Cyberpunk 2077 might be one of the most highly anticipated games of the current generation, thanks to the pedigree of the developer behind it, and thanks to how promising it has looked in what we have seen so far. But parts of a new report published on Kotaku have brought to light that the game might be going through somewhat troubled development.
It’s become a well known fact that Cyberpunk 2077 rebooted development once very early on, and that in spite of having been announced way back in 2013, development on the game only started in 2015, after CD Projekt RED had wrapped up work on The Witcher 3 and its expansions. But while such things are ordinary in the course of any game’s development, accounts from the studio mention that production on the game has been far from smooth.
An anonymous former CDPR employee mentioned to Kotaku that the upcoming RPG’s development shared many of the troubles that the same outlet had reported on last month about the troubled development of Anthem, calling Cyberpunk 2077’s development “rocky and even-more-rocky-to-become.”
“I’ve felt that there are hundreds of parallels that could be drawn between the story of the rocky development of Anthem and the story of the rocky and even-more-rocky-to-become development of Cyberpunk 2077,” said the former employee. “At times, I’ve felt I could just replace the studio name and the game title, and it would all look so similar, almost identical.”
Some reports have also pegged development on the game going through a rough patch owing to financial troubles at the studio, thanks to the disappointing performance of Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales on the market. However, studio heads Marcin Iwiński and Adam Badowski deny these reports, with Iwiński saying CDPR has “a big war chest” for development.
That said, the developers are pushing harder on production, and will be facing periods of crunch – even though that is something the studio is looking to combat. More specifically, they’re going to have to do this in the lead up to the upcoming E3 2019, where Cyberpunk 2077 will be shown off, and which CD Projekt RED is calling the most important show in its entire history as studio. Clearly, they have huge plans.
That means CDPR has asked employees to work through Polish holidays, and rather than being able to take off work when they want, the periods when holidays are allowed will be restricted and prescribed, with one of those periods being right after E3, and another being this winter.
Of course, this doesn’t paint a disastrous picture of production, and really, in the absence of detailed reports it’s best not to take to doomsaying- but with developers looking to crunch and former employees speaking of troubles during production, it makes more sense that CD Projekt RED has been unwilling to speak about a more specific release date or window for the game.