Here’s Why ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Wasn’t Delayed To 2021

Cyberpunk 2077 has become one of the most talked-about games of 2020 for all the wrong reasons, as of late. From the numerous bugs found across all versions of the game to the poor performance on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, many have thrown away all the goodwill they had for CD Projekt Red. Most agree that the game’s console version should’ve been delayed to 2021 to have it in a playable state on last-gen machines.

It’s clear that a lot of time and effort didn’t go into PS4 and Xbox One versions, and CD Projekt readily  admitted it in a recent investor call. During it, senior members of CDPR asked if Cyberpunk 2077 should’ve been delayed to 2021, for which SVP of business development, Michał Nowakowski responded, “I wouldn’t say that we felt any external or internal pressure to launch on the date – other than the normal pressure, which is typical for any release.” Later on, when asked if they could have just released the game on PC and delayed the console versions, Nowakowski said that “in pure theory, if we had decided that one day before the launch then yes; we might have released just the PC version.”

Nowakowski also stated that they knew about the terrible state of the last-gen consoles. “It is more about us looking – as was previously stated – at the PC and next-gen performance rather than current-gen,” he said. “We definitely did not spend enough time looking at that.” He later added that “I can only assume that they [Sony and Microsoft] trusted that we’re going to fix things upon release, and that obviously did not come together exactly as we had planned.”

Finally, when asked by senior members if they could’ve released Cyberpunk 2077 on next-gen systems only, Nowakowski said that was impossible. “[Next-gen consoles] get a completely different version of the game,” said Nowakowski. “It’s not like we could have decided at any point recently to ‘flip the switch,’ so to say, and change the old-gen version to the next-gen version and release only on next-gens. As you have noticed, there is no native next-gen release. The game runs on next-gens and takes advantage of how next-gens are performing, but it’s not like we had a next-gen version in our hands and decided to keep it on the shelf.”

Cyberpunk 2077 is available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, with versions for the PS5 and Xbox Series X arriving in 2021.