CD Projekt Red has released a five-minute apology video in which they explain the future of Cyberpunk 2077. Before showing a calendar of improvements that will extend throughout 2021, Marcin Iwiński, co-founder and CEO, apologizes for this month of chaos and confusion, which has led the game to become one of the most controversial and criticized releases of 2020.
CD Projekt Red released an apology video
Dear gamers,
Below, you’ll find CD PROJEKT’s co-founder’s personal explanation of what the days leading up to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 looked like, sharing the studio’s perspective on what happened with the game on old-generation consoles. pic.twitter.com/XjdCKizewq— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) January 13, 2021
“You’ve trusted us and pre-ordered our game, and despite good reviews on PC, the console version of Cyberpunk 2077 did not meet the quality standard we wanted it to meet,” he stated. It is a public recognition that CD Projekt Red has not lived up to the circumstances, and the reasons are logical: the immense ambition of the game, excessive for the console hardware, especially if we take into account the “relatively short loading times.”
“Especially in the old generation”, he says, the game was too demanding for the machines, especially in terms of data transmission (appearance of objects and characters in the graphic engine). And above all, the fault lies with the studio, because instead of giving up a task that was relieved as practically impossible. Even so, the testing process “did not reflect most of the problems you have experienced,” he said which is not especially plausible considering the literally hundreds of hours of incomprehensible bugs the game has generated since its release a little over a month ago.
Finally, CEO Projekt Red spoke of the controversial analyses that have called the work of the press into question, and which in any case have left the media with a bad reputation that they could not review the console versions. He claims that the console versions were sent to the media on the 8th, but this claim is already being contradicted by multiple media outlets such as 3D Juegos.
Improvements are coming to Cyberpunk 2077
For more details about the progress being made on Cyberpunk 2077’s further development, including information about updates and improvements, free DLCs, and more, please visit https://t.co/vfY3xxCM1G pic.twitter.com/6U28q8pcVH
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) January 13, 2021
With the video, CD Projekt Red has also published a patch plan with no specific dates defined. You can see that in a context of “Multiple updates and improvements” for the second half of the year there are ‘Free DLCs’ (which will experience a notable delay with respect to the initial promise of release shortly after the launch) and ‘Free updates for next-gen consoles’, which will be released at the end of the year.
In addition, Iwiński refers to the crunch controversy, which they will definitely avoid in future projects, including, of course, these patches: “The team is working to bring relevant fixes to the game without any obligatory overtime.” They also clarify that CD Projekt has started to return the money of those players who were dissatisfied and asked for a refund. That apology video and upcoming patches might not be enough to please gamers, but we’ll see if they can bring some solid solutions.