Box with Sony PlayStation 4 Cyberpunk 2077 Collector’s Edition on the counter.
Alexander Sayganov | SOPA Images LightRocket through Getty Images
LONDON – Cyberpunk 2077 developers are pushing back the release of new content for the game to focus on fixing bugs and crashes.
Polish game developer and publisher CD Projekt launched the much-anticipated sci-fi epic last month. It has been a target of fierce criticism for dismissing what many fans and critics saw as an endless game.
Cyberpunk was one of the biggest big budget video games of 2020. But it was driven by a lot of bugs and a drop in performance on old consoles like Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One.
CD Projekt was trying to impress fans with the promise of rebates and improvements to the game. But that didn’t stop Sony from removing Cyberpunk from their digital PlayStation Store, a move that many industry analysts said has never been seen for a triple-A title.
Projekt CD co-founder Marcin Iwiński apologized in a video posted to the game’s YouTube channel on Wednesday.
“Despite good reviews on PC, the token version of Cyberpunk 2077 did not meet the level of quality we wanted it to meet,” Iwiński said. “I and the leadership team as a whole are sorry for this and this video publicly relies on that. “
“Try not to blame any of our teams for what happened,” he said. “They are all very talented and hardworking.
“I and the board are the final decision-makers, and our call was for the game to be released. Although, believe me, we never expected anything like this to happen.”
Iwiński explained that many of the game’s issues were on old hardware due to his big intentions on PC. Cyberpunk is “quite large in range,” he said, packing “an abundance of conventional items, interacting systems and mechanics” into one city and in an environment that is virtually unloaded . “
“We made it even harder for ourselves by wanting the game to look epic on PCs and then converting it to consoles, especially old gens” like the PS4 and Xbox One, he said.
Iwiński said there would be a delay in the release of Projekt’s CD of free downloadable content, or DLC, to accompany the main game while the developers race to capture the many wisdoms and mishaps that players have witnessed.
“We decided to focus on the most important solutions and updates first and will be releasing the DLCs afterwards,” said CD co-founder Projekt.
He also said that versions of the game for next-gen consoles Sony and Microsoft will be released in the latter half of the year. Gamers are currently unable to play the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Cyberpunk on the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X systems.
Projekt CD shares rose 2% Thursday morning. The stock price of the game maker has fallen around 38% since Cyberpunk was released on December 10th.
“We are handling this whole situation very badly and we are working hard to get it right,” Iwiński said on Wednesday. “Our company ‘s guiding principles remain at the heart of what we do. We still want to make some amazing games and have open communication with our players. “
In addition to the controversy over the launch of Cyberpunk, CD Projekt has also defied allegations of “crunch culture,” a common issue in the game industry that sees developers working long hours to make a game completion on time. Cyberpunk was delayed three times before being released.
“The team is working to bring relevant solutions to the game without the necessary extra time,” CD Projekt Red do you put Red here? he said in a news update Wednesday. “Avoiding strain on our future projects is one of our top priorities.”