According to a new report detailing the troubled Cyberpunk 2077 development cycle, work didn't begin until 2016 and the 2018 was faked.

A new report from Bloomberg, comprised of several interviews from developers (who requested anonymity to protect their careers), details the various issues plaguing the development process of Cyberpunk 2077 up until its troubled launch.

Though Cyberpunk 2077 was announced in 2012 with a trailer, “the company was then still mainly focused on its last title and full development didn’t start until late 2016, employees said. That was when CD Projekt essentially hit the reset button, according to people familiar with the project.”

Not to mention that the E3 2018 demo, which showed off many of the game’s promised features and impressed both journalists and the general audience, was entirely faked. According to the article: “CD Projekt hadn’t yet finalized and coded the underlying gameplay systems, which is why so many features, such as car ambushes, were missing from the final product. Developers said they felt like the demo was a waste of months that should have gone toward making the game.”

Plenty of other problems arose during development such as studio head Adam Badowski clashing with top The Witcher 3 devs on the game’s direction and causes the latter’s depatures, cultural and language barriers caused by those who only spoke English versus Polish, not hiring enough people for the job, and in one example devs had to make their own shaders on the fly because the tools weren’t available to them otherwise.

This report follows the public apology made by one of CD Projekt Red’s co-founders, Marcin Iwiński, on Twitter last week. The studio is currently facing two possible lawsuits: the New York Times reported that the studio behind Cyberpunk 2077 could be facing a lawsuit from a regulatory filing from Warsaw, Poland. Now according to Kotaku, another lawsuit is brewing against CD Projekt Red — this one originating from the US.

The launch of Cyberpunk 2077 has been riddled with controversy and bugs, with the first update being introduced last week that fixed some issues. The most notable of these problems saw player’s save files corrupt if they reached over 8MB but fortunately Cyberpunk 2077’s latest patch (1.06) has removed the PC version’s 8MB save file limit. This is good news going forward, however, for those who had already lost their saves, CD Projekt Red says that unfortunately “this won’t fix save files corrupted before the update.”

Alongside the bugs that plagued its launch, Liana Ruppert from GameInformer suffered a major seizure while playing the game. This was due to light patterns similar to those used by neurologists to help induce seizures in patients. It was also later noted that the game didn’t have a clear epilepsy warning at the start of gameplay, something which has now been remedied.

This same RPG has seen its share of other controversies even before launch with reports of transphobia, and crunch culture, as well as the studio also refusing to share information about the game’s accessibility. Read up on why we think CD Projekt Red should have confirmed Cyberpunk 2077′s accessibility options sooner.

According to a new report from the Bloomberg, executives at CD Projekt took responsibility for the buggy release of Cyberpunk 2077 and told staff that they will receive their full bonuses no matter how the game is reviewed. Previously, the developers were told they would receive extra pay based on the game’s aggregated critical performance represented by Metacritic.

A report released by Bloomberg found that the game’s glitches and rocky launch have cost the founders of CD Projekt Red over $1 billion. Over the course of the past week, the company’s stock has plummeted, although not to record lows. That being said in a note to investors, CD Projekt Red’s Management Board has stated that the game has sold a further five million copies on top of the 8 million preorder sales, bringing the total units sold to over 13 million. This figure takes into account “returns submitted by retail clients in brick-and-mortar as well as digital storefronts.”



Posted: Jan 18, 2021 7:02 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/cyberpunk-2077-development-didnt-start-until-2016/