CD Projekt RED president Adam Kiciski has revealed that the company isn’t going to start work on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel until 2023.
To be specific, he revealed that pre-production isn’t starting until next year, after they do release the only expansion planned to the original Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty.
Notably, Adam made this announcement in the Q3 2023 earnings call for CD Projekt RED. Since this is their statement to investors, we know that CD Projekt RED isn’t stating this as some form of marketing or promotion, but as official guidance to said investors.
This happened to also be the same quarter where the company hit record profits thanks to the strength of new sales of Cyberpunk 2077. While some mistakenly attribute this resurgence to the interest in the game’s spinoff anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners, the truth is that Cyberpunk’s developers did the painful slow work of fixing every bug that the game had since launch, and bringing it up to an acceptable state, closer to what the company originally promised.
Now, all the way back in October 4, 2022, CD Projekt RED did make the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel official, alongside revealing a new trilogy of The Witcher games were on the way. The redemption story that the Cyberpunk franchise took was good enough that CD Projekt RED was now enabled to continue working on the franchise and adding new layers to their fake futuristic universe.
On the same day, CD Projekt RED also revealed that the sequel is the reason that Phantom Liberty is the last planned expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. Perhaps everything would have turned out differently if the game was good when it launched, but this does make Phantom Liberty as CD Projekt RED’s last opportunity to improve this specific game before they can move on, expanding the universe with a clean slate in a new game.
Perhaps to avoid the problems they ran into making the game the first time, CD Projekt RED also revealed that they were starting a new game studio in Boston, for the express purpose of making this Cyberpunk 2077 sequel.
Let us pass on relitigating every issue that Cyberpunk 2077 faced when it launched. If we’re thinking about moving forward with the franchise on a new game, CD Projekt RED may be eager to move on, but they can’t do so without making sure the players who bought the original Cyberpunk 2077 were satisfied with the product they received.
This is all a hopeful sign that CD Projekt RED has learned their lesson. However long it takes them to make the next Cyberpunk 2077 game, we’re hopeful they make sure to deliver a good product without compromising the core values they claim to live by.
Source: Tech4Gamers
