Cdpr developers Said that “Cyberpunk 2077” should not have been completed Until 2022!

A few days ago, CD Projekt officially released an apology video. In the video, the founder of the company Masin Iveski took responsibility for the problems that occurred after the launch of “Cyberpunk 2077” on himself and the board of directors, asking players not to blame the development team. Marcin Iveski admitted that “Cyberpunk 2077” failed to meet the quality standards they wanted, and they are deeply sorry for that.

From December 10 last year to mid-January this year, CD Projekt’s stock price fell by 30%. The sharp drop in word-of-mouth after the launch of “Cyberpunk 2077” is undoubtedly an important reason for the decline in stock price. Bloomberg News reporter Jason Schreier recently interviewed more than 20 current/former CDPR staff members, describing the game development environment destroyed by out-of-control ambitions, poor planning, and technical flaws. In order to prevent jeopardizing their careers, most interviewees requested anonymity.

When discussing the development of the game for the first time, the staff said that CDPR had sacrificed the development of the game because of its focus on marketing and set an unrealistic time schedule, forcing some team members to work long overtime during the final sprint. CD Projekt declined to comment and also declined to accept an interview with Bloomberg.

CD Projekt will work on repairing “Cyberpunk 2077” in the next few months, rather than the planned DLC content, or starting a new work in the “Witcher” series. The first major update will be released at the end of January. This is a gap with the original vision of the development team. What they have to do now is not to celebrate the successful release of “Cyberpunk 2077”, but to embark on a path of redemption.

Thanks to the studio’s good reputation and the strong publicity campaign before the game’s release, “Cyberpunk 2077” sold 13 million copies for $60 within 10 days of its release. CD Projekt was once the most valuable company in Poland. But after the players got the game, they found various problems.

In all respects, “Cyberpunk 2077” is an ambitious project, which is very different from the work before CDPR. “Cyberpunk 2077” adopts a first-person perspective, which also means that CDPR needs to develop new technologies and explore new areas.

Bloomberg reported that most of the engine technology behind “Cyberpunk 2077” is brand new and was developed at the same time as the game, which also slowed down the development of the game. A member of the team likened this process to driving a train while laying railroad tracks. If the track can be laid a few months in advance, the development process may be smoother.

Adrian Jakubiak is a former audio programmer of CDPR. He revealed that a colleague once asked how the company can complete a more technically challenging project in the same time as “The Witcher”, and the answer he received was: “‘We’ll figure it out as we walk.” Quite a few cars thought that there must be a way to the mountain.

Over the years, CD Projekt has developed with this mentality. But this time the company failed. Adrian Jakubiak said: “I know things will not go smoothly… I just don’t know how much disaster it will cause.”

The disappointment of the players is proportional to the time they waited. CD Projekt employees revealed that although “Cyberpunk 2077” was released in 2012, the company still focused on the previous game until Full development started at the end of 2016. People familiar with the project said that at that time the project actually pressed the reset button.

The head of the studio, Adam Badowski, took over the role of game director and requested a thorough revision of the gameplay and story of “Cyberpunk 2077”. In the following year, everything changed, including the basic elements of the game’s gameplay and perspective. The senior employees who had participated in the development of “The Witcher 3” had their own firm ideas on the development of “Cyberpunk 2077”, which had a conflict with Adam Badowski, and eventually led to the departure of several top developers.

According to several staff members of “Cyberpunk 2077”, the focus of CD Projekt’s work is to impress the outside world. Part of the gameplay of the game was demonstrated at E3 2018. At that time, the ambition and scale of “Cyberpunk 2077” amazed fans and the media. What they didn’t know was that the demo version was almost completely “fake”. CDPR has not yet finalized the game system, which is also the game’s The reason why some features (such as car ambush) are missing in the official version. The developers believe that the launch of the demo version is a waste of time, and these months should have been used for game production.

More than a dozen employees said that they felt the pressure of working overtime from their managers or colleagues. Adrian Jakubiak said: “Sometimes I work 13 hours a day — maybe a little more than my record — I work 5 days a week.” Adrian Jakubiak left CDPR after getting married. He said that some of his friends just I lost my family because of such things.

Overtime has not made game development faster. At the E3 exhibition in June 2019, CD Projekt announced that “Cyberpunk 2077” will be launched on April 16, 2020. Fans are rejoicing, and some members of the development team can only scratch their heads, wondering how they can finish the game at that time. Some people said that they thought this date was just a joke. According to the team’s progress, they expect the game to be completed in 2022. A member of the development team made a meme about the game postponement and bet when it will happen.

The development members said that canceling some functions and reducing the size of “Cyberpunk 2077” Night City will help them, but the growth of the team hinders the development of some departments. “The Witcher 3” was created by approximately 240 internal employees, while “Cyberpunk 2077” has more than 500 internal developers. But because CD Projekt is not yet familiar with this scale, game development members say their team often feels disorganized and isolated.

However, CDPR is still understaffed. Games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are produced by dozens of studios and thousands of people. In addition, the foreigners from the United States and Western Europe hired by CDPR also brought cultural barriers. Although the studio requires everyone to communicate in English during meetings with non-Polish-speaking employees, not everyone follows the rules.

Although the game’s release time seems increasingly unrealistic, the management said that delay is impossible, and their goal is to launch “Cyberpunk 2077” before Microsoft and Sony release new consoles. In this way, you can publish games on PS4, Xbox One, and PC platforms, and then release new versions on next-generation consoles. Users who have purchased the old console version can get a free upgrade when the new version is launched. Some engineers realized that “Cyberpunk 2077” is too complicated to run well on the 7-year-old console. The city is full of people and buildings. However, the management ignored their concerns and cited the example of the successful launch of The Witcher 3.

At the end of 2019, the management finally admitted that “Cyberpunk 2077” needs to be postponed. In January 2020, CDPR postponed the release date of the game to September. In March 2020, the epidemic began to raging around the world, and CD Projekt employees had to complete the game at home. Due to the inability to use relevant host development tools, most developers will build games on their home computers, so everyone is not clear about the operation of “Cyberpunk 2077” on PS4 and Xbox One platforms. However, external tests showed obvious performance problems.

According to several people familiar with the development situation, as the release date approaches, everyone in the studio knows that the game is still in its infancy and needs more time. A lot of dialogue is missing in the game, and some operations can’t work properly. When the management announced in October that “Cyberpunk 2077” was ready to press, some major loopholes were still discovered. The game was delayed for another three weeks, and exhausted programmers were busy repairing it.

When “Cyberpunk 2077” was officially released on December 10, the players responded quickly and fiercely. The sharers were full of screens with small trees, or characters wandering around without pants, and also listed a series of promises. Features that have passed but failed to appear in the official version.

The developer said that many of the game’s bugs and graphics problems can be solved, but it is still unclear what measures need to be taken to regain a place in the PlayStation store. Winning fans back is not a simple matter, but there are precedents in the video game industry. “No Man’s Sky”, “Final Fantasy 14”, “Destiny” and other works have been continuously improved after the release, and have gained praise from players. CD Projekt’s stock price has risen 6% recently after the founder Marcin Iveski released an apology video.