Cyberpunk 2077 experienced one of the most notorious launches in video game history, one made much worse considering the substantial number of pre-orders the game received. In response, CD Projekt Red subsequently invested considerable effort to fulfill its initial, ambitious promises, and deliver a game that met expectations.
Now, several years later, in an interview with TheNeonArcaded, Cyberpunk 2077 quest director Paweł Sasko thanked the community for sticking around and allowing the studio to redeem itself. Sasko characterized the launch as “heartbreaking” but CD Projekt Red persevered.
“Look at the reception of Cyberpunk right now, how it has turned,” Sasko said. “Look at the reviews, look at the videos, and the discourse around the game. The fact that you guys come back to the game, play it again, and have fun. I have incredible gratitude. After the release of Cyberpunk, it was tough, it was heartbreaking, but we kept going.”
The quest director thanked fans for being “reasonable” while providing incredibly valuable feedback on what needed fixing. He said that the support from the community kept the studio going until the they felt proud of the game they had developed. The game is currently one of the most-played titles on Steam, surpassing Starfield in the process.
Sasko cited Halo and No Man’s Sky as an inspiration for Cyberpunk’s revival from the abyss. No Man’s Sky is still enjoying significant player numbers seven years since its disastrous launch, “It’s also not even [just] for us, but also for other devs. It’s a sign of ‘yeah you can do it,’ like the Halo games and No Man’s Sky. They’ve shown that it’s possible to do it,” Sasko shared.
CD Projekt Red put in a total of three years of extra work on Cyberpunk 2077 to make it into the game that it is today. The release of Phantom Liberty marks the game’s return to prominence, selling over three million units since the launch of the DLC.
The expansion overhauled a lot of the game’s elements, making Night City even more immersive for players. The work that the studio put into Cyberpunk 2077 is really commendable and shows how committed it is to providing the best possible experience for its players.
Sasko ends the interview by sharing a lesson that the developers learned from the experience of launching a game in a terrible state: “In a way, if you fail, the only thing that matters is how you’ll be remembered afterwards. Will you get up and keep going? We kept going, and we managed to make it, and I’m honestly so proud of this team and community.”
Sasko and a team from CD Projekt Red are working on a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. The upcoming game, internally called Project Orion, will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, which will hopefully make development smoother. The studio’s next Cyberpunk title should be significantly better at launch as most of the devs that worked on the original’s redemption arc are part of the sequel’s core team.
