Like I said I'm basing my assessment on both games by the response the community gave and reviews Ive read and seen. I tend to do the patient gamer thing and wait for big steam sales before buying a game(unless its something I really want and sometimes I know indy games are already cheap and grab it at a lesser sale). Cyberpunk had a similarly criticized launch with the multiple daily 1001 posts on reddit and much like starfield has people who defend it you had people defending cyberpunk as well.

But from the outside looking in it was literally the same. You had the people who let themselves get spunup by the hypemachine absolutely let down when the game didnt live up to the hype.

You had the people who were chastising the bugs and "dated mechanics" how the game "didnt feel alive" and the "driving physics suck"

You had the hardcore CRPG fans for whom the only true RPG is: Baldurs gate 2, Morowind, Fallout 2, and special mentions to fallout new vegas. They'd come in and criticize lack of options and choice and blablabla.

You had the youtubers clowning on the game like Dunky showcasing a bug-fest.

And among people who actually reviewed the game the community consensus I saw was polarizing. Some did love it but a lot of people expressed it not living up to potential.

Again I cant say for sure(maybe next winter sale will be my time to shine) but it's feels like this outrage cycle was targeting cyberpunk for a while and then one day it just stopped. And now that its time for the community to throw their poo at something again cyberpunk is the hero of the story.

So sorry for the rambling but in short my post is less a personal judgment of cyberpunk and more a "the community hated this game and had little good to say about it, and now it's their precious baby and starfield is the bad one". I know its not happening here but I figure rather than spitting into the wind on reddit I'd complain about this weird online discourse here.

Part of me almost wonders if it's been elevated because it's frequently featured on those benchmark videos that have gotten so popular lately. Heavy use of ray tracing, frequently updated to get new features, very tweakable, and thousands of videos using Cyberpunk as the standard for hardware to be measured by just puts a bug in your head.

PL brought a trait system overhaul, cyberware overhaul, and combat overhaul that dramatically changed up the gameplay loop even in the core game.

The story was always amazingly crafted, but the game never warranted a second play through. Now it does.

CP was shit and unplayable on consoles at release and more-or-less buggy depending on hardware but fully playable on PC. It did not live up to the grandiose marketing promises but it is a wonderful game for what it is. Interesting world, varied quests/gigs/jobs with interesting decisions to make, super fun weapons, and now a fun skill build mechanics.

Phantom Liberty is peak Cyberpunk, but the game itself is great - at release and now even more. Does not excuse the pathetic release though and deceiving marketing. At least they did something with it.