Report Claims ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Devs Knew Game Wasn’t Ready On Release

Earlier this week a video was released by CD Projekt to both apologise and explain, in part, what went wrong with the release of Cyberpunk 2077. Co-founder of CD Projekt Marcin Iwiński mentions during this five-minute video that the development studio didn't know the full extent of the problems upon release, and now a report from Bloomberg has claimed that developers did in fact know the game was not ready.

Jason Schreier reports on the situation after talking to multiple anonymous employees who make claims on the development time from a behind the scenes perspective. Developers at the studio say they felt pressured to work extra hours to meet a release date they joked about as unrealistic.

During E3 2019, CD Projekt announced the April 2020 release date for Cyberpunk 2077 while the developers wondered how they were going to finish the project in that time. According to the Bloomberg report, one developer thought this date was a joke and believed that at the current working rate of the team the game would be ready in 2022, not 2020.

Despite CD Projekt's claims that they didn't know the full extent of the problems that were going to be present once released to the public, the Bloomberg report states that "everyone at the studio knew the game was in rough shape and needed more time". It seems that developers are coming forward to tell fans how pressured they were in that system.

Schreier goes on to detail more of the story on Twitter, with claims and anecdotes that were left out of the final piece, including poor asset organisation, crunch dynamics, low pay, and a statement claiming development on Cyberpunk 2077 only really began in 2016 rather than when the game was announced eight years ago.

CD Projekt has announced a roadmap explaining how they are going to tackle improving the gaming experience of the game in the coming year. You can read the full Bloomberg report from Schreier here, to have an even deeper look into the CDPR situation.