After all the hurdles it’s faced, CD Projekt’s president believes Cyberpunk 2077’s reputation will only improve as the years go on.
Rockstar and its Grand Theft Auto remasters may be in the headlines for the wrong reasons at the moment but, less than a year ago, CD Projekt and Cyberpunk 2077 were in the exact same position. Upon Cyberpunk 2077’s launch both the company and the game were savaged for the myriad bugs, glitches, and other technical issues which plagued it.
A number of those issues have been addressed over the past year thanks to patches, and CD Projekt president Adam Kiciński believes that Cyberpunk 2077 will, in the long run, be remembered as a good game and keep selling for years to come.
‘Cyberpunk 2077 is the biggest, most ambitious and definitely the most complicated project in our 27-year history,’ he said in an interview with Polish paper Rzeczpospolita (translated by VGC). ‘In almost every aspect, we tried to take it a step further, just as we’ve done with every Witcher game we’ve released.
‘We’re proud of many aspects of the game, but as we know, not everything went our way. Nevertheless, the brand awareness of Cyberpunk that we’ve managed to build is huge, and the game universe, its characters and details have fans all over the world.
‘We believe that in the long run Cyberpunk 2077 will be perceived as a very good game, and like our other titles, it will sell for years – especially as the hardware gets more powerful over time and we improve the game.’
Currently, there are no further updates planned for this year, but 2022 will see the release of the dedicated PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions. They were supposed to release by the end of 2021 but have been postponed; a decision that apparently was recommended by the development team.
‘The decision to postpone the next gen version of Cyberpunk was a difficult one, but we are confident that it was the right one, especially since it was clearly recommended by our development team,’ said Kiciński. ‘We need the extra time to fine-tune the visuals and performance of the game to be as high quality as possible throughout the game.’
Delays are hardly new for Cyberpunk 2077. The game’s launch date was pushed back multiple times throughout 2020 before finally releasing in December, despite clearly needing more development time. Deciding to push back the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions suggests CD Projekt is eager to avoid a similar incident happening again.
Things have certainly improved for Cyberpunk 2077 since last December. The game is currently enjoying a slew of positive user reviews on Steam (no doubt thanks to it being discounted for Black Friday), but the damage its launch caused was not just short term.
CD Projekt is still facing a class action lawsuit filed by its own investors because of the money they lost as a result of the company’s stock dropping in the wake of Cyberpunk 2077’s release. In January, analysts suggested CD Projekt could even end up being bought out.
However, Kiciński insists this will not happen: ‘We have been saying for years that we plan to remain independent and do not plan to become part of a larger entity. We are also not looking for a strategic investor’.
He also shot down the possibility of a hostile takeover, explaining that there are measures in place to prevent such a thing. ‘There are provisions that significantly hinder hostile takeovers,’ he said.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and Stadia. The Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 versions are scheduled for the first quarter of 2022.
Email [email protected], leave a comment below, and follow us on Twitter.
MORE : Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 delayed till 2022 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S
MORE : It’s time CD Projekt were forgiven for the mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077 – Reader’s Feature
MORE : Rockstar ‘sincerely apologise’ for GTA: The Trilogy – not offering refunds
Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at [email protected]
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
