'Cyberpunk 2077' Developers Respond To Death Threats Over Delay

"I understand you're feeling angry, disappointed and want to voice your opinion about it," said senior game designer Andrzej Zawadzki in a post published to Twitter. The latest setback is in fact the third delay to hit Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020, as it was originally meant to launch in April, then in September, and then in November. Adam Badowski and Marcin Iwiński, head honchos at the studio, explained that the decision was borne of the necessity for extensive testing of all nine versions of the game across current-gen consoles, next-gen platforms, and PC.

CD Projekt Red had "undercalculated" how long this task would take, and while working remotely due to the pandemic. "We're aware it might seem unrealistic when someone says that 21 days can make any difference in such a massive and complex game, but they really do," said Badowski and Iwiński. "Passing certification, or 'going gold', means the game is ready, can be completed, and has all content in it. But it doesn't mean stop working on it and raising the quality bar."

Over the course of October, people were getting more and more amped to have Cyberpunk 2077 in their hands, at long last. Some streamers and content creators had even booked November 19th off work to make the most of the first day with the game. Unfortunately, there are a handful of people who have viewed the news of the delay as a personal affront, for some reason. "Sending death threats to the developers is absolutely unacceptable and just wrong," continued Zawadzki. "We are people, just like you."

CD Projekt Red was clear that the delay to November 19th would be the last delay that the project would undergo. It had posted that it was confident that the game's launch wouldn't be moved again only a few days before this announcement. As a result, a number of vitriolic fans perceived this to be a "lie," and directed their ire at the developers. Fellow CD Projekt Red employee Fabian Mario Döhla addressed this in the replies to Zawadzki's tweet, and explained how the social media manager would not have known about the impending delay.

"Thing is: we are a public traded company and it's almost impossible to tell every employee beforehand, mainly because of legal reasons," said Döhla. "I'm aware of this (and used to it) but it can be super confusing for external people.