its been known for quite a while now that quite a big portion of the game was scraped at one point and started fresh back around 2016-2017 with a lot of other ideas being attempted and scrapped shortly after.I am starting to assume or believe that in the ultimate end, management might possibly be at fault. Unintentional or not - not like someone consciously decides to do their worst, I mean, but in hindsight it's easy or easier to assess perhaps.
I got the impression, correct me if I'm wrong, that Cyberpunk might have suffered from a lack of initial decisiveness where the project or game should go. This cost valuable time that could've been used implementing and fine-tuning what was scrapped and is missing. You all know examples I don't need to repeat here.
If this was one of the major factors, then I hope that this will be a "lesson learnt" and that the next game will have clear focus from the start, to allow sufficient time to implement and fine-tune everything that is planned, so deliver a "round experience" through and through.
You can already see the potential in many things that could truly shine, given more time and refinement.
Its clear the "End product" didn't have as much time in development as people believe. it wasn't 8 years. Even saying 4 years from 2016 is being generous considering the stuff that was scrapped and started from scratch. id say maybe close to a full 3 years and ultimately not much longer than a lot of other AAA releases, and for a game of this size and ambition it simply wasn't enough time. as Nikola above said, basic assets and some story elements MAYBE were probably kept for the majority of the run, but a lot of core gameplay mechanics etc and whatever else was dropped. Hell they even flat out said they scrapped the Flat head bot and the Techie class
I do believe the Marketing and Dev teams did a truly impressive job and the blame goes to management.