It’s been reported that developers in CD Projekt Red didn’t know about the recent delay of Cyberpunk 2077 until the news went live on Twitter. The delay was announced earlier today on Twitter, having been pushed back to December 10th from an initially planned release in November. Fans were understandably upset at the news, especially because CD Projekt Red repeatedly promised that the game would not be delayed again before its release.
Cyberpunk 2077 has been one of the most anticipated games in the industry for years now. In a way, the delay is understandable; CD Projekt Red has promised the moon with this ambitious title. All manner of surprising and exciting details are set to contribute to making Night City one of the most rich, immersive open worlds in video game history. A recent photo on Twitter depicting the game’s localized Japanese script is a vivid testament to the absurd amount of dialogue in the game, and that’s just one facet of Cyberpunk 2077‘s immense scope. Cyberpunk 2077‘s skilled and committed developers have clearly put a lot of work into this massive title.
So it’s quite upsetting that they apparently had no idea that the game was going to be delayed one more time. This surprising revelation comes courtesy of Gamasutra, who reports that the development team was informed of the delay by a company email that was sent out at about the same time that the general public was informed of the delay. This is corroborated by Game Informer‘s Liana Ruppert, who revealed the same information from the developers she’d been able to talk to. This is a dreadful failure of communication, and it bodes not well for working conditions in the studio. CD Projekt Red has already faced significant controversy for developer crunch, and since this most recent delay will clearly have a significant impact on the work schedule of these beleaguered developers, such a total lack of forewarning is a dreadful error.
The internet has turned out in full force in response to the delay news, offering up a slew of hilarious jokes about the situation. But this lapse in communication is no laughing matter, and as Ruppert vehemently points out in her Twitter thread, any and all frustrations should be directed squarely at the team’s leaders. The developers who’ve worked so hard to bring this game to life do not deserve fans heaping criticism on them for a decision that wasn’t theirs.
Cyberpunk 2077 can still be a phenomenal game, and it likely will. But the efforts of the developers should not be overlooked or taken for granted. Any game developer deserves to know how the project they’re working on is going, and that’s especially true of a major title like this. Keeping developers in the dark about a delay like this is an inexcusable offense, and though these reports are still preliminary, they paint a very harrowing picture of the working conditions at CD Projekt Red. Hopefully the team will finally pull itself together for the final stretch leading up to the release of Cyberpunk 2077.
