantime and come back later, way later. And you can do it for almost every single quests).

That's why RPGs generally tend to be a bit more buggy than other games.

Again, You may have been unlucky (or me very lucky) with Cyberpunk, because I haven't encountered any major problems for a very long time

I think we are just dancing around the actual problem/point here. There are many examples and many games which are similar to Cyberpunk and they do not have these major game breaking bugs.

Again, let me reiterate that I'm not trying to blame the devs here but the business practices of game studios/publishers/game store fronts like Steam/Epic.

Bugs are fine, bugs are part of life if you're a gamer - game breaking bugs, that's were the issue is.

not able to progress because game will not allow me to draw weapons, use weapons, use items (medical, grenades) it will not let you progress because to progress you must be able to kill this NPC or do this thing which requires a grenade or use of your weapons. Or I just randomly can't use ladders anymore and oh the objective is up top, past those two ladders? Well I guess I'm shit outta luck huh?

 

[GrimReaper801]

I don't really come here anymore and I was only planning on lurking to get info on the latest patch but your thread caught my attention since it touches on a broader conversation going on in the indrustry.

First I want to touch on this since it's innacurate and leads to the rest of my thoughts on the CP2077 situation:

Very big difference with the KCD situation though because when I raised issues with game breaking bugs with KCD devs they were incredibly responsive and helpful and were upfront about it, and offered immediate refunds. CDPR are not upfront about it - But again, I'm not blaming the devs, I understand these are corporate, business decisions.

CDPR may not be very responsive anymore about CP's bugs, but there was a time when they were. More specifically, they launched a huge refund campaign that landed them in trouble with Sony to allow players to get refunded way past the typical refund window. That was shortly after launch. The vast majority chose to keep the game.

That includes me. I can tell you why I chose to keep the game but, obviously, I can only speak for myself. Back at launch, I was one of the few with no issues whatsoever. My game ran fine. No game breaking bugs, I experienced minor bugs but nothing that ruined my enjoyment. There was no doubt in my mind the majority was experiencing major issues but it ran fine for me so why refund a game that was, as far as I'm concerned, awesome?

With that said, I believe it was patch 1.2 IIRC that changed this for me. Utterly broke my game. Suddenly, I couldn't advance the game anymore. My tone changed massively at that point. Yet, I still wouldn't have wanted a refund. The game itself was still as awesome and I expected my issues would be fixed and they were. Had they never been, I probably would have reached out to CDPR for help and/or a refund. Also, and this is important, I understood I was the minority. The majority was seeing improvement. I was very much part of a minority of players having a worse time with the new patch.

Which is what you are. Your posts read as if you believe your situation to be widespread. It is not. The vast majority has enjoyed and is enjoying the game just fine. The majority of people are able to play from begining to end without game breaking bugs. If they weren't, it would be reflected in reviews just like it was in reviews at launch.

You can certainly make a complaint to your local consumer agency if you want but you most likely won't get any results unless you can prove a widespread issue and your specific issues are not widespread at all. At least, not anymore.

Your experience sucks and I feel for you. It's an infuriating situation to be in but sometimes it just happens. Especially on PC where there is a million hardware and software combinations that might lead to a slew of different issues. Not to mention some people take very little care of their PC which only adds to the whole thing. I want to be clear that I am not saying there is anything wrong with your PC, simply mentioning things that can lead to issues.

This is further exacerbated by the type of game too. Huge worlds with a million things happening under the hood tend to have more bugs, game breaking or not. You mentioned GTA5 as launching major bugs free but that was just your experience. A quick Google search reveals plenty of people speaking of game breaking bugs. Certainly not the majority though, just like you are part of a minority experiencing these bugs with CP2077 in 2025.

I know it sucks and genuinely hope there is a solution for your issues out there. Try reaching out to CDPR's support if you haven't already. As long as your game is, and always has been, vanilla they will try to help.

Just FYI, I probably won't see if you respond to my post since, as I previously said, I try to avoid this forum and don't log on most of the time. Just saying this to avoid you wasting your time on a potentially long response. Again, I hope you find a solution!

 

[DonLuzolvaz]

I get to the Delamain missions—something goes wrong about halfway through, and the next part of the mission doesn’t trigger properly.

Hi there. This is off topic but you may want to report this issue to their support team while they're still working on patches for the game.

 

[wilczajagoda]

I've been running into game breaking bugs since I've been playing the game, which was version 1.x (I don't recall exactly which). Imo it's the result of too many quests involving scripted scenarios. If one thing breaks, it can prevent the player from progressing even if the quest is a minor gig and not related to the main story.

For example, getting stuck in an area, because the quest objective was to kill all enemies but they would spawn in a wall, so that was impossible. And you could not leave that area until you completed the objective... It's not the buggiest game that I've played, but I think some of these bugs would not be "game stoppers" with a less scripted approach.

 

[northwold]

It's a weird one especially on PC but the types of bugs the OP refers to that actually block progress I would never be happy with in any game. But, on PC, i have simply never come across them in Cyberpunk except something involving a chicken in a shop in the early days (I assume it's been fixed now) for which the solution was well publicised online.

So much of what an open world game does is going to vary depending on eg what order you play things, your machine specs, whether you're using mods, that you may be experiencing something no one else sees (as another poster has pointed out). I was one of the lucky ones who experienced essentially nothing wrong at all from the very early days -- indeed, I see more little glitches now than I ever had then.

I'd strongly recommended submitting your issue, whatever it is, to CDPR's technical support.

 

[Neuronin]

There is nothing "simple" about it. It's a simple reality of creativity and innovation.

Well said, but this is why I think developers should adherer to the principle of less is more. I'd actually prefer Night City to be slightly smaller in Cyberpunk 2, if it means a more polished and stable game. Maybe if CDPR had reduced the complexity of CP2077 by ten percent, we'd have a higher quality experience on our hands.

It's kind of pointless to incorporate something like the Delamain Cab, when it's so broken that every other trip becomes a nightmare. My first ride had Delamain mow down two cops, triggering a police chase that eventually forced V to exit the vehicle and sprint away from the scene. V still had to pay the fee by the way.

 

[wilczajagoda]

It's a weird one especially on PC but the types of bugs the OP refers to that actually block progress I would never be happy with in any game. But, on PC, i have simply never come across them in Cyberpunk except something involving a chicken in a shop in the early days (I assume it's been fixed now) for which the solution was well publicised online.

Well, the 'locked in a location' bug happened when playing base game, and with another gig in PL. This was when playing GFN.
Now I am playing on mac, and have run into the 'cannot save' bug in Judy's questline; I think someone reported this bug on these forums already. Autosaves weren't working either.
In both cases the only solution was to reload to before starting the quest. So I believe the OP.

And I agree with the previous poster, that Delamain is an example. In one of those scripted taxi car chases I've had Del flip and land upside down, which broke the gig. Because it didn't count as catching the car, since it was not part of the script. Although in this case it was not a game stopping bug.