CD Projekt Red has revealed that the company is in a holding pattern of sorts, and may need to “reassess” the 2022 launch of Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer. In a statement, the company came out and made clear a variety of issues on a management board conference call.
Details are still very much in the air, but the original launch date may not happen. The original plan was for the multiplayer modes to be released as a post-launch patch in 2022, although that may not happen. The game will be getting some other DLC stuff in 2021, but everything may now need to be moved around. The big reason for this is the genuinely buggy launch of the main game.
“It’s too early to judge,” Kicinski said. “At the moment, please let us handle the situation, and please let us make some more assessments – that’s still ahead of us. We’re now focused on improving Cyberpunk. We’ll discuss this early next year.” Aside from this, Kicinski told conference call attendees that it was currently not possible to give a development update.
The company is also being pushed to provide updates on the future of the game, including the new multiplayer component. In short, the timetable remains the same, but details about Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer won’t be out for a while. It turns out that the game mode will get an update on its plans in January 2021.
“We’re in an unanticipated situation and we’ll have to reassess,” he continued. “This is planned for January. We’re now focusing on managing the single-player release, working on patches, communication, and our focus remains on gamers. We’ll see about further plans. The direction is obviously to proceed as planned, but we have to sit and discuss.”
This all comes after the horrid launch of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 ports of the game—which were plagued by a bunch of performance issues—and no one was happy. The game ran so poorly that the company even lied about it ahead of launch and didn’t provide review copies for these versions to hide the problems ahead of release. This led to a flurry of fury from gamers and press, which resulted in a pretty big PR nightmare.
The company has responded to the problems by promising a patch in January and February expected to address other in-game issues, but that’s not all. The company is now offering direct refunds for the PS4 and Xbox versions on digital storefronts.
