Cyberpunk 2077‘s best days may still be ahead, but developer CD Project Red announced today that it is now shifting focus and resources away to other projects, including its new open world Witcher game. While the besieged sci-fi shooter will still have a story expansion in 2023, it does not sound like it will get more major overhauls in the future.
“We will, of course, continue to support Cyberpunk 2077 and still working on updating it but [the] a large part of the work we believe has already been done and was done in 2021, ”the company said during today’s earnings call. It also shared a presentation slide showing how development resources have changed over time, with “support for Cyberpunk 2077”Will be one of the smallest segments from February 2022.
That was around when CDPR released the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game, as well patch 1.5, which added a host of new fixes, rebalanced rewards and skill trees, and expanded relationships with certain NPCs. Many of the improvements directly addressed previous reviews of the game, and I recently enjoyed diving back into the latest version.
At the same time, patch 1.5 struck me as the midpoint in Cyberpunk 2077‘s bow of redemption rather than a final round of victory. There are parts of the game I love, and then there are the parts where the simulation still often breaks down and crushes any sense of contemplation. CDPR did not say that the open-world RPG will never get another patch on that scale, but all indications are that the development will take place when it comes to a deeper renewal of how the game plays or is structured. It may not be a retreat as much as a concession to the limits of what the game is.
If so, a No Man’s Sky or Final Fantasy XIV-style comeback may not be in the cards anyway. During the harsh launch in 2020, including a PS4 version that was so bad, Sony pulled it from the PlayStation Store, Cyberpunk sold 13 million copies. Today, CDPR announced that it only sold another five million in the 16 months ago. At the moment, it puts overall sales slightly ahead Super Mario fest and behind god of war, both exclusive exclusive. It is also still seriously under some analysts’ initial projections.
And while Cyberpunk 2077‘s future is still unclear, plans for further DLC have also appeared to be downgraded over time. CD Project President Adam Kiciński had previously said the game would receive “no less DLC than The Witcher 3 had, ”and that game received two gigantic and stellar expansions. For that reason, some had originally assumed Cyberpunk 2077 would similarly get two larger paid DLCs in addition to smaller ones for free, but so far CDPR has only confirmed one. It will arrive in 2023, the company announced today. Further details remain elusive. ONE previously planned multiplayer component also seems to have been thrown aside. CDPR did not clearly confirm what its fate was when asked about it during today’s earnings call, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment when asked to clarify its future plans for Cyberpunk 2077.
It is not surprising that the company in the meantime is eager to move on to other things, especially more Witcher. CDPR unveiled today The Witcher 3 has shipped over 40 million copies, with the series as a whole selling over 65 million. As it looks forward to developing the next game in that series, it also has plans for more updates Gwent and The Witcher: Monster Slayera new Gwent spin-off, an unannounced project in the newly acquired Boston studio, The Molasses Flood, and the next generation of The Witcher 3.
The final release slipped out this summer after CDPR revealed yesterday it took the development away from Russia-based Saber Interactive and complete it internally. Despite the lack of a new release window, the company said it was unfair to describe it as “infinitely delayed”, saying it simply needed more time to evaluate what work was left. “Nobody says the game is delayed in some monumental kind of time gap ahead of us,” said Michal Nowakowski, SVP of Business Development.