‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Cited As A Reason Why More Games Are Delayed Now

Games ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Cited As A Reason Why More Games Are Delayed Now Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jun 16, 2022, 07:57am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Cyberpunk 2077 CDPR The release of Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t just a big moment for CDPR, it was something of a watershed moment for the entire industry. To that point, CDPR was a wholly beloved developer after the stellar release of The Witcher 3. Cyberpunk 2077 had been teased for so long it had almost reached Half-Life 3 level mythology, and everything shown for it seemed solid at the time.

Then, launch. And we know the rest of that story. Full of massive performance issues on consoles and missing basic features of the open world genre, though the game sold extremely well right during its launch window, negative word of mouth spread like sickness.

Now, according to game developers in the industry, everyone is looking to avoid being the next Cyberpunk 2077 so they don’t find themselves in the same situation. Gamesindustry. biz has an article up about why so many games are delayed right now and why the release landscape is so barren.

Among other reasons, like adjusting to work from home, Cyberpunk 2077 specifically is cited as a contributing factor: “We took one look at what happened to Cyberpunk 2077 and thought ‘yep, we’re delaying this’,” says a US game director from one of the world’s biggest game franchises. “CD Projekt is one of the most respected games studios in the world. And they released a game so broken that Sony pulled it from their own digital store.

That’s unprecedented. That’s humiliating. We knew our game wasn’t in the best shape, maybe we could patch it up with a Day One update.

. . but we saw Cyberpunk and decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

I suspect that was a wake-up call across the industry. ” Cyberpunk 2077 CDPR MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry Which one of the “world’s biggest game franchises” is that director from? That’s the point, it doesn’t matter, it could be any of them. But now it seems like the mindset of these developers has shifted from “just release it and we can fix it with patches” to building in extra delays.

Most recently, we saw Bethesda delay both Redfall and Starfield out of 2022, even after Starfield planted its flag in a very specific date and expressed supreme confidence in that. But even now, with its recent debut at the Xbox Showcase, many were pointing out technical issues with the footage that would seem to indicate that yes, it definitely needs that extra time, it seems. The problem is even before Cyberpunk 2077, delays were the norm, and delays do not solve all problems.

We can’t forget that Cyberpunk 2077 itself was delayed a number of times and pushed way, way back from what was supposed to be its initial release window. Part of the reason it was in the state it was in was because execs thought it had already pushed its luck by being delayed so much already . We also have a game like Halo Infinite, which was shockingly delayed an entire year when it was supposed to be a Series X/S launch title, and it still launched missing core features like campaign co-op, and it’s spent 6+ months attempting to figure out its multiplayer live service progression system.

But the common thread is: no one wants to be the next Cyberpunk. And even if Cyberpunk is mostly fixed now (and once patched and performing well and with QoL updates, it’s kind of great), that stain is going to stick forever, it seems like. Follow me on Twitter , YouTube , Facebook and Instagram .

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