Cyberpunk 2077 was easily one of the more anticipated video game releases. Players worldwide couldn’t wait to get their hands on the latest RPG release from CD Projekt Red. The studio had made quite the name for themselves with the success of their The Witcher trilogy. So now that they were delivering a brand new franchise into the marketplace that traded the fantasy setting for a cyberpunk futuristic world, it piqued quite a few player’s interests. However, as you know, the game had a very rocky development cycle as it reached closer to its set release date.
There were a series of delays that further pushed the game back. Eventually, at the end of 2020, we finally saw the release of Cyberpunk 2077. Unfortunately, it was a game that needed more time in development. Fans and critics quickly picked the game apart for its bugs and optimization issues. That eventually prompted Sony to remove the game entirely from their PlayStation Store. Fortunately, the game managed to turn itself around and is quite praised today. But looking back, the engineering director for CD Projekt Red Colin Walder, we have a bit more insight into the processes that have since been changed for new projects.
Thanks to Eurogamer, we discovered that Colin Walder was present during the Inven Game Conference. During the talk, Colin noted the problems that happened during the production of Cyberpunk 2077. According to the report, it’s noted that the development phases were more focused on production. However, the developers didn’t account for console demos until later in development. In the future, consoles will be considered more during development, with demos being created to test early on. This way, the studio can ensure they are on top of things from the start.
Later on during the discussion, Colin noted that they had to rebuild morale with the team. One of the crucial changes was removing crunch. Instead of having a deadline looming around the team, they are looking at adjusting the schedule and making different approaches to avoid a repeat in behavior of what we saw in Cyberpunk 2077. Of course, the developer also noted that this morale change is only going to happen through action, as people will need to see it before they believe the studio has changed.
With all that said, Cyberpunk 2077 has turned itself around, as mentioned earlier. The game even had a resurgence recently thanks to the recent 2.0 update along with the expansion, Phantom Liberty. Fortunately, we know that this is not the last we’ll see of the game. While the expansion marks the end of major support for Cyberpunk 2077, a sequel is in the works. Furthermore, it was recently unveiled that a live-action series is being developed based around the world of Cyberpunk 2077.
