CD Projekt Red: After the cyberpunk debacle – where have the developers gone?

If you look at the history of CD Projekt Red, you can see the career of an underdog who became one of the greats of the video game sector – and then fell from a dizzying height. There is a very clear cut: before Cyberpunk 2077 and after Cyberpunk 2077. Only a few games managed to change public opinion of a once-loved developer studio overnight so comprehensively and sustainably. So the story of CD Projekt Red and its fall is also a story of cyberpunk. In this article, we take a very close look at how the disaster could have happened, which developers jumped off and what kind of projects the former CDPR developers are now supervising. Of course, we also dare to take a look at the future of CD Projekt Red. Because even if things look serious, the studio is far from finished.

The year is 2016. It is no exaggeration to say that the Polish developer house was one of the superstars of the industry: The Witcher 3, along with its two expansions Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine, went down as one of the best video games of all time in the gaming history books.

Unique characters and a coherent, dark and often incredibly emotional story alternated with phenomenal landscapes and crisp fights. At that point in time, CD Projekt Red represented an absolute exception in the minds of its fans: A AAA development studio that brought complete games onto the market that were polished to a high gloss right from the start.

In 2015, after two postponed release dates, CD Projekt Red even announced that it was postponing the game a third time. The reason given was the catastrophic release state of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, which was later even to go into the collective meme memory of the players. Today, this commitment to uncompromising quality is still exceptional, and with every step the studio has earned the legitimate trust of its players.

The now infamous Cyberpunk 2077 trailer promised the world… and today stands as a memorial to hype and broken trust.

Source: CD Projekt Red

That was also sorely necessary, because the sentence “It’s done when it’s done” took on a whole new meaning with the Cyberpunk 2077 project: First announced in May 2012 (!), the game was Cyberpunk’s great hope from the start fans worldwide. With the success of The Witcher 3 and the fully justified postponements, the long wait suddenly didn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.

In addition, the Polish developers had no experience in the open world genre before the third part of the Witcher series, because part one and two played in closed areas. And if their first open-world experiment was such a success, then they would really be able to put their cyberpunk experience to the test…right?

In 2018, Cyberpunk 2077 finally burst back into the public eye with a massive 48-minute gameplay trailer. What we saw here seemed to confirm what players wanted and hoped for in a whirlwind of awesome features and bombastic graphics: Cyberpunk was real and it looked great.

promise and reality

It is important to mention that CD Projekt Red’s advertising machine was already running at full speed at this point. Mike Pondsmith’s fan-favorite tabletop roleplaying setting was already very unusual for an open world game with its grim future setting and was vigorously promoted by CDPR. The trailer hit like a bomb, promising gargantuan promises like “The streets of the city are teeming with people of all walks of life.

Each individual lives their life in a complete day-night cycle.” CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kicińsk also criticized large development studios like EA with all his might in 2018 and made statements like “If you buy a full-price game, then you should get a large, polished chunk of content.”

Merchandise, expectations and the most anticipated game of all time, CDPR went all out when it came to Cyberpunk 2077 – and in doing so, put themselves in a position where they also had to deliver the incredible game that was promised.

Source: CD Projekt Red

Keanu Reeves performed live at E3 2019 and the phrase “You’re breathtaking” was linked to both Reeves and cyberpunk expectations.

Meanwhile, a massive merchandise offensive provided fans with everything they could dream of: from headphones, art prints, trousers, mugs and clothes to puzzle games, gaming chairs and even entire smartphones and sneakers from Adidas.

Fans and journalists alike believed every word CD Projekt Red said. And why not? So far, CDPR hasn’t given the assembled gamer community the slightest reason to doubt their statements. A little later, however, it became known that features from the trailers such as the subway or the wall running were deleted without replacement.

Delays followed delays, but if you go by what you’re used to by now, that was just a sign of good quality, because we remember: CD Projekt’s CEO proudly announced that players earned full games upon release. Further postponements followed, as did CDPR’s assurances that the developers would definitely not go into the dreaded “crunch” – and yet shortly before the release of Cyberpunk 2077 they sent the employees to a six-day week without further ado.

Cyberpunk 2077 was flat out unplayable on last-gen consoles. Many PC gamers were unaware of the disastrous condition of the game’s PS4 and Xbox One variants. And no, it had nothing to do with the consoles themselves.

Source: Christian Schmid

One of the most anticipated games of all time, Cyberpunk 2077 launched on December 10th, 2020 and CDPR immediately swung the wheel from promotion to damage control. Where the game didn’t deliver all the promised features on PC, but still performed well, it was literally unplayable on last-gen consoles.