Microsoft's special Cyberpunk 2077 refund policy ends July 6

Microsoft has quietly announced that its special refund provisions for CD Projekt Red's infamous Cyberpunk 2077 are coming to a close due to improvements made to the game since its catastrophic December launch.

The Xbox maker, along with PlayStation and CD Projekt itself, rolled out a special refund policy following Cyberpunk 2077's debut in late 2020 when it was rapidly discovered that the console versions of the game weren't functioning nearly as well as advertised.

According to a support page update, Cyberpunk 2077 will instead start to use the company's standard refund policy for digital games as of July 6.

"The team at CD Projekt Red continues to work hard to improve the experience of Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox players and has made a number of updates," reads Microsoft's note. "Given these updates, Microsoft will be returning to our standard digital game refund policy for Cyberpunk 2077 on July 6 for both new and existing purchases."

At launch, Cyberpunk 2077 was plagued with bugs, graphical issues, and frequent crashes. Consoles, particularly those in the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 generation, saw the worst of it. Shortly after launch, CD Projekt leadership went on record to say they hadn't given those older consoles enough attention during development,  noting that they "ignored the signals about the need for additional time" and primarily used the PC version of the game in pre-release marketing.

"This caused the loss of gamers' trust and the reputation that we’ve been building through a big part of our lives," remarked CD Projekt joint CEO Adam Kicinski last December. "That’s why our first steps are solely focused on regaining those two things. We are concentrated on fixing Cyberpunk on last-gen consoles."

Judging by the fact that Microsoft is winding down its own refund campaign (and that Cyberpunk 2077 is finally back on the PlayStation Store after a 6 month long delisting), the game seems to have been updated to the point where console makers aren't terribly concerned about their players walking away with a bad taste in their mouths. Still, following the PlayStation relisting this month both Sony and CD Projekt warned that console players should expect issues on older models of PlayStation 4 hardware. However, no such warning has popped up for Xbox consoles.

While the game has no doubt improved, the work isn't done. We've already moved past the specific patches outlined in Cyberpunk 2077's update roadmap with last week's launch of version 1.23, but the somewhat vague second part of that graphic promises "multiple updates & improvements" throughout the rest of the year, alongside a next-gen console update and the launch of free downloadable content.