Cyberpunk 2077 still needs crunch time to complete, CEO says

If anyone thought that delaying Cyberpunk 2077 by five months to September would give its developers a little more breathing room, well, guess again. In a call with investors on Thursday, CD Projekt’s chief executive admitted that development crunch will still be necessary as CD Projekt Red brings this project to term.

Adam Kicinski, answering “Is the development team required to put in crunch hours?” answered, “To some degree, yes, to be honest.”

Kicinski went on to say that “We try to limit crunch as much as possible, but it is the final stage. We try to be reasonable in this regard, but yes. Unfortunately.”

It somewhat fades the idea that this is another five months to polish up an otherwise finished game, and instead means developers need five extra months of full-on development to deliver something worth a launch.

What CD Projekt Red has on hand now is “playable; the whole game,” Kicinski said, adding that “it’s been like that for a couple of months.” Still, asked to describe what the trouble was causing the delay, he attributed it to “technical bug-fixing and polishing.” That said, the game is so detailed that “polishing is just a complex task. It’s about the number of things we have to take care of rather than some fundamental problem.”

Kicinski nonetheless said the development team considers the delay “a good decision, and that having an extra five months will enable us to deliver a perfect game.”

Another investor noted that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was also delayed, but only by three months, from a February 2015 launch date to May 2015. Kicinski confirmed that the reason Cyberpunk 2077 was given a five month delay is to launch it in September, waiting past a summer quarter that is much slower for major releases.

Investors also pressed Kicinski for CD Projekt’s plans for Cyberpunk 2077 and the next generation of consoles, but he wouldn’t budge. “We have nothing to share here and now in relation to that,” he said.

Cyberpunk 2077 was originally scheduled for an April 16, 2020 release; on Thursday, CD Projekt Red assigned it a Sept. 17 launch, with a note saying that developers “need more time to finish play-testing, fixing and polishing.”

“We want Cyberpunk 2077 to be our crowning achievement for this generation and postponing launch will give us the precious months we need to make the game perfect,” the studio said.

Cyberpunk 2077 will launch on Google Stadia, PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.