In a week full of major delays, the announcement that CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077 would be delayed was perhaps the least surprising. The scope and scale of the project is immense and the developer talked about how it was pushing hard to meet deadlines. The first person RPG is now slated to release on September 17th and the team is confident that it will hit that date.
In a recent call with investors, CD Projekt joint CEO Adam Kicinski said that the delay was a unanimous decision, one that the team is “very convinced” of after continued evaluation. “We have enough time to finish the game. We want it to be finished and enough buffer to make sure it’s of the quality we want it to be.” The feedback from testing was also said to be “really optimistic and promising.”
Interestingly, while the development team is “thinking” about releasing for next-gen consoles, there are no plans for the same currently. “Cyberpunk is right now heading for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Nothing has changed in regards to the plans. We’re of course looking at the next generation all the time. We’re privy to a lot of information on what’s going on with these platforms, but frankly speaking, we have nothing to share now related to that.”
As for the reason behind the delay, the developer noted that it was more about polishing everything as opposed to problems behind the mechanics. “The game is fairly complex. There are some glitches and we’re not talking about any fundamental or important mechanics. Everything is there, but with the level of complexity and dependencies, polishing is just a complex task. It’s just the number of things we have to take care of, less than any fundamental problem. As we’ve said we’re pretty confident with the game.”
Unfortunately, it seems that the development team will face “some degree” of crunch to get the game ready. The company is “trying to limit crunch as much as possible” and be “reasonable” but “It is the final stage” as per Kicinski.
More updates are planned in the coming months though the studio hasn’t worked out its plans for E3 and Gamescom. Regardless, you can expect more information as the release nears (with a brief lull in the Summer). Cyberpunk 2077 is in development for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Google Stadia.