CD Projekt RED has announced another delay for Cyberpunk 2077. It’s now set to release on November 19th. Originally, the FPS/RPG was set to release on April 16th before being delayed to September 17th. This second delay is for the sake of more polish and bug fixes, according to co-founder Marcin Iwinski and studio head Adam Badowski on Twitter.
Their joint statement reads: “Those of you who are familiar with the way we make games know that we won’t ship something which is not ready. ‘Ready when it’s done’ is not just a phrase we say because it sounds right, it’s something we live by even when we know we’ll take the heat for it. At the same time, we are fully aware that making such a decision costs us your trust and trading trust for additional time is one of the hardest decisions a game developer can make.
“And despite that we think it’s the right decision for the game, we’d still like to apologize for making you wait longer. Our intention is to make Cyberpunk 2077 something that will stay with you for years to come. In the end, we hope you understand why we did what we did.”
The duo noted that at this time, Cyberpunk 2077 is finished “both content and gameplay-wise. The quests, the cutscenes, the skills and items; all the adventures Night City has to offer—it’s all there. But with such an abundance of content and complex systems interweaving with each other, we need to properly go through everything, balance game mechanics, and fix a lot of bugs. A huge world means a huge number of things to iron out and we will spend the additional time doing exactly that.”
It was also revealed that various publications worldwide are starting to go hands-on with the game. “We are eager (and quite stressed) to hear their opinions, as well as see your reactions when they publish their previews right after we air Night City Wire on June 25. We hope this will satisfy some of your hunger for the game as we work to polish it for the November launch.”
It’s worth noting that thanks to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, CD Projekt RED switched to full remote work back in March. How this would have affected quality assurance and testing is unknown. But considering numerous other games have faced delays, it’s not wholly unexpected.
Cyberpunk 2077 is currently in development for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. It will be releasing for Google Stadia at later date. Full-blown, next-gen versions for Xbox Series X and PS5 are ways off. But those who purchase the game on Xbox One will receive free upgraded version for Xbox Series X when it becomes available (with all progress transferring over).