In 2020, CD Projekt Red, the creator of The Witcher line of games, released Cyberpunk 2077. It quickly became branded as one of the worst games ever made, purely because it was such a buggy mess, fraught with glitches, optimization issues, and game-breaking pitfalls. It was so bad it faced investor lawsuits.
Fast-forward to now, and Cyberpunk 2077 is regarded as a must-play game that everyone should experience, but it took hundreds of millions of dollars to recover it. Unfortunately, the head honchos at CD Projekt Red still feel that, almost six years later, the pain of Cyberpunk’s failure hasn’t left the minds of gamers.
Has Cyberpunk 2077 Redeemed Itself? CDPR Isn’t Sure
In a recent interview with EDGE for the Knowledge newsletter, co-CEO of CD Projekt Red, Michal Nowakowski, sat down to talk about the company’s ‘redemption arc’ beyond Cyberpunk 2077. It’s no big secret that the studio worked extremely hard to revitalize Cyberpunk 2077, but it was an incredibly tough journey for all involved.
Nowakowski reflected on the ‘heartbreak’ that surrounded the game’s launch, which forever marred the studio’s image and left fans of the company with a sour taste in their mouths. It even has the potential to ever so slightly derail the impending release of The Witcher 4, with fans anticipating something of a deja-vu moment.
In the interview, Nowakowski admitted:
I’m not 100 per cent convinced we went through the full redemption arc.
I’m convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that’s a fair thing. But I do hope we will be able to make it back – if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next.
He took a deep dive into the ten-year roadmap the studio has, packed with a slate of top-tier titles that will hopefully take better shape than the beleagured 2020 open-world shooter. Nowakowski addressed the state of the industry right now, even with an optimistic outlook and a fine repository of games being lined up:
There’s an unprecedented number of games being launched every year, and the fight for attention is tougher than it ever was. In the end, whether you can continue making games largely depends on whether you were successful enough to fund another project of your own. If you’re lean and cheap, and are able to really target the group you want and live off that, then you’re in a good spot.
For many, Cyberpunk 2077 absolutely became one of the most important games ever made. If not for how it eventually shaped up, but for how it was a testament to the dedication and resilience of a studio hellbent on not letting a project fail. It might have cost hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it back to life, but the consensus is that it was money well spent.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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