CD Projekt’s co-founder personally apologizes for rushed Cyberpunk 2077 release, talks about future development plans

Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the most hyped up game releases of 2020, but all that hype turned against it when players got their hands on the console version of Cyberpunk 2077.

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

For most players, Cyberpunk 2077 was released in a non-functional state, with drastic performance drops, game crashes, and other major bugs littered throughout normal gameplay. Cyberpunk 2077 may have a long way towards being the final product CD Projekt Red wants it to be, but will players want to wait?

Cyberpunk 2077, from most anticipated to most disappointing game of 2020

During his apology, CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwiński stated plainly that the problems with the Cyberpunk 2077 release were solely the responsibility of the leadership team, and that fans shouldn’t blame the other teams at CD Projekt as they were all “incredibly talented and hard working.”

However, during Iwiński’s apology he is careful to frame the issue as specifically tied to the console release of Cyberpunk 2077, stating that the PC version is something they could be proud of.

While it’s true that the PC version, especially on high-end hardware, is generally superior to the console versions, this overlooks the numerous bugs and issues on the PC version that necessitate restarting the game.

While it is understandable that CD Projekt’s top leadership will want to wrest control over the spiral of disappointment inspired by Cyberpunk 2077, they should at least acknowledge that the product they pushed out the door was not ready to see public light.

He is at least right that this was a problem of leadership, however, as their poor choices and decision to make the developers work under crunch conditions put the developers in a position where they were unable to create a product that would accurately reflect their talent and dedication to the task at hand.

Bad leadership turned Cyberpunk 2077 into an embarrassment of sorts for all involved. Iwiński’s apology should be as much directed towards fans as towards his own development team.

Plans for Cyberpunk 2077’s future

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

As part of this apology, CD Projekt revealed their roadmap for future development of Cyberpunk 2077, although many have criticized the roadmap for having almost no specific information, instead merely providing undefined development goals that don’t give players any clue what to expect.

Based on Iwiński’s statements, CD Projekt Red’s goals are to work on improvements for all versions of Cyberpunk 2077, and bring last-gen consoles up to a playable state. This is supposedly going to be worked on alongside various free DLCs planned for the game, but it’s likely that it will take away from other development goals along the way.

Overall, judging by what information CD Projekt has released, it could be as long as another year before Cyberpunk is raised to a state where console players can be happy with it.