It’s an extraordinary state of affairs. CD Projekt Red has publicly admitted that the last-gen console versions of Cyberpunk 2077 have profound issues, that the scale of the technical issues facing the old machines was under-estimated, and that the game was released anyway. In both a public statement and an emergency investor call, the firm talks about improving the last-gen experience and sorting out crashes, glitches and bugs. A hotfix patch is already out, with another due within seven days, while more substantial patches are due in January and February.
“After three delays, we as the management board were too focused on releasing the game,” said CDPR joint-CEO Adam Kiciński. “We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles. It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy. On top of that, during the campaign, we showed the game mostly on PCs.”
CDPR says its hope is that its efforts will “let us rebuild the trust we have lost”, but the process by which we ended up in this situation is astonishing, representing a failure in the entire process of validating that a console game is ready for launch. Typically, a game is finished and it is submitted to the third party departments of the platform holders, who test it against a range of stringent criteria, sending the game back if it’s not up to scratch.
