Following a report from Bloomberg on the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, the game’s director Adam Badowski has responded.
It’s been well documented that Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t have the smoothest launch, so much so that PS4 and Xbox One owners would deem it disastrous such is the problems experienced by players on those older consoles.
With everyone wondering “what the hell happened” to such a promising project, Bloomberg has published an article answering that very question and there were some eye-opening revelations about the rocky development process for Cyberpunk 2077.
Some of the notable tidbits from the Bloomberg report include how the well-received Cyberpunk 2077 demo at the 2018 E3 event was all faked and features demonstrated in that wouldn’t make it to the final product, development not properly beginning until around 2016, developing the game’s engine concurrently with the game itself and stretching staff thin, unrealistic deadlines (staff thought the game was going to be released in 2022 rather than 2020), and operating on the belief that “we made The Witcher 3 — it’ll work out.”
What went wrong with Cyberpunk 2077? Interviews with more than 20 current and former CD Projekt staff paint a complex picture. Unchecked ambition, technical woes, unrealistic deadlines, and above all, one belief: "We made The Witcher 3 — it'll work out." https://t.co/T56huHkQW8
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 16, 2021
It was a pretty damning report to say the least and one that doesn’t paint a rosy picture of what happened behind-the-scenes at Cyberpunk 2077‘s studio, CD Projekt RED, during the making of the game.
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So perhaps it was inevitable that someone from the studio would respond and it just so happened that the game’s director Adam Badowski decided to speak up.
After reading Bloomberg‘s report, Badowski shared his “thoughts” on Twitter, which basically amounted to cherry picking three claims made in the report and sort of refuting those but not really.
To sum up Badowski’s response, he took issue with about Bloomberg‘s reporting about the Cyberpunk 2077 2018 E3 demo not being reflective of the final product and said that this sort of thing happens all the time in game development, that speaking to 20 or so sources who asked to remain anonymous doesn’t paint a picture of what happened on a project involving over 500 people, and squashing the claim that Polish employees were speaking in Polish to each other around English-speaking employees and thus making them feel uncomfortable.
I’ve read your piece and tweets, thank you for the read. I have some thoughts. https://t.co/T3qACdrnwM pic.twitter.com/wuzy5lXoqQ
— Adam Badowski⚡️ (@AdamBadowski) January 16, 2021
The reporter for that Bloomberg article states that they reached out to CD Projekt RED for comment and didn’t get one.
Following Badowski’s Twitter reply, the reporter responded in kind:
Adam, I appreciate the responses. As I'm sure you're aware, the team declined to respond to my specific questions or provide an interview before my article went live. But if you'd like to give your perspective on the topics you didn't cover here, I'd be happy to chat any time
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 16, 2021
Following CD Projekt RED’s co-founder’s recent apology video and now this Twitter response from Badowski, it seems like this Cyberpunk 2077 saga will be kept in the spotlight for quite some time.
In the meantime, Cyberpunk 2077 owners are patiently waiting for some much needed fixes to the game, with the first two major patches coming at the end of January and in February.