Following another delay for Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt RED provided some updates to the title in a recent conference call. Joint CEO and president Adam Kicinski addressed whether the company was “feeling good” about a next-gen launch and whether it would be difficult to move that a later date. He noted that such a scenario wasn’t in play.
“First of all, I understood your question as, ‘are we feeling good about launching next to next-gens?’ and the second part of the question was, ‘would it be more difficult for us to move out of that period to some later timing?’ I mean, I’ll start from the end. We are not considering such a scenario right now. As I mentioned, we do believe in the November date, so we’re not building any plans around anything that would mean that Cyberpunk 2077 would launch later than November 19.”
As per Kacinski, the game will have cross-gen compatibility on both Xbox and PlayStation. “There is actually a hardware enhancement of the games, so for current-gen games, if there is engineering work done behind them, it will be playable, you know from the get-go, on both consoles. So in fact we look at it more as an opportunity because we’re going to be targeting both the owners of the current-gen consoles and the next-gen consoles.
“And we’re hoping to be the biggest, or one of the biggest, releases in that time frame, and that definitely can help because there’s going to be additional traffic and interest in video games around that time frame. That’s the perception.”
Long story short, the game will be running on PS4 and PS5 from its launch date along with Xbox One and Xbox Series X. It will “look better” on the next-generation consoles “from day one.” Kicinski also confirmed that there would be a “more robust update” for the next-gen versions in the coming days. This includes plans for a free upgrade to those who buy the game on PS4 (the Xbox One version already supports Smart Delivery).
Finally, an update was provided on the full-blow next-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077. The current ETA is next year but plans could change. “To be honest we don’t know [when we will release the more robust update] yet, as we haven’t decided on a precise date for next-gen. We are sure that we will deliver it next year, but it was not even internally planned for a certain day, so it’s hard to say whether there is a potential delay of the next-gen,” said Kicinski.
Cyberpunk 2077 is currently planned to release on November 19th for PS4, Xbox One and PC with the most recent delay being for additional polish. The Google Stadia version will be launching at later date. Publications around the world are going hands-on with the game this week with their impressions going live after Night City Wire on June 25th. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.