A box with the Sony PlayStation 4 Cyberpunk 2077 Collector’s Edition on the counter.
Alexander Sayganov | SOUP Pictures | LightRocket using Getty Images
LONDON – Cyberpunk 2077 developers back release new game content to focus on fixing bugs and crashes.
Polish game developer and publisher CD Projekt released the highly anticipated science fiction epic last month. It has been the target of fierce criticism for publishing what many fans and critics saw as an unfinished game.
Cyberpunk was one of the most publicized big-budget video games of 2020. But it was plagued by a multitude of bugs and performance drops on older consoles like Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One.
CD Projekt tried to satisfy the fans with the promise of refunds and game improvements. But that didn’t stop Sony from removing Cyberpunk from its digital PlayStation Store, a move that many industry analysts said was unprecedented for a triple A title.
Marcin Iwiński, co-founder of CD Projekt, apologized in a video posted on the game’s YouTube channel on Wednesday.
“Despite good reviews on PC, the console version of Cyberpunk 2077 did not meet the quality standard we wanted it to meet,” Iwiński said. “I and the entire management team feel deeply for that, and this video is public so far.”
“Please don’t blame any of our teams for what happened,” he added. “They all have incredible talent and work hard.
“Me and the board are ultimately responsible for decision-making, and we’ve been our call to launch the game. Although, believe me, we’ve never intended anything like this to happen.”
Iwiński explained that much of the game’s problems with older hardware stemmed from his great PC ambitions. Cyberpunk has “a huge reach,” he said, and packs a “multitude of custom objects, systems, and interactive mechanisms” into “a big city and a relatively load-free environment.”
“It made it even harder for us to want to make the game look epic on PCs, and then we fit it into consoles, especially to older people,” like the PS4 and Xbox One, he added.
Iwiński said the planned release of CD Projekt of free downloadable content or DLC, to accompany the main game, would be delayed as developers race to fix the many bugs and glitches that players have experienced.
“We decided to focus on the most important fixes and updates first and we will release the DLC later,” CD Projekt co-founder said.
He added that versions of the game for next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft will be released during the second half of the year. Currently, gamers can only play PS4 and Xbox One versions of Cyberpunk on the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X systems.
Shares of CD Projekt rose 2% Thursday morning. The stock price of the game maker has fallen by about 38% since Cyberpunk was released on December 10th.
“We take this whole situation very seriously and we are working hard to make it right,” Iwiński said on Wednesday. “The guiding principles of our company remain the core of what we do. We still want to make amazing games and have open communication with you, our players.”
In addition to the controversy over the failed release of Cyberpunk, CD Projekt has also faced accusations of “crunchy culture,” a common problem in the gaming industry that sees developers work long hours to finish a game on time. Cyberpunk was delayed three times before its release.
“The team is working to provide relevant solutions to the game without mandatory extension,” CD Projekt Red adds to Red here? he said Wednesday in a news update. “Avoiding control of all our future projects is one of our top priorities.”