Review Deep Dives

How Cyberpunk 2077 Became One of Steam's Best: From 59% to 95%

BC2S · 2026-10-21

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Short version: few games have changed their reputation on Steam as much as Cyberpunk 2077. In its launch month, December 2020, 78% of Steam reviews recommended it. By March 2021 that had fallen to 59%. Since then the yearly share has risen every year: 82% in 2022, 88% in 2023, 93% in 2024, and 95% in the past 30 days. With Edgerunners 2 released on Netflix on October 20, 2026, here is how players' verdict moved, stage by stage, and what the 433 recent reviews we read say about the game today: 93.2 out of 100, 43rd of the 1,050 games we have analyzed.

Part 1 of our Cyberpunk series. Part 2 ranks the cyberpunk games on Steam by player reviews; Part 3 checks whether Edgerunners 2 brings players back.

What we read

Two sources. For the change over time, Steam's public review history for Cyberpunk 2077: how many reviews were posted each month since launch, and what share recommended the game (953,904 reviews in all, as of October 20, 2026). For the game today, 433 Steam user reviews from the past year, in all languages, analyzed on September 15, 2026. Each is scored on 25 indicators in 8 categories, from −5 to +5. How we score games.

Six years of Steam reviews

Share of the Steam reviews posted in that year that recommend the game:

The rise was not one jump. It came in four stages.

Stage 1: the launch (December 2020)

The game launched on December 10, 2020, and drew 290,805 Steam reviews in its first three weeks, more than in any full year since. 78.2% recommended it. The trouble was worst on consoles: a week after launch Sony removed it from the PlayStation Store and offered refunds, after players on base PS4 reported crashes and poor performance.

Stage 2: the low point (2021)

The PC version on Steam did not escape. The monthly share fell three months in a row:

From March to August 2021 the share stayed between 59% and 70%, and the number of new reviews kept shrinking, to about 3,500 a month by October. Over the whole year, 73.2% recommended the game. There was one more single month below 60% later (March 2022, 50.7%).

Stage 3: patch 1.6 and Edgerunners (September 2022)

By mid 2022 the share was already back in the 80s, but few people were writing. In September 2022 the number of reviews quadrupled. The first Edgerunners season came out that month, but so did patch 1.6. We cannot estimate exactly how much of the jump came from the anime, but CD Projekt Red said at the time that 1 million players a day were visiting Night City that week. Two months later the monthly share passed 90% for the first time.

Stage 4: update 2.0 and Phantom Liberty (September 2023)

Update 2.0 rebuilt skills, cyberware, the police system and vehicle combat (CD Projekt Red), and the Phantom Liberty expansion followed five days later. October 2023 drew more reviews than any month since 2021. From 2024 on, every month has been at 90% or higher.

Now: steady at 95%, and Edgerunners 2

The game now gets about 270 Steam reviews a day, and 95% of them recommend it. Edgerunners 2 arrived on October 20. Whether it brings a wave like September 2022 is the question for Part 3 of this series.

Today, in our analysis

Overall: 93.2 / 100, 43rd of 1,050 analyzed games.

Multiplayer is left out: the game has none, and only 2% of reviews mention it. The category that dragged down its reputation at launch, Tech & Support, now ranks 27th of 1,050.

What players love now: the story and Night City

Summarized from what reviewers wrote (the number is how many reviews made the point):

• "Story and plot are the biggest strength" (131 reviews)
• "Immersive cyberpunk atmosphere with rich world details" (105 reviews)
• "Story was super good, characters were great, gameplay really fun and addicting" (55 reviews)
• "Gorgeous art style, Night City is visually stunning" (37 reviews)
• "Johnny Silverhand is a cool character" (26 reviews)

Story & World comes up in 84% of reviews, more than any other category, and scores +4.1. The world itself (+4.3) and the visuals (+4.4) score even higher. Below the top five, the praise spreads across almost every part of the game:

The characters. Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves, comes up by name in 69 of the 433 reviews. Some reviewers single out the dynamic between Johnny and V; others, the writing of side characters such as Kerry Eurodyne.

Phantom Liberty. The 2023 expansion is named in 59 reviews, and all 59 recommend the game. The most upvoted of them praises its "tragic existential story."

Builds and playstyles. 14 reviews praise how different builds change the game, with "many playstyles and builds to choose from." Some say stealth and open combat both work; a few single out the katana.

Music and voice acting. 8 reviews single out the soundtrack and the voice cast; one says the soundtrack alone is worth playing for.

The comeback itself. 9 reviews praise the developer for not giving up on the game, with summaries such as "developers never abandoned project, fixed all issues over years" and "updates and fixes showed redemption." Another 9 say it now runs well: "game is now incredibly stable with almost no bugs," "runs smoothly on modest hardware."

Where it falls short: bugs have not disappeared

• "Numerous game-breaking bugs including collision, clipping and physics errors" (54 reviews)
• "Long term consequences lacking, endings make some choices irrelevant" (14 reviews)
• "Fixed first-person perspective creates disconnect between player and protagonist" (12 reviews)
• "Content cut from original vision evident" (12 reviews)
• "Optimization issues, bugs and glitches present" (10 reviews)

Bugs are still the most common complaint, in 54 of the 433 reviews. The stability score sits just below zero (−0.1). What lifts Tech & Support to 27th is that the complaints are now outweighed: developer support scores +0.7, mentioned in 24% of reviews.

Not every language agrees

Reviews in English (93.8), Portuguese (96.5), Russian (96.4), Spanish (95.5) and Turkish (94.7) all land in the mid 90s. Chinese reviews score 79.2, the lowest of the six languages we read most. With 54 Chinese reviews, that gap is worth watching rather than explaining.

What critics say, then and now

Critics moved too, but their story starts in a different place. On PC, critics liked the game from the start; the low scores came from the older consoles.

The split shows up within one outlet: OpenCritic lists IGN's 9/10 for the PC version and 4/10 for Xbox One and PS4. Across OpenCritic's 230 reviews of the base game, most written at launch, 66% of critics recommend it; for Phantom Liberty, 99% did, and GameSpot gave the expansion 10/10.

Steam players, who are on PC, followed a different path: 78% at launch, 59% three months later, then a slow climb to 95%. After update 2.0, Grimdark Magazine wrote that "the new game is better in virtually every possible way," and ChannelLife said that apart from No Man's Sky, "no other game has redeemed itself in such a spectacular fashion."

Is there room to improve?

The remaining complaints are specific. Collision, clipping and physics bugs are the one thing that still shows up in more than one review in ten. The others (endings that ignore earlier choices, the fixed first-person view, content cut from the original plan) are design decisions that are unlikely to change this late.

Limits

1) This measures what reviewers wrote, not the game itself.

2) The yearly and monthly shares are Steam's own counts. Reviewers can edit a review later, and a rise in a month is not proof of what caused it.

3) Our 433 reviews were analyzed on September 15, 2026, before Edgerunners 2 was released. Steam figures are as of October 20, 2026, and October 2026 is a partial month.

BC2S. Better Creative, Better Society. We read hundreds of thousands of reviews so you can see what people really think.

Game pages: Cyberpunk 2077 · How we score games